Best Practices in Law Firm Content Marketing

Best Practices in Law Firm Content Marketing

two people collaborating on paperwork

It’s increasingly important for solo attorneys and law firms to establish their brands in the digital market. Many are using advanced SEO tehchniques to get themselves to the top of the SERPs. Most are also using social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram to get the word out about their services, expertise, and success.

Are Your Marketing Strategies Working for You?

Numerous attorneys and law firms still don’t generate the website traffic or leads they need to make their efforts worthwhile. New clients are few and far between. They begin to wonder why the competition is getting ahead while they fall behind. 

Consider your growth rate. Are your marketing strategies working for you? What about your content marketing strategy? If you want potential clients to view you as the authority in your area of legal practice, you must provide persuasive content to readers. Content that isn’t convincing could send them the other way as they might wonder if you are reputable. 

However, you’re in business to practice law. It’s where your skills and passion are focused. You didn’t go to school to write content and market your services all day. If this sounds familiar, it’s probably time to enlist the services of an experienced law firm web marketing agency that can help you craft engaging, high-value content. Not only can this allow you to keep your focus on your practice, but it will also attract more potential clients.

What a Law Firm Content Marketing Agency Can Do for You

Creating, promoting, and distributing content is essential for success in today’s legal environment. However, giving your clients the time and attention they need is also crucial. You don’t need any distractions. With the help of a well-versed content and marketing team, you can take a passive role in driving traffic to your website and growing your practice.

Five Best Practices in Law Firm Content Marketing

Align Your Content Strategy with Your Business Goals

If you want more clients, you must have a content strategy that supports your business development goals. Potential clients need to see that you have a clear vision and a particular focus. If your business goal is to help personal injury clients, but your content focuses on family law, it won’t get you any closer to meeting your goal. The content published on your website must be fine-tuned to your marketing strategy. 

Add Value, Not Just Words

Before publishing anything, you should check to see that your content meets these three standards:

  • It adds value
  • It’s helpful to the reader
  • It’s customer-centric

Don’t publish content just to publish content. Provide your potential clients with content that demonstrates your competence. Ensure that it effectively demonstrates your expertise in your field of law and that it’s backed up by facts.

You should also stick to layman’s terms. In general, it’s best to stay away from legal jargon that might confuse or intimidate a reader.

Engage Your Firm’s Attorneys

Law firms should involve their attorneys in their content marketing efforts. Since they are the ones that potential clients will be working with, use their knowledge and experience to make your content comprehensive and tailored to your specific niche. 

In addition to being on your firm’s website, your copy should be posted on the firm’s attorneys’ social media profiles. Make it a priority to train your lawyers to use social media platforms to publicize your law firm’s content. 

Don’t Forget Hashtags

If one of your goals is to increase the visibility of your posted content, don’t forget to use hashtags when posting on social media. The key is to use relevant and trending hashtags. Search engine tools such as hashtagify.me can help you find the right ones to use. 

Although it might be tempting to use general words or come up with your own hashtags, avoid doing so as it makes it harder for your audience to find the content. Also, beware that you could lose some readers by using too many hashtags on a single piece of content.

Keep it Interesting

Legal content can easily be mundane and pendantic , but you don’t have to fit into this mold with your content. Discuss new case law and use your creativity. Think about your audience’s interests, and don’t simply focus on what you can gain from content marketing. Infographics are a proven way to engage with readers across all social media platforms. They can improve your SEO ranking and drive more traffic to your content.

While we hope you find these tips helpful to your content marketing strategy, we also know that they may feel a bit overwhelming with everything else your role requires. We founded Lexicon Legal Content to help attorneys and law firms meet their marketing goals while still remaining focused on providing quality legal services to their clients. 

You can count on our attorney-led team of legal writers to handle your blogging and other content needs. Our content is authoritative, timely, and ethics-compliant to maximize its effectiveness and minimize the time and effort required from you. Find out more about our services by speaking to one of our marketing experts. Call our office today at 877-488-8123 or contact us online.

Law Blogs 101

Scrabble tiles spelling out the word "blog"

Law firm management has slowly evolved to include much more than traditional everyday business tasks. In addition to representing their clients, today’s busy attorneys in small or mid-size firms often must troubleshoot IT problems, participate in professional networking, meet current CLE requirements, and market their law firms so that they can be found in a highly competitive legal market. While innovative and well-researched marketing techniques do wonders for most lawyers, the options for and complexities of marketing a law firm in the 21st century only compound the stress that many lawyers experience running their firms.

Continue reading “Law Blogs 101”

What is the Legal Authority for Public Health Orders?

