Law Firm Blogging Tips for Attorneys

A law firm, like any other business, is dependent on a steady flow of clients if it wants to be successful. Law firm blogs are an excellent way for a firm to showcase its level of expertise and to become more noticeable in online searches.

This article can serve as a guide for attorneys who:

• Require help to gain visibility and exposure online
• Need attorney blog ideas to refresh existing content
• Want to fix their ineffective website to generate quality leads
• Want to increase the conversion rate for prospective clients

Blogging is an essential marketing practice if you want your firm to rank ahead of your competitors on the internet. In this guide, we show you:

• Common excuses lawyers use not to blog, and how to overcome them
• Pro blogging tips for lawyers
• The benefits of blogging for lawyers
• Who you should write your blog for
• An overview of our approach for writing website content for lawyers

If you are struggling with tips for creating law firm blog and need help, Lasting Trend is your surest partner. Our team of savvy content writers will provide law firm blog ideas to refresh your content and create engaging posts. See how Lasting Trend can help you reach your law firm marketing goals.

When Is a Blog Considered Attorney Advertising

An attorney blog is subject to attorney advertising rules if it constitutes a “communication,” expressing the availability for professional employment or if the blog is included in the law firm’s professional website. Take a look at law firm website best practices to see that all firms with a big online traffic do blogging things.

Blog posts made by or on behalf of an attorney stating service listings, background, qualifications, and other attributes concerning the lawyer or a law firm and their intent to distribute to the public are a clear implication of employment availability.

Additionally, attorney blog posts referencing previous, present, and/or prospective client(s) detailing an attorney’s courtroom triumphs or other professional successes also constitute “communication” and are subject to the attorney advertisement rules.

Generally, any blog post containing offerings to the audience to engage the attorney, or steps towards securing potential employment is a “communication.”

10 Rules for Blogging for Lawyers

Is blogging something that you or your law firm devotes a significant amount of resources to? In today’s digital world where content marketing provides more bang for your dollars than most other strategies, blogging for law firms is critical. That isn’t to say that simply tossing up whatever is on your mind would suffice.  

Understanding and following the ethical tips for lawyers blogging and law firm advertising rules below isn’t only a great idea but equally mandatory to evade unethical lawyer advertising and the potential consequences.

Don’t Imply an Attorney-Client Relationship

To establish an attorney-client relationship, the client must indicate his or her intent for the attorney to provide legal services, as well as consent from the attorney to do so. The attorney’s consent can be express or implied, which creates a gray area. Implied consent occurs when an attorney is aware or reasonably should know that a client is reasonably depending on the lawyer to deliver services, implied consent occurs.

By reading a lawyer’s blog post, a person is unlikely to develop an attorney-client relationship. Nobody reading an article or a post would reasonably assume “that attorney just consented to provide me with legal services.” However, people can sometimes be unreasonable. So take extra care to avoid writing anything that implies consent to providing the reader with legal services – you can include a disclaimer for an extra layer of caution.

Stay Away From Providing Legal Advice

This is fairly related to the attorney-client relationship scenario but trickier. If the reader isn’t your client, then generally you cannot be held responsible for offering the reader bad legal advice. However, it’s trickier because the major scope of blog writing for lawyers is to provide guidance based on your expertise. Thus, technically, it’s legal advice.

There isn’t any clear solution to avoiding this, but it is good practice to include a disclaimer. A disclaimer helps clarify that your expert analysis isn’t legal advice for any specific circumstance.

Unauthorized Practice of Law

Perhaps the biggest hurdle for how to start a blog for law firms is the possibility of sanctions in jurisdictions where the attorney(s) neither reside nor maintain an office. Law practice in a state where an attorney isn’t admitted is “unauthorized practice of law” and an ethical violation.

Law practice online takes place at the location of the information or services recipient. Thus the unauthorized practice of law subjects a lawyer to both the state laws of where he/she is admitted and any other area within which he/she practices.

Be cautious about this rule when blogging as law practice includes an appearance before an adjudicative body on behalf of a client, consulting clients, advertising legal services, or rendering other services which need legal skill and knowledge.

