Most lawyers look for a legal content writer when they actually want a legal copywriter. This might sound like just semantics to you, but the difference is important.
Because many people don’t know the difference between these different forms of writing, I use the terms “content writer” and “copywriter” interchangeably on my blog and website. But have no doubt: I am a legal copywriter. The major difference between content and copy lies in the purpose of the text.
- Content is created to inform, educate, and answer questions.
- Copy not only informs but also fixes problems and inspires action.
How exactly does legal copywriting get your law firm more clients?
Copywriting uses psychologically proven techniques to connect with your readers, validate their emotions, present them with solutions, and persuade them to take action for more. Read on to learn more about these techniques and how they work.
When it comes to creating content for your law firm, you want your content to do more than just inform. You want strategic copy that compels your readers to contact you for their legal needs. Think about copywriting as a more powerful upgrade to content writing.
Simply put, content educates. Copy is content that converts readers into paying clients.
Click here for answers to the most frequently asked questions about legal content and copywriting.
Why You Need a Legal Copywriter
Are you trying to write your law firm’s blogs all by yourself? Do you have a junior associate ghostwriting blog posts they don’t want to write when they could be billing hours instead? Does your paralegal try to draft your website’s content between legal assignments?
If you’ve tried any of these strategies – you’re not alone. After all, you need someone with knowledge of the law to create legal content for you. True story: I once spoke with a family law attorney whose content marketing company wrote a blog post about car accident cases. Needless to say, the lawyer didn’t stick with that company for long. She told them to stop writing content for her law firm’s website the moment she hired me to write copy instead.
If your writer isn’t actually a lawyer, how are they supposed to communicate complex legal concepts they don’t understand in simple terms that laypeople can understand? The outcome could be a crapshoot, with you spending hours editing content you paid for.
No one wants that – least of all, you. You’ve got a law firm to run and a life to live!
So you, your associate lawyers, and your paralegals have the knowledge to write blog posts. But none of you have the copywriting skills that turn informational posts into calls for action.
So you end up publishing informational content that does your law firm no actual favors. You put out a whole bunch of value into the world and get nothing in return because your content doesn’t inspire your readers to act. You wonder why your website engagement is so poor.
The other problem with trying to write your own content? Writing like a lawyer. The best legal content involves writing the most complicated ideas in simple, easy-to-read language. That doesn’t mean you should dumb down the content on your law firm’s website – but you should get your point across in the most concise, clear way possible. Most lawyers are trained to do the exact opposite – to drill down into every relevant detail with as much technically accurate information and context as possible, often at the cost of readability.
If your law firm website has long blocks of text with esoteric legal jargon that means nothing to a layperson, you’ll lose your reader’s attention faster than you can say “summary judgment.”
A legal copywriter presents the best of both worlds: knowledge of the law plus training in effective and persuasive copywriting techniques. Ideally, a good legal copywriter’s work will require minimal edits from you before publishing, which saves you precious time.
12 Legal Copywriting Techniques That Convert
Good copy gets the job done without overselling. The best content keeps your reader (i.e., your potential clients) front and center, catering first and foremost to their needs.
1. Eye-Catching Headlines and Intro Paragraphs
Statistics prove the importance of headlines: 80% of people read just the headline to an article while only 20% read the body content. In today’s world, you’re competing with more people than ever to capture your reader’s attention. An eye-catching headline is the first step – you must follow through with a strong introductory paragraph to keep that attention. When it comes to good copy, every single sentence should make your reader want to read the next.
2. Speaking Directly to Your Reader
This applies both figuratively and literally – that means using the second person “you” throughout your law firm’s website. It’s no secret that people love to read about themselves. Even when people want to know more about your law firm, they’re more interested in what your law firm can do for them. Keep your prospective clients in mind at all costs and write as if speaking directly to them.
