Effective SEO Blogging Strategies for Law Firms

Is blogging dead? Quite the contrary, in fact. A well-strategized, SEO-driven, customer-centric blog is the hidden gold mine that’s been under your nose all along. Dive in to discover the future of law firm blogging.

According to statistics, Internet users in the US spend 3X more time on blogs than they do on email. And, are law firms keeping up? Surprisingly, the recent ABA tech report found the following:

More than half of law firms are still operating at a snail’s pace when it comes to nurturing their blogs. But what if I told you that a well-crafted, regularly updated blog could be your secret weapon to outshine competitors?

While it’s true, every law firm is vying for attention. There are small details that can make all the difference which is when a blog isn’t just an optional add-on. It’s an essential tool to improve your blog strategy for law firm SEO and ultimately draw clients and prospects back to you.

A vibrant, active blog is a testament to your law firm’s commitment to stay current, provide value, and engage meaningfully with the community you serve. If you’ve been looking for ways to claim your space, amplify your voice, and showcase your expertise – you’re in the right place.

Don’t Forget Who You’re Writing For: The Personas

Ever heard the saying, “The customer is king”? In the world of blogging, we say, “The reader is king.”

Often you might hear marketers stress the pointer of understanding your audience, but how do you understand your audience, and more so, how do you apply that to your content strategy? By following these actionable steps, you can create accurate and effective personas that will help guide your blogging strategy:

Define the Basics: Start by defining the basics of your persona, including demographics such as age, gender, occupation, and income level.
Identify Legal Needs: Outline the typical legal needs and concerns your persona might have. Are they dealing with a personal injury case? Maybe they’re in the middle of a complicated divorce. Or perhaps they’re seeking legal advice for their small business?
Understand their Motivations: Dig deeper to understand what motivates them to seek legal help. What are their fears, challenges, or pain points that would prompt them to seek your services?
Follow the Funnel: Your personas are at different stages, and that is okay! Keep in mind that a new visitor might just be looking for basic legal information (top of the funnel), while a return visitor might be comparing your firm with others (middle of the funnel), and a long-time client might be ready for a deeper engagement (bottom of the funnel).
Conduct Client Surveys: Once you’ve closed a case, there is a great opportunity in your hands to follow through with a survey and ask questions like:

Analyze Your Interactions: Do you have a strategy in place for effective legal intake management? Part of improving is taking a few steps back and analyzing how your interactions with prospects and clients went. This may include any consultations, communications, e.g., emails, and checking for any recurring patterns or common questions that you’re being asked.

Focus on Quality, Not Quantity

Numbers can be impressive, but in the world of SEO, quality trumps quantity every single time, and the biggest search engine, Google, agrees!

In December 2022, Google updated its Quality Rater Guidelines to EEAT, which stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. The EEAT acronym, updated in December 2022, reflects the principles Google values in assessing content:

Experience assesses the content creator’s firsthand knowledge of a subject. For law firms, it’s about the writer’s practical experience in the discussed legal area.
Expertise pertains to the creator’s knowledge, skills, and qualifications.
Authoritativeness measures a website’s credibility. Law firms can build this by publishing top-notch content, thus establishing a reputable industry presence.
Trustworthiness emphasizes the reliability of content, underscored by accurate citations, transparent sourcing, and a commitment to accuracy and impartiality.

How can you start? We’ll give you 4 tips:

Develop Deep-Dive Content: Instead of covering a wide range of topics in a superficial manner, select specific topics and delve deep. What is unique in your firm’s practice area?
Harness the Power of Storytelling: Law firm storytelling is perhaps one of the most powerful yet underrated tools for engagement and relatability. Start by incorporating real-world cases, anecdotes, or hypothetical scenarios to explain complex legal concepts.
Validate with Reliable Sources: Always cite reliable and reputable sources to improve transparency and add credibility to your assertions.
Employ a Content Specialist: While these are all helpful tips, the best law firms can do today is delegate and hire legal content specialists to focus on more pressing legal matters — your client’s case.

Write for Humans, First But…Don’t Forget to Add Keywords!

One of the biggest challenges in legal SEO is making sure the content ranks with search engines and appeals to the users.

With that said, your firm’s blog strategy should have the following purposes in mind:

Inform the reader of your firm’s services and solve a problem.
Offer appealing information for the reader (answer questions, give them new relevant information, current legal matters they should know about, etc.)
Drive new traffic.

And what about keyword usage for blogging? Here are some of the best tips:

Keyword Research: The first step is to identify relevant keywords. Tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, and Ahrefs can help you find keywords that your potential clients are using to search for legal services. Short-tail keywords e.g., law firm may be too broad, generic, and quite expensive. Instead, focus on long-tail keywords (phrases with three or more words) that are specific to your practice areas.
Use Keywords Naturally: Google prioritizes content that reads smoothly, so avoid ‘keyword stuffing’. Your keywords should fit seamlessly into your sentences.
Optimize Images: If you use images in your blog posts, ensure that you include keywords in the file name and the image alt text.

Craft the Structure that Works

There are many best practices when it comes to the structure of your blog post. But the following are the basic foundations to improve rankings:

Headline: Headline tips your firm can follow include mixing the keywords and writing several headline options to test out. The title should be in H1 tag and have a character length between 20-70.
Paragraphs: Keep the paragraphs short and simple. You can cut them out into smaller sections or add lists or bullet points. Furthermore, add bold, Italic, and/or underline to emphasize specific points.
Link building: Legal link building has proven to boost rankings. In short, it gives search engines like Google the signal that you’ve done the research and provided quality and new information.
Meta Title: The meta title needs to describe your page using 56-62 characters. It is important to keep the keywords you want to rank for at the beginning of the title.
Meta description: This description should be 150 – 156 characters and usually appears like the following image in Google:

How long should a law firm blog post be for SEO purposes?’

As a whole, the law firm blog posts that perform better on SERP (search engine results pages) like Google tend to be long-form blog posts – like this one!

While many businesses tend to stick to short-form copies of around ≈500 words, the reality is that the content should answer the main question, and sometimes that means adding an elaborate explanation. Research states that certain blogs looking to build authority should aim for 1,000-1,500 words, and when writing guides and how-to blogs, the content should be around 1,500-2,500 words.

Takeaway:

The differentiation factor between your firm and others can lie in your blogging strategy, and to do so with confidence, you’ll need to balance quality SEO practices and provide valuable, engaging content.

If you’re looking to get a 1-pager that compiles all the best SEO tricks – we’ve got you.

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