File Your Blog Post If It Contains “Advertising”

Any advertisement in the media must be filed with the Advertising Review Committee of your specific state. Therefore, lawyers blogging have two options:

• Stuff your law firm website with as much advertising as you want then file it, or 
• Avoid writing anything that will be deemed advertising

Blogs considered to be naturally informational or educational are not required to be filed. So make your website informational or educational if you want to avoid making your blog an advertisement. This makes for a better post though.

However, be careful of some natural things done in blog posts that can turn an educational or informational blog into advertising. They include:

• Promoting successes obtained for a client
• Advertising the attorney’s qualifications or experience
• The “call-to-action”

Don’t Compare Yourself to Other Lawyers

Making unverifiable claims and comparisons with other attorneys’ services is against the rules of lawyer blogging and attracts disciplinary measures. A lawyer may not compare his/her services with other law firm services except the comparison can be validated by reference to objective and verifiable data.

Examples of unsubstantiated comparisons include “we will recover your funds when other lawyers can’t,” or “our law firm is the best if you want a large recovery.” Additionally, you risk turning your blog post into an advertisement as stated above.

Add a Disclaimer

The rules for attorney blogs must be strictly followed at all times. However, because of the wide range of state ethical rules, it will almost certainly be impossible to follow the state-specific rules a legal blog reaches. As a result, a full and explicit disclaimer is the best course of action for any attorney blogger.

Many law firm websites incorporate standard disclaimers, especially if a lawyer provides legal advice through the site. Disclaimers are a simple approach to reduce liability by lowering the likelihood that a reader would rely on erroneous, misleading, or unlawful information in a blog.

However, note that disclaimers should be specific and free of legal jargon at all times, as the goal is to inform the layperson.

Don’t Make False or Misleading Statements

When it comes to advertising your law firm, outright lying is a big no-no. But it’s not just outright lies that might be construed as unethical lawyer advertising. False, misdirecting, or misleading statements regarding the services you provide, the results you’ve received, or even the rates you charge can all be considered violations of legal advertising guidelines.

When advertising, using superlatives such as “the best,” “the lowest,” or “the most” could be viewed as deceptive. While you may believe your firm is the best, expressing something that can’t be measured may mislead prospects—and violate legal advertising rules.

Make sure you don’t make assertions that are technically correct but contain information that could lead to confusion. For example, promoting free consultations when you only offer five-minute consultations and demand a fee for anything longer is deceptive.

Confidentiality Obligations

In many states, “Confidential information” includes both the “privileged information” and “unprivileged information” of the client. Privileged information is quite easy to understand, but the reverse is the case for unprivileged information.

Unprivileged information refers to all non-privileged information relating to the client or furnished by the client, acquired by an attorney by reason of or during the course of representation of the client. This definition is extraordinarily broad. 

It makes no difference if the information is public knowledge. If it relates to the client and is obtained during the course of representing the client, it’s confidential. There are however exceptions when the client consents to its use after consultation.

Alternatively, you can use the information generically or hypothetically, but be careful! If you include a specific description that the reader can reference who you’re talking about, you may still violate the confidentiality rule.

Duty to Be Truthful

Multiple legal advice may be given when attempting to comply with advertising rules. However, once an attorney-client relationship is established, only specific legal advice will do. This is generally because attorneys are charged with the duty to diligently assist, zealously represent, and ardently protect the interests of their clients.

Thus, should an attorney-client relationship be established as a result of a legal blog, the duties owed to that client may not be upheld with minimal internet contact. Lawyer bloggers must be aware that once an attorney-client relationship is established, whether expressed or implied, the duty of diligence may require that more attention be dedicated than a mere general response to the client’s question.

Prohibition against Trial Publicity

Lawyers are prohibited from making public statements or comments of any form about pending cases that they are involved in, particularly if the statement may substantially interfere with the fairness of a trial by the jury.

As jurors most likely circle around the same internet space as the attorneys, there is a risk of a mistrial if the participating lawyers are blogging or tweeting about it.