A woman in a surgical mask

Typically, the government cannot restrict a person’s liberty without due process of law – which usually means a criminal proceeding ending in a finding of guilt. But in recent days, we’ve heard about cruise ships being kept from coming into port and people placed in quarantine. So what is the legal authority for the federal government to restrict travel and deny citizens the ability to enter the country in light of a public health crisis like the one we are currently facing?

The Commerce Clause

The federal government derives its power to place people in to quarantine and isolation from the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution. This clause grants the federal government the power to regulate commerce between the states, and the power has been broadly defined to allow regulation of issues that may affect commerce between the United States. There is little doubt that a pandemic such as the one threatened by the COVID-19 outbreak could affect interstate commerce, making it well within the purview of federal regulation authorized by the commerce clause.

The Public Health Service ACt

Section 361 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S. Code § 264) authorizes the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services to take measures to prevent the entry and spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries into the United States and between states. The authority to carry these functions out has been delegated to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The Role of the CDC

Federal regulations authorize the CDC to detain, examine, and release individuals arriving in the country and between states who are suspected of carrying communicable diseases.  When the agency is informed about an ill passenger or crew member on an airplane or a ship, it may detain individuals to determine whether the illness was caused by a communicable disease and take further action if it is deemed necessary.

States Authority to Issue Public Health Orders

States have the authority to protect public safety through their police power and have laws in place that authorize them to take steps to control the spread of disease through isolation and quarantine. 

In Practice, Public Health Actions are a Joint Effort

In many cases, public health orders involving efforts to stop the spread of communicable diseases in the United States are a joint effort that involve federal and state efforts. Often, public health authorities work with local law enforcement to enforce public health orders.

Need Legal Content? Call Us  Today

At Lexicon Legal Content, we’re committed to creating legal content that will connect with your potential clients and explain complicated legal issues in a straightforward way. To learn more about our services, call us today or contact us online.

40 Law Firm Blog Ideas

Sometimes, Figuring Out What to Write about is the Hardest Part of Blogging

40 Law Firm Blog Ideas

The benefits of blogging for law firms and lawyers are indisputable. So, now that you’ve set up your site and are ready to go, what are you actually supposed to be writing about? As a practicing attorney, most of your written communication is likely directed at other attorneys and judges, and this is exactly the style of writing that you should avoid when blogging. Remember, you are blogging in an effort to connect with your potential clients, and (perhaps just as importantly) so that your site is noticed by Google and other search engines. For this reason, content that looks like a legal brief or law review article is NOT what you should be posting.

For many people, finding blog topics is harder than putting pen to paper. Here are 40 ideas to get you started generating content for your law firm’s blog

Continue reading “40 Law Firm Blog Ideas”

5 Legal Content Marketing Trends to Look for in 2024

A person using a pen to point at a pie chart displayed on a tablet.2024 is the year to get serious about your legal content marketing. Content is the foundation of your online presence, and in our hyper-connected world, content that connects you with your potential clients can increase awareness and generate new business.

Here are five key legal content marketing trends that you can’t afford to ignore in 2019.

Continue reading “5 Legal Content Marketing Trends to Look for in 2024”

Legal Content Marketing Ideas: 4th of July Celebrations

LEGAL CONTENT MARKETING IDEAS
Patriotic candles, a decorative plate, mug, a blow of strawberries, and lit sparklers on a table

Legal Content Marketing Ideas: 4th of July Celebrations

Finding fresh, relevant topics is one of the hardest things about regularly creating content for a legal blog. Fortunately, the holidays and other seasonal events like the start of the school year or ski season provide law firms in certain practice areas with ample opportunities to create fresh content that speaks to clients that have timely problems that they can help solve. Typically, these issues tend arise in the areas of personal and criminal defense. Here are some of the ways that the 4th of July can provide marketing material for law firms.

4th of July Celebrations often Result in Serious Injuries

Thousands of people are injured during 4th of July celebrations each year – and many will be looking for a lawyer soon after they are hurt. Here are some of the kinds of personal injury cases that often spike around the holiday:

  • Accidents Caused by Drunk Drivers – It’s no secret that people often drink at 4th of July celebrations, and despite increased enforcement efforts, there are typically more drunk drivers on than there are normally. This can often result in more drunk driving accidents – and victims seeking legal representation.
  • Premises Liability Cases – Many 4th of July injuries occur as a result of hazardous conditions on the property where a celebration occurred. Content about slip and fall accidents, pool injuries, or elevator or escalator accidents may help you connect with potential clients.
  • Product Liability Cases – People can be injured by defective grills, propane tanks, fireworks, recreational vehicles, and other consumer products commonly associated with Independence Day celebrations.