3. Validating Your Reader’s Experience
The power of validation cannot be underestimated. Deep down, your readers want to feel understood. Simply describing and acknowledging what your clients might be going through can be incredibly powerful. This helps establish a baseline of trust between you and your reader.
4. Creating an Emotional Connection With the Reader
Acknowledging your reader’s feelings can also go a long way. Is your client concerned, conflicted, anxious, or excited? You can deepen the connection by tapping into the relevant emotions in your copy. The better the copy, the more nuanced this can become.
5. Capturing Your Unique Voice and Unique Value Proposition
One of the questions I ask on an initial client call is, “What are 3 adjectives you would want potential clients to associate with you?” This helps establish your unique voice so that your website doesn’t sound like every other law firm out there.
Your website should reflect who you are as if a client is stepping into your virtual office space. Your copy should also answer the question: out of all the other attorneys and law firms out there practicing the same area as you, why should your potential client pick you? What is your unique angle? The advantage only you can offer? What’s going to make you stick in their brain?
6. Identifying Your Potential Client’s Pain Points and Hopes
What are your potential clients struggling with the most? What are their greatest dreams and hopes? By including these details in your content, you prove to your clients that you understand their reality. Then you can present them with solutions and explain how you can help them avoid their greatest fears and realize their goals.
7. Simplifying and Clarifying Complex Legal Problems and Issues
The last thing most readers want to read is a legal treatise on the history of case law or legislative decision-making around their particular issue. They hire you to translate the legalese for them. A legal copywriter with actual expertise can put these complicated concepts into plain language that makes sense and gets the point across. So toss those semicolons and cut back on those four-syllable SAT vocabulary words.
8. Focusing on Benefits, Not Features
Features are all about you: your qualifications, years of experience, industry awards, cases won, services offered. But the most important point to your readers is how your features benefit them. So don’t get too caught up talking about your law firm without also mentioning how all your amazing features actually help your clients. Your years of experience might mean you’ve seen every trick in the book and nothing can get past you now. Your law firm’s reputation might strike fear into the hearts of insurance companies, which makes them more likely to settle quickly. Your thorough methods could translate into higher settlement sums.
9. Establishing a Sense of Urgency
You know how the saying goes: out of sight, out of mind. You want to instill a sense of urgency into your readers to contact you so that they do so before you lose their attention. Urgency isn’t difficult to stress when it comes to legal issues, what with statutes of limitations and filing deadlines.
10. Overcoming Your Reader’s Objections
Everyone has doubts. Your reader may think, do they really need a lawyer or can they figure out how to fix their issue themselves? Address those doubts and explain why that would be a bad idea. If your potential clients are likely to be concerned about the cost of hiring a lawyer, explain to them what a contingency fee is and how that helps them defer the cost. Disarming objections is much more effective than ignoring them.
11. Using Easy-To-Read Formatting
Formatting, flow, readability. These are all important parts of copywriting. Whatever content you have on your website must be visually inviting, not an assault on your reader’s eyeballs. Break up long paragraphs and use descriptive headings and bulleted lists to help skimmers find the information they need.
12. Calls to Action That Convert Clients
Finally, your content must include a clear call to action that tells your readers what to do next. That could be calling a phone number, submitting an online contact form, or subscribing to a mailing list. Inertia is powerful and people need prodding to take action. This is the goal and purpose of copywriting for law firms – to inspire your readers to engage with your content and convert to new clients.
Whatever legal content you create as part of your law firm’s marketing strategy, you should do so with purpose. Understand your target audience, connect with them, and inspire them to act. It takes the knowledge of a lawyer and the skills of a copywriter to create excellent content that will increase your website’s performance over time. That’s where a legal copywriter comes in.
You can see this strategy working out and paying dividends for my client here. By working with a legal copywriter, this law firm doubled its organic visitors and quadrupled the number of visitors who submitted a contact request through the website. You can also click here to read about how I increased one website’s organic traffic by 42,375% in just 4 months of blogging.
If you have questions about your law firm’s content, let’s chat!