Common Hardships in Blogging for Attorneys and How to Get Past Them

One of the common challenges of blogging for attorneys is not having time to blog. Time constraint is a serious challenge for every lawyer. Attorneys’ schedules are jam-packed, and any spare time is spent preparing for the next day. Well, guess what? Many attorneys never spend time writing their blog posts. You might hire an agency to take care of writing your legal thoughts while you focus on legal matters.

Another challenge of law firm website content writing is visibility: nobody reads your content. This may be a result of too much technical jargon or poor law firm SEO. You should understand that setting up an attorney blog is serious stuff with numerous hot technical topics. However, your blog should engage readers with content that demonstrates proof of your competence. Using ambiguous words which aren’t commonly used every day often upset people who don’t have any legal background. Use simple language that communicates a friendly demeanor.

Furthermore, you may also experience low visibility because internet users aren’t aware that your blog exists. Content that doesn’t appear on a Google Search wouldn’t receive any traffic. You should use SEO to optimize your website for the right keywords so that search engines can find it during user search sessions.

Lasting Trend can provide solutions to all these challenges. We will write and manage your blog if you have no time. We believe that your digital marketing investments should bring you significant ROI. We possess the expertise to create easy-to-read and well optimize content to ensure that your website gets the desired traffic.

I Don’t Have Time to Blog

Lack of time is a real issue for any lawyer. Lawyers pack their schedules and any extra time available often goes toward preparation for the next day. What lawyer can honestly say they have time to blog in between meetings, court dates, litigation, new clients, and so on?

A legal practice simply does not allow for the extra time and commitment to write marketing blogs. We’re going to let you in on a little secret. Most lawyers do not write their blogs. That’s right.

A firm generally hires a third-party marketing agency that specializes in legal SEO to prepare and manage the law firm marketing blog. Outsourcing means you can ask an agency to put your legal thoughts in writing while you are taking care of legal matters. When you hire professionals, you’ll get a lawyer’s marketing plan and a clear marketing strategy.

Pro tip: Delegate the writing and management of your blog to digital marketing professionals. They can run your law firm marketing blog at a fraction of what it would cost your firm to give up client time to write an article. Limit your involvement to that of requesting specific topics and signing off on the legal correctness of each blog.

Nobody Reads My Blog

Writing law firm blogs but not seeing any meaningful readership can be disheartening. It shouldn’t be an excuse not to write a blog, however. There are two main reasons why blogs go unread:

Writing Too Technically

Lawyer’s blogs are serious business. With topics such as personal injury, labor and employment, and divorce, there’s no room to joke around. However, some lawyers take seriousness one step too far when they write for their blogs.

Specifically, they fail to keep their target audience in mind and, instead, write as one professional lawyer to another. Remember the primary purpose of your blog is to attract clients who see your articles as a sign of expertise. Using legal language with terms such as “hereby” or “shall” that you don’t usually hear out on the streets can alienate clients who have no legal education.

Pro tip: Write to express your ideas in layman’s terms to everyday citizens. Simplify complicated terms and provide explanations of complex legal ideas wherever possible. Use language that is easy to understand and that conveys a sense of approachability.

We have understood through our many experiences developing attorney blog ideas that Google often gives top rankings good easy-to-read articles with SEO. This is why we employ SEO-savvy paralegals in our content writing for law firms’ services.

You Are a Legal Blogging Expert, But Not the SEO OneYou Are a Legal Blogging Expert, But Not the SEO One

One reason why internet users don’t read your blog is simply that they don’t know it exists. Internet users don’t typically read something that doesn’t pop up in an online search. Every blog needs search engine optimization (SEO) with the right keywords so that a search engine can find it during a user search.

If you are not applying this law firm marketing strategy, then it may be true that nobody reads your law firm blog. Fixing this issue is simple if you have knowledge of SEO or if you outsource your optimization to a reputable company.

Pro tip: Make sure that every article you publish uses the appropriate SEO for lawyers blog. Keep in mind that it takes three to four months before SEO strategies start to move you up the rankings, so do not give up too soon. A reputable SEO company can help you set up the necessary optimizations to improve your blog ranking on the internet. It also frees you from having to learn the complexities of search engine optimization.

Don’t just create a blog post once every week because someone on the internet said so. All of our blog writing for attorneys should be tailored to the consumer journey. We don’t produce a blog post if the topic doesn’t aid potential consumers at any step of the customer journey.

