When marketing for law firms, you can generally pick from one of 3 lead-generation strategies: pay-per-lead services, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, or content marketing. In this post, I go over the pros and cons of each approach – it turns out that content marketing is the best option by far when it comes to both getting results and being cost-effective.
So you’re ready to start your law firm’s content marketing campaign, but you’ve got questions. Where do you begin? How do you know if a marketing firm or legal content writer knows what they’re doing? How do you measure your results to make sure you’re on the right track?
Below I’ve answered the most frequently asked questions about legal content marketing. You can also read more about the difference between legal content and legal copywriting, the winning formula for creating great legal content for law firms, and real-life examples here, here, and here of what a successful law firm SEO content campaign looks like.
- What is legal copywriting?
- What is a legal copywriter or content writer?
- What is search engine optimization (SEO) for lawyers?
- Do lawyers need SEO?
- Does content marketing work for lawyers?
- What should a law firm post on LinkedIn or other social media?
- How often should you post on your blog or social media?
- How do you write a legal article or blog?
- How do you find the best legal blog writer for your law firm?
The backbone of a strong SEO content strategy is an exceptional legal writer who knows the law, is fluent in SEO, and understands your clients. Click here to read about what an experienced legal content copywriter can do for your law firm’s marketing efforts.
What Is Legal Copywriting?
In its purest form, legal copywriting refers to writing effective sales text (or “copy”) for law firms for their websites, sales pages, landing pages, advertisements, and other promotional channels like billboards or brochures.
Legal copywriting is different than writing a legal memo or brief. Some people refer to legal copywriting as legal content writing, but the purpose of the content goes beyond simply conveying information. Copywriting is designed to convert prospective leads into actual clients.
I explain the difference between legal copywriting and legal content writing more here.
To successfully convert clients, your law firm’s legal copy must be engaging, persuasive, and appealing to your target audience – usually laypeople. This involves actual training and skill in getting your audience’s attention (“here’s why you should read this”), connecting with their emotions (“we know what you’re going through”), and persuading them to take action (“here’s how we can help if you call us”). For lawyers, marketing copy must also comply with the ABA’s rules for attorney advertising.
What Is a Legal Copywriter or Content Writer?
A legal copywriter is someone who has the proper legal knowledge and practical marketing skills to explain the law to laypeople and convince them to contact you for your legal services. This is an extremely specialized area of expertise, especially when you add SEO into the mix.
When it comes to finding a good legal copywriter, law firms usually run into two issues:
- You find someone who knows the law but doesn’t have actual marketing or copywriting training or experience. Maybe they have experience writing legal briefs or memos, except laypeople don’t want to read legal briefs or memos. A paralegal at your law firm might have perfect form when it comes to writing court case citations, but the everyday people who read your website don’t care about the docket number or even the case name for State v. Whoever. They just to know if you understand where they’re coming from and if they can trust you to help them. But while your legal content is informational, it is not persuasive enough to convert.
- On the other hand, you find someone who writes excellent copy but they don’t actually have any training or knowledge in the law. This happens often with large marketing firms that have generalized writers on staff. The copywriters aren’t lawyers, they’ve never practiced the law, and they haven’t been to law school. I once had a client come to me because their marketing firm had written a blog post about car accidents – except they were a family law firm, not a personal injury firm. Even if your copy is persuasive enough to convert, the messaging can go wildly off-target if your writer doesn’t realize the intricacies of the law.
The law is complex enough that generalized writers often get tripped up on basic issues like the distinction between federal versus state law, the difference in law between states, or how negligence or contract law works. Going through a piece of content that’s riddled with legal errors often takes longer than just rewriting it from scratch. Not only that, but any legal errors that get published on your website could put your professional reputation at stake.
Unfortunately, all of that means it’s not easy to find a good legal copywriter who actually has all the knowledge and skills that you need for an excellent content marketing campaign. You need someone who has a legal background, marketing training, and writing skills to succeed.
As a legal copywriter myself, I’m a licensed attorney in 2 states and I practiced law for several years before becoming a legal copywriter. Plus, I have over 2 decades of professional experience in online marketing and I’ve specifically trained in copywriting techniques. My skills are finely honed for legal copywriting – and that doesn’t even cover my background in SEO. You can read more about the difference a legal copywriter can make for your law firm here.
