Dos and Don’ts of Writing a Blog for Your Law Firm’s Website

Date: July 28, 2022

We all know the importance of having a successful website for your law firm in your attempt to gain new clients. A major tenant of your law firm’s online presence should be your company’s blog. As you move your law firm’s website forward, your blog should also grow with the help of both internal personnel and your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) team. Many factors, from keyword use (words that potential clients are searching for) to internal links, will increase your website’s standing on the internet’s SERPs, or Search Engine Results Pages. In producing quality content, your law firm will be placed in front of an ever-growing pool of potential clients. The following suggestions will help you develop quality content for your website. 

DO Write Content That is Relevant to Your Business

You know what you do best. Not only that, but you want potential clients to inherently know how well you know your business. One way to guarantee that is to produce blog content that focuses on your niche and explores the intricacies of it in a way that demonstrates your depth of knowledge. 

It’s easy to meander away from the intended purpose of a blog post, to wander down rabbit holes and dig too deeply into the knowledge that you know so well but may not be relevant to the point you’re trying to make. You want your content to be understandable to the layperson who is coming to you for help, but it should be clear that you have experience, knowledge, and confidence in your field. Utilizing keywords can help you stay focused on the topic at hand.

DON’T Write Your Blog Posts Like a Sales Pitch or Legal Brief

In some ways, blog posts are no different from other marketing content. Indeed, your SEO team will tell you how important it is to produce blog content in order to be seen on search engines by potential clients. 

That being said, it’s actually detrimental to your goals to produce copy that sounds like a sales pitch. After all, the goal of content marketing is to demonstrate your knowledge and increase a client’s confidence in your prowess just as much as it is to get you to the top of Google’s search results. However, no potential client wants to feel like everything coming from your firm is a solicitation. 

On the other hand, your content shouldn’t read like a submission to the court. Make your blog posts engaging and directed to the questions and conundrums clients most often come to you with. Save the “heretofores” and “notwithstandings” for memorandums, storytelling is the name of the game here. Make your goal the spread and demonstration of your knowledge and prowess, and the client leads will follow.

DO Post Regular, Consistent Content

A major part of the success of content marketing comes from consistency and volume of content. A single blog post once in a while certainly doesn’t harm your website’s stats, but it won’t go a very long way in increasing your traffic or improving your website’s position. Producing a steady flow of content, posting several times a month if possible, will give you the best chance at having your content make a significant impact on your law firm’s website. Each of these blog posts provides you with more opportunities to use keywords that your target audience is searching for and to include internal links that will bring new customers to different parts of your website. 

DON’T Ignore What Your Competition Is Doing

You may occasionally find yourself knowing that you need to produce content, but unsure of what topic to push next. While your SEO team can help you choose and develop topics, only you can truly know where your law firm’s focus should be. If you find yourself stuck for ideas, a great place to get inspiration is, surprisingly, from your closest competitors. Like you, other law firms are working diligently to produce blog content and try to work their way up the search engine results pages as they vie for the same target audience as you. 

While they may be creating content about the same broad topics as your firm, it’s likely that they have approached those ideas from different angles or thought of details you may have overlooked. While we don’t advocate plagiarism, of course, looking through your competitors’ past blog posts will likely give you inspiration for niche topics or new perspectives to explore. You may notice as you look across multiple blog pages that certain subjects are trending, prompting you to create quality content that contributes to the conversation. Keeping an eye on the opposition can contribute to successful blogging in unexpected ways.  

DO Pay Attention to Grammar and Readability

You always want to come across as an authority on your law firm’s blog – because you are! Paying close attention to your grammar and punctuation in your blog content will ensure that your authority is not at all diminished by a silly mistake or typo. Additionally, readability is a major factor in successful blogging. You have experience and knowledge in the topic you’re discussing, but it’s likely that your target audience does not. You may have potential clients who are just learning about your niche, who have short attention spans, or who are looking to hire an attorney for the first time. A potential client may be looking for an attorney who not only wants to help, but wants to help the client understand what is happening in their case and why. Demonstrating firm and thorough knowledge while presenting the facts in a consumable way will go a long way towards endearing your firm to your target audience. 

DON’T Be Afraid To Ask For Help

While your law firm’s website, and by extension your blog content, are vitally important to the success of your business, they are not the only work that you have to handle. In an ideal situation, the members of your firm can work together to balance creating quality content in a way that doesn’t overwhelm any one person, but keeps a constant flow of blogs being posted. If, however, you find yourself and your team totally overwhelmed by the prospect of blogging in addition to your normal workload, your SEO team can help. Use them as a resource for topic brainstorming, and even for content production through their internal team or outsourced writers. It’s better to ask for help in creating blog content than it is to find yourself so overloaded that blog production simply stops. 

Interested In Taking Your Law Firm’s Blog Content to the Next Level?

Are you ready to take your website content to the next level? At 9Sail, we specialize in helping attorneys like you with their SEO marketing and content creation. We know all about how a blog can impact your website’s search results rank.

We encourage you to set up a free consultation with our team of experts to find out whether you should use an internal or external blog for your law firm’s website. You can make your appointment by calling or submitting your contact information through our online form. We also offer an audit & blueprint project so that you can get a better idea of your site’s SEO performance.