Criminal Defense

Parties, alcohol, and certain types of criminal behavior unfortunately often go together. For example, drunk people sometimes drive when they shouldn’t, and there is a clear link between drug or alcohol intoxication and violent crime. In addition, heightened enforcement efforts invariably ensure people who are truly innocent of the offense of which they are accused and who need legal representation to establish that fact.

As arrests spike the 4th of July, so will the number of people who are seeking a criminal defense attorney on the internet. This provides lawyers with an opportunity to connect with these potential clients by creating content that speaks directly to the situation in which they find themselves. For this reason, it is advisable to create 4th of July themed content around the following practice areas in criminal defense:

  • DUI
  • Drug possession
  • Firearms offenses
  • Assault

Let Our Legal Content Writers Start on Your Project Today

Timely legal blog content can help law firms reach clients that are injured in accidents that around holidays or certain times of year. Creating, posting, and syndicating high-quality and relevant content takes a significant investment of time, however, most practicing lawyers simply can’t do it consistently. Fortunately, we’re here to help. Call us today at 877-486-8123 to learn more about our legal content writing services.

How Quality Content Can Help You Grow Your Law Practice

Content marketing
Image of a bullhorn surrounding by logos of Facebook, Google Plus, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram

Content marketing is a marketing technique that involves the creation and distribution of content designed to stimulate interest in a product or service. When employed by law firms, content marketing can establish the firm as a thought leader in its practice area and connect with clients searching for an attorney who practices in a specific area of law. Consider being at the top of the results when someone in your area searches for “car accident attorney” in Google. Not only would it establish your firm as trustworthy leader in personal injury, it would also result in a significant amount of business.

According to Adweek, more than 80 percent of consumers conduct online research before making a purchasing decision, making it essential for law firms that want to stay competitive to ensure that their brand is well-represented online – and nice-looking website is just the first step. It is critical for the content that consumers are reading to be well-organized, relevant, and address your potential clients’ pain points.

Answer The Questions Your Clients Are Asking

One of the main benefits of content marketing over many other marketing techniques is that it allows law firms to target individuals with specific legal needs. In order to do this, firms should come up with a list of questions that people in a particular situation may have and creating content that answers those questions. Some questions that would make for good opportunities to create some informative content include the following:

  • How Much is My Personal Injury Claim Worth?
  • Do I need a Lawyer for a 1st DUI?
  • What Type of Bankruptcy is Right for Me?
  • How Long Do I Have to File a Car Accident Claim?

It is important to remember to writer for laypeople, not other attorneys – which is often difficult for lawyers who have been practicing for years and are used to writing for other lawyers, judges, and legal professionals.  In addition, while you should invite the reader to contact the firm, remember that content marketing is not the same as advertising. Rather than pitching your services broadly, your content should deliver information that is valuable to your target clients and will help them make a decision about who to hire. By establishing a connection through content, you can make it much more likely that an internet searcher will call your firm rather than one of your competitors.

Call Lexicon Legal Content Today to Connect with Professional Legal Content Writers

Quality content can help lawyers and law firms connect with potential clients in their area. Unfortunately, creating high-quality legal content on a regular basis is too time-consuming for practicing attorneys, but we can help. At Lexicon Legal Content, our team of JDs and attorney-writers specialize in generating compelling, accurate, and keyword-rich blogs and content pages for lawyers in a variety of practice areas, including personal injury, criminal defense, family law, bankruptcy, estate planning and litigation, and eminent domain. Call us today at 877-486-8123 or contact us online.

How Politics Can Drive Legal Content Marketing: The Trump Effect

A picture of the Capitol building at duskRegardless of your political leanings, one thing is certain: the Trump administration has shaken up the political landscape and created substantial uncertainty in many different areas of law.

And we’re not talking about esoteric constitutional issues such as the limits of executive power or the emoluments clause.The current administration is making moves that are affecting real people on a day-to-day basis, often resulting in significant uncertainty about legal issues that can have a direct impact on the most important aspects of their lives.

How does this affect legal content marketing? For one thing, it is providing lawyers and law firms (and their marketing teams) ample opportunity to create new, fresh content that is relevant and of interest to their target audience.

The First Travel Ban: A Case Study

To understand how this works, it is illustrative to look at a concrete example. On January 27th, the President issued an executive order banning travel to the United States for people from certain countries, and it was not immediately clear whether legal permanent residents (green card holders) from the affected countries would be allowed to reenter the country if they were overseas when the order was issued, which proved to be a source of significant controversy.

