Engaging potential clients, establishing credibility, and boosting your law firm’s search engine rankings are just a few reasons why writing a legal blog makes sense.
Perhaps you are considering launching a law blog, but it seems like a huge time commitment. Maybe you’ve already started a blog, but you are coming up short on ideas and motivation to keep it going. It could be that you are blogging consistently but need to increase your stash of quality content. Whatever your scenario, here are reasons to get started, steps to stay on the right track, and quick tips to ramp it up!
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Why a Legal Blog?
Let’s face it. Most people only search out content on a law firm’s website because they quickly need answers to legal issues. While scores of businesses and websites have accompanying blogs, a legal blog is an idea that pairs amazingly well with a law firm’s goals and audience.
- The legal profession abounds with jargon, making legally untrained individuals a little nervous. Your legal blog can help define and demystify confusing terms and topics related to your practice area.
- The legal system often enters someone’s life when a person least expects it, and individuals who reach out for help are looking to be educated on their unique issues. A legal blog can act as a guide to inform potential clients, a forum to share what your law firm knows, and a way to channel prospective clients to your doorstep.
- Marketing-wise, a legal blog is necessary because search engines favor websites with rich content. Adding a blog increases your chances of ranking higher on search engines and generating quality traffic for your site.
Seven Tips for an Amazing Legal Blog
Here are seven helpful hints to keep any law blogger on the right track of producing a top-notch legal blog:
1. Keep the Vision
Staying focused and remembering all of the blog benefits may help you see your blog not as a chore but as an important part of informing clients, gathering leads and enriching your marketing strategy.
2. Write Daily
Write down ideas when you have them and set aside 10 or 15 minutes a day to write something. It does not have to be a whole article — just a few thoughts for later expansion. By doing a little every day, you will eventually accumulate a lot of content.
3. Recycle by Rewriting
If you are keeping up an established blog, you can refresh old content. Chances are, laws may have changed, or there has been a recent twist on an old issue. Take your old content and upcycle it into a fresh, new blog post. You can also choose to keep the original post and just write a “part two” with a helpful link to the old one.
4. Add Consistently to Your Legal Blog
Decide how often to blog, and put it on your calendar. Studies show that frequent posting is highly important: the more consistent the posts, the more leads gathered.
5. Stop Struggling
In trying to come up with meaningful content for your law blog, never suffer in silence. There are oodles of great content ideas out there, starting with the tips listed at the end of this article.
6. Be Kind to Your Readers
Make your legal blog posts not only informative but easier to read by following these helpful hints:
- Write for short attention spans.
- Talk to your readers, not at them. Be conversational.
- Use short sentences and trim out useless phrases.
- Write in plain English. Avoid using complicated words or legal terms.
- Use more paragraphs and make each one as short as possible.
- Write headings, bullets and numbered lists.
- Add lots of white space.
- Include images.
7. Get Help
Even if you are writing regular blog posts yourself, you can hire a freelancer to write an occasional article or ask a colleague to submit a guest post.
Nine Tips to Ramp Up Your Lawyer Blog
Creating solid, consistent content can get tricky. After a while, anyone’s inspiration can dry up. When that happens, here are some fresh ideas to ramp it up.
1. Create FAQs
One of the best answers to “What should I write about?” can be found in your target audience’s typical questions. Through client interactions, phone calls and website contact forms, you can gather the common questions people have and build an answer to each one through a blog article.
2. Write Summaries and Guides
Since the law is complex and can be confusing, your blog can act as an interpreter. Choose topics that will explain, guide and inform about relevant topics.
3. Explain Legal and Courtroom Etiquette
Many people are unsure how to behave in the legal arena or court system. Create posts that outline what to expect from the legal process, and offer tips so people can feel a bit more comfortable in court.
4. Give General Legal Advice
When individuals search for law firms, they are often looking to solve a specific problem. While following legal ethics best practices, you can present law-related advice in a way people can grasp. Make your information as durable as possible, so you can leave it on your blog for a longer time. When laws change, your blog information must be updated.
5. Comment on the News
Law firms can give updates on legal issues in the news or comment on trending current events that affect their audience. These tidbits keep your target audience briefed and position your law firm as a voice of authority.
6. Present Case Studies
Offer true scenarios of past clients you have helped. Sharing recent case results boosts your credibility and makes legal matters more engaging and real.
7. Showcase Your Law Firm in the Community
When your firm wins an award or gains a local honor, tell the world about it on your blog. If your law firm has participated in a local event, sponsors a nonprofit, or has recently been featured in the media, write a post about it.
8. Mine Social Media
Examine what the general public is commenting on, using your own social media platforms, or those of other law firms. What questions are people asking, and what do they care about? Address these issues by writing posts, creating informative articles, writing tips or step-by-step guides.
9. Check Out Your Competitors
Your competitors’ sites are great places to gain motivation and inspiration for future articles. Take a sneak peek at other law blogs to gather material for your upcoming blog posts.
Ramp Up Your Law Firm’s Blog
A blog is an excellent way to share your expertise, direct and inform website visitors, and add new clients. With the potential value of a legal blog, it is time to get started or ramp it up to the next level.
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