Fun Fact: According to Live Internet, 7 million+ blog posts are produced daily, however, less than 10% of these content online actually receive Google traffic (Ahrefs).

The key to effective digital marketing for law firms (and businesses generally) is not how frequently or how many blog posts you produce. Instead, it’s about the quality of your content. Is your content excellent enough for Google to rank it on the first page of search results and bring you more customers?

Why Blogging For Lawyers Is A Necessary Thing To Do?

Blogging is an excellent tool for increasing the online visibility of any business. Businesses of all sizes can and should consider starting a blog.

This is particularly true in the legal profession. When people are entangled in a legal issue or are looking for legal advice, they usually turn to the internet for assistance. Instead of finding scholarly articles, they are more likely to come across numerous blog posts that provide the answers.

The key is to be the law firm blog that can provide these answers and gain a potential client in the process. Want to know why blogging writing for lawyers is important for your law firm? Continue reading to learn how blogging can help your law firm’s business grow.

Search Engines Love Good Content

Content is the key to achieving a higher ranking on search engines, such as Google. Search engines pay more attention to sites that publish quality content regularly. However, not just any content will do. It must be well-researched quality content that is well written and exclusive to your website.

Good content is one of the top three factors that influence your website ranking. Search engines exist to respond to search queries with the most relevant information available. Therefore, they reward sites with better, newer, and original content.

Don’t forget to keep your content up to date as well. You may lose positions if the topic of an article changes. In that scenario, we analyze competitors to see how we might improve the content. Such a strategy frequently yields positive rankings.

Pro tip: If you want to get the attention of search engines, then you need to post a new blog once a week, or at least bi-monthly. Whatever frequency you choose, make sure you remain consistent. Search engines reward consistency too. An SEO professional can help you manage the consistency of your blog post schedule.

Attract Qualified Traffic to Your Law Firm Site

Useful information attracts readers. If you write it properly then blogging for lawyers attracts the type of visitors you want as clients. If you can impress these prospective clients with the type of information that you offer, then you will have a competitive advantage. Some of these users will decide to buy your services.

Every article you publish is an opportunity to attract someone who might not have considered your firm. In short, every article is an opportunity to win over a new client. An example of this concept in action involves a blog post we created called “How long will my personal injury lawsuit take?”

In that blog, we described the entire personal injury claim procedure step by step. It was a very difficult blog to produce, but it provided lots of value to readers who had difficulty finding that information elsewhere.

Pro tip: Do not generalize your blogs. Write about the specific solutions that your future clients could be searching for. For example, “How to claim for worker’s compensation in Michigan?” or “What information my lawyer will need during a personal injury lawsuit.” Describe the topic in a way that will portray your firm as experts in the field. The more blogs you generate, the more traffic you will attract, and the more business lead you will generate.

More Information on Your Website Means More Ways for New Clients to Find You

Keep in mind when blogging for lawyers that internet users search for specific keywords related to the topic they want information on. The more keywords you have on your website, the more chances you have for prospective clients to come across your site.

Each time you write a new blog, use several new keywords. This collection of important search terms compounds over the months to improve your overall keyword count and, ultimately, your overall ranking.

For example, for a recent client, we wrote the blog “How does unemployment work in New York?” While covering the topic, we discovered that people were also looking for the following search terms:

• how long do you have to work to collect unemployment in NY
• NYS unemployment faq
• unemployment calculator NY

These discoveries gave us great blog points to write about, which we included in the article. By answering such questions, we provided extra value to our readers and helped attract new business for our client. By the way, check the law office of Yuriy Moshes case study to learn how we increased their blog organic traffic over 20-fold within the first 6 months.

Regardless of the keywords, you use for each blog post, remember to write quality content centered around the keywords you use. Write content in an “evergreen” manner, using information that will continue to be applicable in the years to come. In addition to offering new visitors value that won’t diminish over time, such content also gives the visitors you gain from a single blog post an incentive to revisit your site in the future because they see it as a source of expertise.