Here is a chart showing the number of searches for “Green Card Entry” over the past 90 days:


(Numbers represent search interest relative to the highest point on the chart for the given region and time. A value of 100 is the peak popularity for the term. A value of 50 means that the term is half as popular. Likewise a score of 0 means the term was less than 1% as popular as the peak.)

As these data make clear, the number of people searching for “green card entry” spiked soon after the executive order was issued. Granted, some of these searches were people simply seeking information for information’s sake, but is also safe to assume that some of them were concerned that the order would apply to them or their family members – people who, for some attorneys, are potential clients.

Importantly, other words that are semantically related to the issue show similar spikes in traffic, and identifying these words and phrases is the foundation of creating a timely content marketing campaign.

By identifying the legal questions that people are asking and creating content that answers those questions, lawyers in any area of law can connect with individuals who are actively seeking their services. Here are some of the areas of law that recent actions taken by the Trump administration have affected as well as specific issues on which relevant, timely, and informative content could be created.

Immigration LawPicture of passports

Immigration law has perhaps been the most volatile area of law since Trump took office and the uncertainty has certainly captured the media’s attention.

The executive order banning travel from certain countries referenced above is just one area where there is significant uncertainty. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program instituted under President Obama directed federal authorities to use prosecutorial discretion regarding the removal of certain undocumented individuals who arrived in the United States as children. The program provides those eligible with a renewable 2-year work authorization as well as deferred action regarding their undocumented status. In other words, they may live and work in the United States without immediate fear of removal. The new administration has taken a tough stance on immigration and has yet to indicate what it plans to do with DACA – a program that Trump could decide to end at any moment.

Issues regarding the enforcement of immigration laws has also generated significant interest, as the administration recently expanded the list of individuals who were removal priorities significantly.

Criminal Law

In late summer of 2013, the Obama administration issued a memo to U.S. Attorneys in all 50 states indicating that “in jurisdictions that have enacted laws legalizing marijuana in some form… conduct in compliance with those laws and regulations is less likely to threaten the federal priorities..” and that “state and local law enforcement and regulatory bodies should remain the primary means of addressing marijuana-related activity.”

In practice, this directive has meant there is a lack of federal enforcement against marijuana operations and users who are in compliance with state law. Importantly, however, this could change with the stroke of a pen under the new administration. Aggressive enforcement could create chaos in states that have robust and established marijuana economies and could result in significant criminal penalties for individuals who have been operating under the belief that they are not an enforcement priority for the feds.

Personal Injury

While personal injury matters are generally matters of state law, there are certain cases in which federal regulations may have an impact on the outcome of litigation. For example, in some jurisdictions, noncompliance with FMCSR regulations could be used as prima facie evidence of negligence in truck accident litigation. In light of the president’s directive to repeal two regulations for every new one implemented, the regulatory landscape is on shaky ground, including for the trucking industry. Some regulations that were poised to take effect (i.e. speed limiters on newly manufactured heavy trucks) may never be implemented, and others may be repealed.

Title IX

Last May, the Obama administration issued guidance that directed all educational institutions to allow students to use facilities that are consistent with their gender identity. On February 22nd, the Trump administration withdrew the previous guidance, calling into question whether federal officials will enforce Title IX against schools that discriminate against transgender students in this manner. The issue is now headed to the U.S. Supreme Court in G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board, where the court is expected to decide whether Title IX requires schools to treat students consistent with their gender identity.

Use Current Events to Generate Long-Tail Keyword PhrasesMan reading on a tablet

Of course, when creating SEO-friendly content, one of the main concerns is incorporating keywords that will signal that the content is relevant to particular topic. Long-tail keyword phrases that exactly match what a potential client is looking for will ensure that you are attracting the right kinds of visitors to your site. Some examples of long-tail keyword phrases that may be relevant to the practice areas listed above include:

  • Will the speed limiter rule be enacted
  • What are defenses to deportation?
  • Enforcement of federal marijuana laws
  • Will DACA be Repealed?

Of course, these are just a few basic examples of phrases that legal consumers may search in response to political developments, and using tools like Google Trends’ Related Queries feature can help you come up with long-tail keywords to target.

As Questions Arise, so do Opportunities to Connect with Clients

These are just a few of the areas of law in which questions raised by the actions of the new administration are creating opportunities for lawyers and their marketing teams to create compelling and informative content of interest to their potential clients. If the trend established in the past six weeks is any indication, the questions will continue to arise.

To discuss your legal content strategy, call Lexicon Legal Content today at 877-486-8123 or send us an email at info@lexionlegalcontent.com.

 

Will 2017 See the End of Live Chat Pop-Ups?

