A company’s online presence is no longer the last item in your marketing efforts list. In most aspects, the Internet has surpassed and replaced all other efforts to break through and have your name heard.
Therefore, a serious law practice should settle for nothing less than a professional-looking website where their clients can find useful, current information.
Some of the best legal articles are written by lawyers passionate about their profession. Take, for example, the BK Lawyers of San Diego. They provide all the relevant information about their bankruptcy lawniche through their blogging efforts.
Or take a look at Wall Street Journal’s law blog dedicated to the latest news and relevant information related to generalattorney practices.
How to Develop a Reputable Law Blog
In both examples, you can find a few hints that can help you start your own blog and write quality articles your clients and future clients will appreciate. Let’s take a look at what they are.
- Come Up with a Creative Headline
- Don’t Stuff it with Keywords
- Write about Relevant Topics
- Maintain a Constant Flow of Articles
- Divide Your Blogs into Categories
- Share them Across Your Social Media Accounts
- Link Back to Other Useful Articles on Your Website
Benefits of Blogging for Your Law Office Website
The reason more and more law offices are adding a blog to their website is that blogs are highly efficient at generating new customers. Blogs can help your potential clients understand why they need expert legal representation.
Blogging will also establish your brand as an authoritative source and a reliable partner. Blogs can also help you in several other ways.
- It can help you rank your website on search engines like Google through Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Easier Communication of Relevant Information to future and current clients
- The chance to demonstrate your expertise in your niche
- Increased traffic due to organic traffic.
Every law firm is unique, and you should use this to your advantage when developing your blog. Be sure to include tips from personal experience and cases you’ve won.
That said, let’s look back at what it takes to develop an engaging article step by step.
Come Up with a Creative Headline
The key to achieving high rankings is coming up with a creative headline. Google and other search engines focus on headlines to determine what your articles are about.
That is why you have to make your headlines descriptive and self-explanatory.
Avoid vague titles like “Latest News” or “Changes are coming” as well as clickbait titles like “You’ll never believe the result of this ruling”.
Don’t Stuff Keywords
Keyword phrases are what people type when researching a particular topic or looking for a service. Adding these to your articles can help you boost your rankings, but overdoing it can doom your article and rank it lower.
Try to keep keywords down to two per 400-word article. Try to make the keywords fit and not just shoehorn them anywhere. The more natural it looks in the article, the better your rankings will be.
Write about Relevant Topics
Choose topics relevant to your particular law practice. If you are a bankruptcy attorney there’s no reason to write about workplace injury or divorce law.
If there are a lot of lawyers in the same niche as you with a blog that’s already established and ranks well, it might be difficult to break through.
One way is to write about specific reasons people hire you, like dog bites or paying back student loans after filing for bankruptcy. This way, you’ll see better, faster results.
Maintain a Constant Flow of Articles
A lot of lawyers get excited about blogging and start chugging out a few articles a day. A few months later, when the enthusiasm burns out, their blogs become a wasteland.
If you want to break out and establish your blog as a reputable source you have to maintain a constant article flow. Try to post at least one blog article per week.
Develop a publishing plan and stick to it. Even if you write a couple of articles one day, schedule them so you don’t run out of ideas and go dark for the next couple of weeks.
Divide Your Blogs into Categories
Set up categories for your blogs depending on the subject they cover.
For example, if you are a bankruptcy lawyer add categories such as Chapter 7 Bankruptcy, Chapter 13 Bankruptcy, Filing for Bankruptcy, Bankruptcy myths, etc.
This will help you organize your blog better, which will also help rank it better.
Share them Across Your Social Media Accounts
Sadly, most blogs, but especially new ones, don’t have a huge organic following. That’s where social media comes into play.
Whenever you post your articles, make sure to share them across Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media accounts. If you don’t have a profile there, time to make one.
Link Back to Other Useful Articles on Your Website
If the topic you are covering is related to an article already posted on your website, make sure to link the old article in your post. This will help keep your readers on your website longer.
Linking will also show that you’re a relevant resource on the topic and rank your blog better on search engines. Make sure that your anchor text, the phrase leading back to an older article, is natural and that it clearly states what the article talks about.