Pro tip: Do not just use generic keywords in your firm’s content. Use a niche keyword tool like SEMrush to determine the most popular niche keywords that potential clients include in a search. A niche keyword is one that uses a long tail of words that describe your services. For example, instead of just using the keyword “lawyer,” use the long-tail keywords “medical malpractice lawyer” or “personal injury lawyer in Florida.”The more specific your keywords, the more effective you will be at attracting the right clients.

Answer the Questions Your Potential Clients Are Asking

Writing a blog is like sending a prospective client an invitation to engage with you on a topic that matters to them. Potential clients want to know up front that you have the knowledge and experience to help them with their legal issue. They also want to feel as if there is already a connection with your firm.

One of the best ways to do both is to write your law firm blogs in response to legal questions that a real audience asks every day. There are two ways to establish what these questions are.

The first is to compile a list of questions that your current clients ask you during consultations.

The second is to investigate the questions that internet users are generally asking a search engine to answer for them.

‍Questions might be something like – How do I choose the best lawyer for my case? Can I take my boss to court? How does a law firm protect my privacy during a lawsuit?

Using the previous example involving the blog “How does unemployment work in New York?”, we found that people were looking for answers for the following questions:

• Will I be eligible for unemployment benefits if I was laid off from work?
• If I voluntarily quit my job, but I had a good reason, will I qualify for unemployment?
• Can I file a claim if I lost my full-time work but still work part-time?
• What will the number of my unemployment benefits be?
• What is the maximum amount of benefits I can receive?
• To answer these questions, we created an FAQ section, providing detailed answers to each question. Because these are real questions that potential law clients would click into a search result for, it drastically increased the probability that our blog would rank higher. It also enhanced the authoritativeness of the blog and helped our client win more business.

Pro tip: Don’t forget about good website design. Check our law firm web design guide to see how good your website is.

Use your preferred search engine to help you identify common questions and use these to choose the titles of your next blog series. Here’s how it’s done. Open an internet search and type in a typical question that a client could ask. For example: “Can I sue for malpractice in Florida?” If you scroll down to the bottom of the search page, you will find a list of related questions that other users have asked on the same topic.

In this case, we have:

• “How long do you have to file a medical malpractice lawsuit in Florida?”
• “Who can sue for medical malpractice in Florida?”
• “What are the Florida medical malpractice pre-trial requirements?”

Each of these can be a title for a future legal blog. Choose the questions you like best and pass the list on to your legal blogging expert to do the writing.

A Law Firm Blog Is A Great Way to Announce Firm News, Awards, and Cases Won

A blog is a fantastic way to showcase the successes and developments of your firm. Blogs do not only have to inform readers about legal matters, but you can also use them to show that you are proud of what your firm achieves.

News blogs can cover anything from an accolade you achieved to your involvement in the local community. These feel-good, celebratory posts help to establish a connection with readers. Soft topic blogging for attorneys or lawyers adds a human touch to the very technical world of law.

One instance of our use of blogging in this manner involved a client firm who scored nominations as “Superlawyers” for three of their partners. We marketed this to prospective clients through the blog, newsletter, and social media. It offered a great opportunity to remind potential clients that the firm would offer them great value without having to invent a reason.

Pro tip: Blog after every legal success and every notable milestone at your firm. This will help to establish your reputation as a professional team on the move. It will also help create an emotional connection with the reader. Do not be afraid to showcase any proof that your firm stands out from the average law firm in the area. Always write these posts with humility and gratitude toward the team and clients that make any news possible.

Law firm blogs help your firm establish authority

Any client who seeks legal services will want to get the best team behind them from the start. Prospective clients generally do a thorough investigation of various legal options before choosing which firm to approach with their problem.

When a firm has a well-established blog containing useful and knowledgeable information, it gives the unmistakable impression that the team is an established authority in the legal market. The more informative the blog content, the greater the impression of legal authority it will create.

Pro tip: Make sure prospective clients can see that you are relevant, knowledgeable, and up-to-date by placing good content on your blog. You can never have too much information. The law is a complex issue, and there are numerous topics you can cover without the reader feeling overwhelmed by the volume. A library of information on your site will help to establish your credibility and authority in a highly competitive industry.

