Legal content gets a bad rap for being dry, boring, and full of “legalese.” But most law firm owners know the importance of blogging when it comes to attracting organic traffic through SEO.
As one of the leading marketing methods for lawyers, SEO requires that law firms publish engaging, SEO-friendly content on a regular basis. But thinking up these topics – and actually writing content that’s optimized for Google – can be easier said than done.
The good news is that creating a law firm blogging strategy is made easy once you know which keywords to target and what best practices to follow when it comes to optimizing your content for search engines.
Read on for a step-by-step guide on how to create your winning blogging strategy.
1. Identify SEO Keywords for Your Blog
Before writing content for your law firm blog, you’ll need to determine which keywords are worth targeting and how those translate into engaging blog post topics.
The reason being, it won’t be a good use of your time to write content that won’t attract any organic traffic (unless you also have a social media strategy) or that’s targeting keywords that are too competitive for your site.
Find Niche & Geo-Specific Keywords
Your goal should be to find high search volume, low competition keywords to start, so you have the best chance of ranking for these keywords, and gaining some SEO momentum over time.
These keywords should be related both to the services your law firm offers and the audience you are trying to reach.
For example, if you are a family law attorney in Boise, some keywords worth targeting in your web page content might include:
- [family law attorney boise]
- [family law boise idaho]
- [divorce attorney boise]
At the same time, you’ll want to identify long-tail keywords that are best suited as blog post topics, such as:
- [how does divorce mediation work]
- [how to get a divorce in boise idaho]
- [how to prepare for child support mediation]
Consider which keywords might attract potential clients to your law firm. If you serve a specific geographic area, you should identify geo-specific keywords as well.
You can use SEO keywords research tools like SEMrush.com or Ahrefs.com to:
- Search for keywords.
- Compare search volume and competition level.
- Find related keywords.
- See which keywords your competitors are ranking for.
2. Plan Out Your Law Firm Blog Content
It’s easy to let your law firm blogging strategy end up on the back burner, so it may be helpful to create a content calendar to ensure that you’re publishing new content on a consistent basis.
Using an organization tool like Google Sheets or a project management tool like Asana, you can schedule out your blog posts according to the keywords you want to target.
Some details you might want to include in your blogging schedule include:
- Focus keyword.
- Secondary/related keyword(s).
- Blog post title.
- Proposed word count.
- Publish date.
- Blog post description.
Having a schedule will not only help you stay consistent with your law firm blog, but it will help you keep the details of individual blog posts organized in case you decide to outsource SEO content writing.
3. Write Engaging Headlines
When it comes time to write your blog content, you’ll first want to translate your target keyword into a compelling headline or post title. It’s here that you need to consider what the user intends to find when they search for that keyword.
Are they looking for a how-to guide? A review-style post? A service page?
Make sure your content aligns with what you expect users are actually looking for.
It may help you to do a quick Google search of your target keyword to see which pages are already ranking. If, for example, most of the pages are step-by-step guides, you might consider writing a step-by-step guide yourself.
Once you’ve determined the direction of the article, use your target keyword in the title while including language that’s going to entice users to click.
Here are some examples for the keyword phrase [How does divorce mediation work]:
- How Does Divorce Mediation Work? – 5 Step Process
- Navigating Divorce: How Does Divorce Mediation Work?
- How Does Divorce Mediation Work? – Advice from Divorce Lawyers
It’s recommended that you use the exact keyword in your title, but if it’s difficult to do so, you can finesse it a bit to have it make sense for the reader.
Then, use compelling language that will grab users’ attention in the search results.
4. Cover Niche Topics
Again, the point of having a law firm blogging strategy is to drive traffic and attract potential clients to your law firm. That means you’ll need to focus on topics that are relevant to your audience, niche, and geographic location (if applicable).
You might want to ask existing clients, previous clients, or your social media followers which topics they are most interested in.
You can also spy on your competitors to see what topics they are writing about.
Just because there is search volume behind a keyword doesn’t mean it’s a great fit for your site. Think about how a given topic fits into your overall marketing strategy and whether it will work to attract your target audience to you.
5. Follow On-Page SEO Best Practices
When it comes to optimizing your content for search engines, there are a few on-page SEO best practices you can follow.
While you don’t need to be an SEO professional yourself, it might make sense to work with a consultant or agency if you have trouble implementing SEO.
These on-page SEO best practices include:
- Including your target keyword in the post title.
- Adding an H1 heading and H2 headings to structure your article.
- Including internal links to other pages on your website.
- Referencing your focus keyword naturally throughout your article.
- Writing an optimized URL (target keyword, remove “stop words”).
- Including bulleted or numbered lists, if applicable.
- Adding non-copyrighted images with descriptive alt text.
These on-page SEO best practices apply to most websites and are relatively easy to implement. Run through this checklist every time you write a new article and you’ll be set up to start attracting more organic traffic.
6. Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy
Your law firm blog doesn’t have to sit there waiting to passively attract organic traffic; you can start driving traffic from social media right away. In fact, the majority of bloggers promote their blog articles using social media, with SEO being the second leading blog promotion channel.
Your law firm can maximize your traffic-generating potential by sharing your articles on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and even Instagram.
That way, you reach an even wider audience, drum up more visibility for your site, and potentially attract new clients to your site right away.
Social media scheduling tools like Buffer and Hootsuite can help you circulate your content across social media platforms as you wait for Google to work its magic.
7. Identify New Topic Opportunities
While keyword research should be at the foundation of your law firm blogging strategy, you might come across topics you know are relevant to your audience but don’t have a clear SEO focus.
It’s just as important that you listen to your followers and clients when it comes to your blog content as it is to use SEO tools to find target keywords. This will help you have a well-rounded blogging strategy that’s hyper-focused on the needs of your audience.
At the same time, be on the lookout for trends in your industry, local area, and among your competitors so you can create timely content and get ahead of the curve.
Sometimes the best content is content that’s spontaneous and stems from a unique need that arises from your market.
8. Build High-Authority Backlinks
Finally, no SEO strategy is complete without an effective link building strategy.
With backlinks essentially being votes of confidence from other sites that your law firm is legit, they can certainly help put your blog on the map and get Google to take notice.
Submitting guest posts to reputable publications, submitting your site to online directories, and optimizing your local citations are all methods that work to drive links and/or traffic to your website.
All in all, your goal is to publish high-quality content that’s optimized for your audience and for Google while actively working to direct more traffic and authority to your blog.
A winning law firm blogging strategy can help you attract potential clients to your law firm and help you stand out in your industry.
Featured Image Credit: Paulo Bobita