What Is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Lawyers?
SEO stands for search engine optimization – the strategy of optimizing a website so that you show up on search engines like Google or Bing for relevant keywords.
SEO gets your website organic visitors – warm, inbound leads as opposed to cold client outreach. These are the best types of leads because search engine visitors are motivated to act and ready to convert. They’re actively searching to hire someone to fix their legal problems. They’re looking for the best lawyer to handle their issues and SEO gives you an incredibly cost-effective opportunity to show them why they should choose you.
You can read here about how SEO costs 62% less on ROI than other promotional channels like pay-per-click (PPC) ads, with even better results that pay off long-term.
A successful law firm SEO campaign has 3 main parts:
- High-quality content that appeals to visitors and readers,
- A solid technical foundation for your website, and
- A strong network of internal and external links.
Your web designer or developer should make sure that all of your websites are set up properly for SEO. Your marketing director or content strategist can help you determine which websites are best for backlinks. And a legal copywriter can create content that targets the right keywords and is optimized for success with both your readers and search engines.
Do Lawyers Need SEO?
You may not need SEO for your law firm. But your law firm will be better off with SEO. Time and time again, SEO content marketing has proven itself king of online marketing, with results far above and beyond what you can get through PPC ads or pay-per-lead services.
Pay-per-click advertising like Google ads or Facebook ads stops working for you the moment you stop paying for it. The same goes for pay-per-lead services. Meanwhile, people who search online usually ignore the ads that they get served and prioritize organic content instead.
- 51% of all website traffic on the internet comes from organic search. Paid search results in only 10% of website traffic, while social media counts for 5%.
- SEO works the best for business services (compared to retail, entertainment, technology, and hospitality), with 73% of all traffic coming from organic searches.
- 4 out of 5 people search online to find local information – including legal services.
- Businesses with active blogs get 97% more leads.
Compared to ads, SEO content builds on itself and keeps working for you even if you put your marketing campaign on hold. The moment you publish an evergreen practice area page, landing page, or blog post on your website, that page starts earning authority on the internet. You don’t ever need to take it down. As long as people find your content interesting enough to click on the link and spend time on your website, that page will continue to serve you.
The more content you create, the more you can link internally between your website pages. The longer your content stays up, the more external websites will find your content and backlink to it, boosting your entire website’s authority.
Click here to read about a real, successful case study of a law firm that switched completely from pay-per-click advertising to SEO content, with amazing results that continue to pay dividends over a year after they started their content campaign.
Good content is like a self-perpetuating positive feedback loop. Your content campaign may take a minute to get off the ground with results, but once it gets going, the sky’s the limit.
Does Content Marketing Work for Lawyers?
Content marketing absolutely works for lawyers, and there’s plenty of data backing this up.
In fact, content marketing is the single most supportive marketing channel for law firms looking to grow their client reach and caseload. Your law firm’s website is your public image. It’s the first place most people will look to find out more information about you. Even referral clients are likely to check out your website first to get an impression of you before reaching out.
By investing in high-quality content, you’re investing in your law firm’s long-term growth. With SEO, you can build a sustainable lead generation system that works for years, positioning your law firm for widespread recognition and highlighting you as a leader in your field.
SEO campaigns can take time to kick into gear. But you should start seeing the needle move within the first month. And you should definitely see performance gains by the 6-month mark – if you’re doing things right, that is. If you’ve been at it for months with no measurable improvement, it’s time to look under the hood and maybe get a second (or third) opinion.
What Should a Law Firm Post on LinkedIn or Other Social Media?
A social media campaign is an excellent way to support a content campaign. Your social media strategy should be different than your content strategy because the nature of these promotional channels is different.
While your website content exists to inform and convert, social media is all about user engagement and boosting your visibility. Law firms are unlikely to convert clients from social media posts because most individuals aren’t actively looking to hire lawyers when they go on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter. People are more likely to be in the market for a lawyer when they’re searching on search engines for solutions to their legal problems.
Your social media posts should aim to get people to visit your website. Once those visitors make it to your website, then it’s the job of your website to convert them into clients.
Blog posts are a great excuse for getting people to go to your website. As soon as you post a blog or article on your website, you should post about it on social media and link to it. By doing this, you’ll also be building SEO-boosting backlinks for your website.