How to Start a Blog for Law Firms. Blogging Tips for Lawyers

Starting a blog can provide several advantages for lawyers. Above all, it enables law firms to demonstrate their competence to potential clients. A law firm shows the world how it thinks about its chosen subject area with each blog post. These posts can be significantly more relevant, illuminating, and influential in a prospective client’s decision to hire an attorney than an attorney bio. Even if a firm’s blog doesn’t directly reach prospects, it is an effective strategy to establish a professional reputation that will eventually lead to a better profile and more referrals and recommendations.

Legal bloggers who are successful build large networks of peers who value their work. Members of the media who have come to regard them as an authority in their fields routinely consult and quote them. If you don’t have any experience in writing, better to start from social media. You’ll need to write 50-200 words posts to see how an audience will take them. If you don’t know where to start, we have comprehensive social media marketing for law firms guide that will help you to start working in that direction.

Here are five tips for creating a law firm blog that will keep readers coming back for more.

Update Your Blog Regularly

Orphan blogs and sites that post fresh content irregularly abound on the Internet. Don’t be that lawyer blogger.

Regular blog posts encourage readers to return to your website for more information and analysis. If your posting schedule becomes erratic, it might quickly be forgotten by a once dedicated audience.

Define Your Audience

It is crucial to build your blog around the concept of a target audience. Your topics can be a little more esoteric if your goals are more focused on thought leadership and conversations with other legal minds. The same is true for the language you use in your writing—technical terms are preferred. However, potential clients will click away if they see too much jargon or believe they need a law degree to understand what they are reading.

Communicate With Your Blog Post Readers

Your audience is the reason you started the legal blog in the first place. Your readers will determine whether your blog succeeds or fails. Ignoring their feedback will be detrimental.

Receiving feedback from readers about the content they wish published is one way to accomplish this. As a result, your blog will have a very interactive relationship with your readers.

Shift your focus away from what you think readers SHOULD care about and toward what they DO care about.

Promote Your Blog Post’s Legal Advice

Blogging for attorneys enables legal professionals of diverse expertise and experience levels to share their knowledge and relate with their audience on a more personal level. When writing a blog, your primary focus should always be on your reader, but SEO should also be considered. Simply incorporating your target keywords into your content or encouraging other law firm blogs to link to your website can help boost your search engine rankings and make your work more accessible.

Ensure that your SEO strategy includes niche and custom-tailored keywords that will help drive more organic traffic. Consider using metrics tools such as Google Analytics to track your site’s traffic and determine whether your current strategy is working.

Include a Call to Action

CTAs are critical parts of a legal blog’s lead generation process. Without CTAs, it is difficult for people who visit your blog to convert on your landing pages if they don’t stumble upon it later.

You can increase conversions by including more CTAs on your blog in various formats to address various parts of your marketing funnel. Don’t know how to create one? Just visit the PPC pages of other law firms and find some inspiration. Because PPC for lawyers may be expensive, so PPC pages should have the highest conversion rate possible.

Practice Areas Where Lawyers Blogging Works Best

Blog writing for lawyers is the ideal solution to obtain more leads in the following competitive legal areas:

• Personal Injury Law
• Employment Law
• Real Estate Law
• Family Law
• Bankruptcy Law
• Corporate Law
• Criminal Law
• Immigration Law
• Civil Law

If you have a license to practice in any of those areas of law, then blogging is a right choice to get new leads.

Our Approach to Law Firm Blogging

If you don’t have much time for research, writing posts, Lasting Trend can help. We provide your law firm with genuinely effective solutions based on our extensive market analysis and experience. Lasting Trend understands your marketing challenges because we had the same issue with our business: we wanted to generate leads from our website without wasting time or money. We’re now ready to show our Client Journey Content approach after months of trial and error and thousands of dollars spent on testing the latest tactics on ourselves. 

Let’s take the case of a personal injury attorney. Segmentation is the initial step. You must identify client personas. Divide your market into little segments rather than having a single page on your website, such as “personal injury lawyer” (the smaller the piece, the more targeted the message). You’ll need separate pages for: 

• Car accident lawyer
• Work-related accidents 
• Slip and fall accidents
• Medical Malpractice, etc.