A cursory search of the internet will establish that significant percentage of law firm websites greet their visitors with a pop-up window that offers to connect them with a live representative.

While live chat has the potential to increase the percentage of website visitors that become paying clients, they can also be annoying to users and now could have a negative impact on your site’s rankings in the SERPs. These types of pop-ups, known as “interstitials,” often cover up the main content of the site and can be difficult for users on mobile devices to dismiss.

Late last summer, Google announced that websites that use interstitials may not rank as highly after January 10th of this year. Specifically, the search engine stated that:

Pages that show intrusive interstitials provide a poorer experience to users than other pages where content is immediately accessible. This can be problematic on mobile devices where screens are often smaller. To improve the mobile search experience, after January 10, 2017, pages where content is not easily accessible to a user on the transition from the mobile search results may not rank as highly.”

BLOG PIC
An Intrusive Pop-Up

Blog Pic 2
An Intrusive Standalone Interstitial

Blog Pic 3
Another Example of an Intrusive Standalone Interstitial

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Source: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/08/helping-users-easily-access-content-on.html)

There are some situations in which a site could continue to use interstitials and not be affected by the change. These include the following:

  • An age verification pop-up
  • Logins on sites where the content is behind a paywall
  • Banners that use a reasonable amount of space and are dismissed easily

How to Keep Your Potential Clients Engaged

Of course, one of the main benefits of offering live chat is user engagement and setting an appointment so that visitors become paying clients. Importantly, this update does not mean that lawyers should not offer live chat – they simply need to not do so with a pop-up that covers up their content.

This new ranking signal is consistent with Google’s focus on rewarding sites that provide content that is useful for people searching the web. As content is critical to both search engine rankings and the impression that your potential clients get when they visit your site, it is important for attorneys to ensure that the content on their site is well-written, compelling, and provides site visitors answers to their questions.

Call Lexicon Legal Content Today to Discuss the Content on Your Law Firm’s Website

The content on your website has a direct impact on your site’s position in the search results. Unfortunately for busy practicing attorneys, creating a consistent stream of high-quality, informative, and useful content takes a significant investment of time. The team of professional legal blog writers at Lexicon Legal Content is available to provide your firm or marketing agency with content in a variety of formats that will provide value to your readers and improve the quality of your site. To learn more about our services, call us today at 314.691.8602 or contact us online.

How Law Firms Can Reach Potential Clients through Content Marketing

Macbook content writingDigital marketing for lawyers and law firms is becoming increasingly competitive, and gone are the days that an attorney could simply put up a website and wait for the phone to ring. Between professionally-managed search engine optimization (SEO) efforts, pay-per-click ads, and well-placed banner advertising, law firms need to engage in a wide variety of online marketing efforts in order to keep up with their competition.

 

Content marketing is the creation and circulation of original content that is of interest to your clients. Content can take a wide variety of formats, including blogs, videos, infographics, and E-Books, and the appropriate format will depend on a variety of factors, including the information you would to share and your target audience. For example, a list of personal injury accident statistics may be well-suited to an infographic, while a guide detailing the steps to take after a car accident would likely make an excellent E-Book.

The benefits of content marketing are myriad. Best of all, if you choose to create your content yourself, it can be free. For example, writing a blog post about potential consequences of a sex crime conviction and sharing it on your firm’s social media account will only cost you time. Furthermore, adding unique, keyword-rich content to has been explicitly identified by Google as a significant factor in the way a site ranks for certain keywords.

Outsourcing Content Marketing is an Option for Busy Lawyers

As an attorney, your focus should be on practicing law. With court dates, client meetings, legal research, and document drafting, many lawyers do not have the time to create high-quality, compelling, and informative content on a regular basis. In addition, it is important to keep in mind that the way that you write for the court is not necessarily what your clients or Google want to see. Fortunately, there is help available and freelance writers or a company like ours can provide content that will interest your potential clients and improve your site’s ranking.

It is important to keep in mind, however, that like with anything else, you get what you pay for. While you may be able to outsource content creation to India for pennies per word, the quality will likely suffer, especially for legal content. More importantly, as your firm’s site is an advertisement, it is subject to the advertising ethics rules in your jurisdiction. As a result, posting inaccurate content on your site or content that violates advertising rules could even result in an ethics complaint.

At Lexicon Legal Content, our team of attorney-writers generates high-quality and compelling content in a variety of formats, including blogs, practice area pages, press releases, and E-Books for lawyers, law firms, and law firm marketers. To learn more about how we can help you grow your practice or improve your clients’ online presence, call us today at 314-691-8602 or send us an email through our online contact from.