One big mistake law firms make is copying and pasting content from their website (either in parts or its entirety) to their social media. This is problematic for two reasons: first, long-form content doesn’t work on social media. You need something short that grabs people’s attention and makes them want to react. Second, Google and other search engines prioritize unique content over everything else. So as soon as you copy and paste your website’s content somewhere else, you devalue its SEO power.
Instead of copy-pasting your website content, create shorter social media posts that talk about the longer piece and then link to it so that people can go to your website to read more.
How Often Should You Post on Your Blog or Social Media?
To get the full benefit of SEO, the best content strategy I recommend for my clients is one blog post per week. Within just 6 weeks, you should start seeing results.
If you start out more slowly – for example, a blog post every other week – you will still see results, but slower. I would give 3 months to judge how the campaign is going.
With social media, every platform is different but you’ll get the most traction if you’re active at least once per week. Some people swear by posting every single day, but that’s not necessary. Just posting 2-3 times per week would be enough for most law firms.
When you’re starting out with a social media campaign, focus on a single social media platform instead of trying to expand your reach on all of them at the same time. You will get much better results if you focus your efforts on just Facebook or LinkedIn or Twitter for a while instead of splitting up your posts between each of those platforms. Once you’ve gotten into a steady rhythm with one platform, you can start building your presence on the next.
A social media campaign really isn’t much without a content campaign to back it up. Without a content campaign, you have nowhere to direct potential clients to read more on your website. If you’re trying to decide where to put your marketing budget, go with content like blog posts first.
If you have questions about your social media or content strategy, contact me and let’s chat!
How Do You Write a Legal Article or Blog?
Writing a legal article or blog for online viewing is not easy. In fact, there are entire courses that cost thousands of dollars dedicated to capturing an audience’s attention, finding the right SEO keywords, keeping visitors reading, and convincing them to act.
Because the law can be so complex and the market for law firms is so competitive, most legal blog posts should be at least 1000 words long. This helps cover deeper aspects of a topic so that you can offer more value than similar pages on the internet. Long-form content should be broken up with formatting tools like headings and bulleted lists for easier reading.
When I write website content for law firms, I write with three types of people in mind: skimmers, deep divers, and search engines. I target high-value long-tail keywords with lower competition for the best SEO results. I make sure the legal information is correct but also delivered in a way that’s approachable to the audience. These are skills that I’ve honed over years of doing this kind of work.
The skill of writing a legal article or blog requires a Venn diagram of expertise in law, writing, marketing, and, SEO. As a lawyer, you may know the law but you were trained to write like a lawyer for lawyers, not as a marketer for an audience of laypeople. Other copywriters may know marketing techniques but they don’t often have a background in the law.
With these challenges, you may struggle to get blog posts written for your law firm. Or you may pour in significant efforts by yourself, another associate at your firm, or a paralegal to write blog posts – but without any actual results. That’s where a legal copywriter comes in.
How Do You Find the Best Legal Blog Writer for Your Law Firm?
The best approach to content marketing for your law firm is to hire a legal copywriter. A skilled legal copywriter has the exact skills you need for a successful content marketing campaign.
Click here to read more about what a legal copywriter can do for your law firm.
When hiring a legal copywriter to write your law firm’s SEO content, consider:
- Do they have a background in the law?
- Do they have training or experience as an attorney?
- Do they have any case studies of successful content campaigns?
- Do they have knowledge of advanced SEO techniques and practices?
- Do they include internal links and high-authority external links in their content?
- Do they know how to read Google Analytics and Google Search Console reports?
- How extensive is their portfolio? Have they written about your practice area?
- Is their content easy to read? Does it use formatting for full effect?
- Does their writing appeal to you and capture your law firm’s unique voice?
- Do they actually write the content or do they use AI-generated content as a shortcut?
- Do they use a plagiarism checker to make sure all their content is truly unique?
- Do they communicate promptly and meet deadlines?
Unfortunately, it’s not easy finding a legal copywriter who has all the skills you need. Many attorneys and law firms turn to generalized SEO or marketing firms with dismal results – and then they wonder whether content marketing will ever actually work for them. A legal copywriter who knows what they’re doing can get you the results that you’re looking for.
To learn more about my legal copywriting services, click here. If you’re interested in seeing how a legal copywriter can help your content marketing campaign, let’s talk!