This represents the most basic level of targeting, which all savvy marketing firms are aware of and employ. If you pay someone for digital marketing and they fail to deliver, you can lawfully terminate their contract.

What Helps Us to Deliver Results?

The segmentation stage isn’t the only step in traditional marketing. Marketers must align the customers’ journey with each segment after segmentation. The four basic stages of the customer journey are awareness, interest, consideration, and decision.

Many SEO experts just work with the final step, which works for a wide range of sectors with a relatively low risk of failure. For example, if you searched for a new toaster online and “got a lemon,” you wasted $40 and three days waiting for delivery.

Conversely, if you pick a bad attorney, you risk ruining your life. And your potential clients are well aware of this, so they don’t hire the first lawyer who pops up on Google; instead, they hire an attorney they can trust.

It means that your digital strategy should include more than just attempting to rank #1 on Google (which isn’t insignificant), but also establishing relationships and trust with potential clients.

How to accomplish this? 

Let’s use a medical malpractice case as an example: something horrible happened. A medical malpractice victim is frustrated since she has never dealt with such a situation before, neither her friends nor family. She pulls out her phone and searches for “What is medical malpractice?” and “How do I know if I have a medical malpractice case?” She is in the stage of becoming aware.

If she lands on your website, where you provide her with all of the necessary information, you’ve already begun to build a relationship with her. Ideally, you’ve encouraged her to go on to the next stage, such as your website’s “similar/related articles” or “next steps section.” It’s crucial since she’ll be one step closer to being your client at this next stage.

During the interest stage, she can seek answers to a variety of questions:

• “How do you establish medical malpractice?”
• “How do I file a medical malpractice complaint?”
• “How can I launch a lawsuit for medical malpractice?”

Your role here isn’t to upsell your services but enhance the relationships. Make every effort to deliver the greatest possible response to potential clients’ inquiries so that they will go to the next stage with you.

The consideration stage is the first stage in which you might begin to slightly promote yourself. The implementation is easier since the tone of the inquiries naturally shifts to the commercial aspect:

• “How long does it take for a medical malpractice lawsuit to be resolved?”
• “What is medical malpractice’s statute of limitations?”
• “How much is the average settlement for medical malpractice lawsuits?”
• “How likely is it that a medical malpractice lawsuit will be successful?”
• “What do medical malpractice lawyers do?”

Final stage: evaluation

Typically, questions here revolve around money and determining the best option:

• “How can I locate the greatest medical malpractice attorney?”
• “How much do medical malpractice lawyers charge?”

At this stage, most lawyers are the same: they charge similar fees (percentage-based) and are similarly competent, according to internet reviews and case studies on websites. In this scenario, the only difference is trust. If you’ve done everything well in the previous stages, the client will have faith in you because you’ve been with her throughout the entire customer experience, providing the necessary information and answering all of her questions.

This is the approach we take with all of our clients. We don’t just publish a blog post once a week because it’s required of us. We tie everything we do on our website and social media to the client journey. We don’t produce a blog post if the topic doesn’t aid potential consumers at any step of the customer journey.

Content Marketing for Lawyers by Lasting Trend

Today, there are two approaches to content creation in legal marketing. Either a copywriter who understands SEO but is less knowledgeable in law creates the content (which is the most typical scenario) or an attorney who knows the law but not copywriting creates content (in this scenario such content receives poor rankings on Google).

Client Journey Content Strategy Approach

Our strategy to growing your business from “problem” to “solution”:

1. Divide the customer journey of potential clients into stages.
2. Research how potential customers phrase their inquiries at each stage of the customer journey. 
3. Develop content for each inquiry and interlink them to help clients get from problem to solution.
4. Ensure that at each level of the client’s journey, the client can contact the attorney for a private free consultation or proceed to the next stage with us.

At Lasting Trend, we’ve solved this challenge with our unique strategy, which no other digital marketing uses. A team of three specialists is responsible for all legal content and law firm newsletter: an SEO researcher, a paralegal, and a content manager.

