I was on LinkedIn the other day when I saw a lawyer’s post about how in the time of COVID-19, content marketing online is more important now than ever. This is false.
The truth is, online content marketing has always been an important if not the most important marketing strategy for lawyers. The impact of SEO on legal marketing success has always been hard to overstate. The difference is that some people are only just now realizing it.
To prove it, these statistics were all released before coronavirus shifted the legal industry online in ways none of us could have imagined at the time:
- 93% of all online sessions start with a search engine.
- 4 out of 5 people use search engines to find local information such as legal services.
- Companies with active blogs get 97% more leads than those without.
- 90% of people think custom content is useful. 78% believe companies that offer custom content are building good relationships with their market.
- 66% of people dedicate time to reading content from companies they are interested in.
- 60% of people feel better about a company after reading its website content.
- Leads through organic search close at a rate of 14.6%, while outbound marketing leads like paid advertising only close at 1.7%.
- Bonus: Content marketing actually costs 62% less than other marketing channels.
- Per dollar spent, content generates 3x more leads than traditional marketing.
Yes, more people are turning to the internet now in a post-COVID world. But clients have been searching for lawyers online for years. Lawyers and law firms who have invested in their content marketing are reaping the benefits of SEO at an exponential rate:
Fortunately, it’s never too late to get started with SEO and content marketing. If the best time to start was years ago, the second-best time to start is now.
I recommend talking to a legal content copywriter to plan and execute a solid content marketing strategy for your law firm’s success. So many lawyers try to go about creating content on their own, which can be a huge mistake, not to mention a waste of your precious time.
Click here for answers to the most frequently asked questions about legal content writing.
Why Hire a Legal Copywriter for Your Content
So you’re in. You’ve committed to creating content for your law firm’s website. Can’t you just write the content yourself? You know the law and you know how to write. You’re a lawyer, after all. Anyone can create a blog and start blogging, right?
This is where so many lawyers go wrong. When you’re writing online content, the last thing you want to do is write like a lawyer. Even when you’re writing about legal topics!
Online content must be first and foremost approachable and easy to read. You have to keep your target audience in mind at all times. What are your ideal client’s biggest pain points and concerns? Why would they be searching for your services? What kind of help and support do they need right now?
For most law firms, their target audience is non-lawyers. That means you have to write for the layman. Other law firms may target businesses or professionals. If your audience has a lingo, use it to tap into their thinking. But don’t use big words just to sound fancy. The more simple your language, the better.
On top of everything else, a huge proportion of today’s web traffic comes through mobile phones, which means people are likely to read your website on tiny screens. Mobile readers prefer their content to be easy to skim and easy to digest, otherwise they’ll lose interest and leave.
That means you’re going to lose your visitors if:
- You write long paragraphs of text like you were taught to do as a lawyer.
- You focus too much on the technical aspects of the law and not enough on the practical. Most people don’t care about statutes or case law. They care about what the law means for them in their current situation.
- You talk too much about yourself and you fail to connect to your visitor in a meaningful way that makes them want to hire your law firm.
- You forget the ultimate goal of having a law firm website: to reach and convert new clients. Every page of your website is a part of your content marketing strategy.
You could spend hours of your own time trying to write a good blog post – time that you could be spending on your law practice or your personal life – only to have to do it over and over again on a monthly or weekly basis. Or you could trust the entire process to a professional.
What Is the Legal Content Writing Process?
Here’s what you can expect when you contact a professional legal copywriter:
- An initial consulting call to discuss your content marketing goals
- A custom long-term content marketing strategy based on your needs
- Extensive keyword and competitor research for each piece of SEO content
- Regular delivery of articles to keep your website updated and current
- Monthly increases in organic visitors to your website
- More phone calls and new client inquiries from your website
- A lot more free time for you to focus on your own priorities
SEO is the best long-term strategy to grow your law firm’s reputation and reach more clients organically. Organic visitors from search engines are the most valuable type of traffic you can get to your law firm website. They arrive searching for the types of services you provide, based on the keywords in your content. This type of inbound marketing traffic is much more likely to engage with what you’re offering.
SEO content often works exponentially, with greater and greater gains over time. Think of every page on your website as an online asset. Unlike paid ads that stop working for you the moment you stop paying for them, content keeps building up your website’s rankings.
If you’re ready to take your content marketing to the next level, let’s talk!
What is Content Writing vs. Copywriting?
A content writer creates content for the sake of sharing it. A copywriter creates content that’s meant to convert. It’s writing with a purpose. If you’re a lawyer or law firm, you want to hire an experienced copywriter who can write quality content that converts visitors into paying clients.
As a legal content writer, my priority is to communicate clearly and effectively with your potential clients. As an SEO copywriter focused on conversions, my goal is to convince your visitors to contact you through persuasive writing. And as a lawyer myself, I know the law well enough to simplify it for clarity.
If you work with an experienced legal content SEO copywriter like me, this is what I can do for you:
- Target long-tail keywords to reach your ideal clients
- Break down complex legal concepts with engaging, easy-to-understand explanations
- Focus on answering questions that your audience is actually asking on Google
- Address your visitors’ concerns and present your legal expertise as the solution
- Convince your visitors to contact you to solve their problems
That’s a lot of value that you don’t get if you try to write your content on your own.
If you want to talk to an experienced legal copywriter about your law firm’s content marketing, schedule your free consultation today and let’s get started!