1. SEO Researcher: Conducts SEO market research that is specific to the practice area and geographical location. Further creates detailed copywriting specifications for paralegals based on the findings.
2. Paralegal: Creates content depending on the requirements. Ensures legal accuracy by fact-checking all information.
3. Content Manager: Finalizes the copy, adds call-to-actions and publishes articles on the website.

FAQ

Bonus: Writing Your Blog for Different Audiences

We have spoken about writing your blog with the prospective client in mind, but the truth is that you need to make an impression on three different audiences. Let’s speak about impressing the internet user, search engine, and yourself.

Writing for Internet Users

Prospective clients must be the first in mind when you write. You will be writing to attract a broader audience with an interest in law, some of whom will eventually convert to clients. If readers like your law firm blogs, then they will come back for more.

A good blog also sets you apart from competitors as being superior in the knowledge and experience of legal solutions. Write every blog so that the information is relevant, up-to-date and SEO optimized to attract the right searches.

Do not take shortcuts by borrowing or spinning content. Search engines could destroy your rankings if you use hacks and tricks to try to fool the ranking algorithm.

Aggressive scholarship link building is an example of such hacks and techniques. When your website is penalized, you lose a lot more customers than you would have gotten using those strategies. To make your website a reliable source of fresh leads, we propose adopting white-hat SEO, which we recommend at Lasting Trend.

Pro tip: Every blog must be original and based on excellent research so that it contains more than just the average facts on a topic. If you do not have time to write it yourself then choose a writer who will not take shortcuts. The writer must also have the right experience in using SEO to attract the right audience to your firm’s website.

Writing for Search Engines

Search engines, such as Google, love good content. They love good content because internet users love good content. A blog is the best way to provide your website with a regular flow of content.

Search engines reward websites that offer relevant, original content regularly. They constantly scan websites and rank those they know readers can trust.

‍The higher the quality of the content and the accurate the SEO keyword usage, the more guarantee there is that your rankings will improve.

Pro tip: Only place content on your site that you know search engines will like. Two techniques can help you rank higher. The first is to use keywords that internet users will likely search for. We call this SEO or Search Engine Optimization. The second is to include links to your page in other trustworthy sources, like news resources or research sites.

Search engines also prefer to rank a site that publishes quality content consistently, has a user-friendly site layout, and has quick page loading times.

Writing For Your Own Growth

Writing an in-depth blog is a great way to grow your own knowledge about a topic. It is quite common to come across a topic that can be broken down into sub-topics so that you can create a series of articles that go into more detail than an average, high-level blog.

Although all blogs need to be informative, some can be truly educational – for you and the reader.

Pro tip: If you are going to commission the writing of your blog, then you will still learn something by editing and approving the articles. If you outsource then make sure you commission the writing to a writer or company that you can trust to prepare the most up-to-date and factually correct articles.

Long-Term Results

Building a successful blog can be an asset to your law firm when you use the right SEO for your law firm blogs. Results might trickle in slowly at first, but they will compound over time until you have a noticeable improvement in your ranking, leads, and conversions. In short, an investment in a blog will bring you returns that far outweigh the effort.

A blog can even become your most powerful marketing tool and replace other more expensive forms of marketing for your firm. To reach this point, you need to be strategic, intentional, and consistent in your legal blogging. The best way to do this is to invest in SEO for your lawyer’s blog.

As stated above, there are numerous opportunities in the legal niche to tap into where readers are looking for information that you may have the expertise to provide. If you deliver fascinating content, you may be able to attract a large audience and a large following, which, in the legal blogosphere, equates to fantastic improved conversion rates. However, there are usually several great opportunities and law firm blog ideas out there than you will have time for, so it’s critical to understand how to have a blog that you don’t have to constantly struggle with.

Get Your Free Consultation With Law Firm Blogging Expert

Lack of time is an element that causes a majority of aspiring attorney bloggers to fail: the lack of time to produce and publish quality content and updates regularly. If your legal blog doesn’t get fresh optimized content and constant, regular updates, your readers get bored and eventually stop returning to see if you’ve published anything new. Don’t let your law firm blog become a burden to you.

Your law firm blog can benefit from professional blogging for attorneys’ services provided by Lasting Trend. We have US-based writers with law degrees who will provide your readers with first-class content.