When someone has a question about a legal problem, more often than not, they turn to a search engine. Blogging generates leads for attorneys by answering those questions and offering additional help to potential clients.
If you’ve done any research into what generates leads for attorneys, you’ve likely come across the topic of blogging. Some attorneys are excited by the prospect of writing a blog. Others think it sounds like a giant waste of time. But blogging gives you a chance to answer the frequently asked questions of your clients and show off your expertise. You can also use it as a medium for expressing your expert opinions on news items. Blogging is a form of content marketing. It can be a fun exercise, but it also generates substantial amounts of leads for attorneys.
If you’re skeptical about blogging, you’re not alone. Some attorneys don’t think they have the time to write a blog. Many don’t see it as an effective marketing tactic because they don’t think anyone will read it. There are a million blogs online, and getting yours noticed is difficult. But keep in mind that 70% of consumers prefer to get to know an organization through articles rather than ads.
Blogging provides potential clients with free information and answers to their burning questions. It’s a vehicle for getting listed in search engines, building trust, and encouraging clients to reach out. In 2015, 65% of lawyers said their firm didn’t have a blog, according to the American Bar Association. That means you have a chance to stand out with blogging.
Here’s how blogging generates leads for attorneys:
Blogging Makes Search Engines Adore You
When they examine your website and its subsequent web pages, search engines determine if your content is a good match for an initiated search query. If all you have is a basic website layout, you may rank for a few search teams. But without a blog, you won’t rank for very many. You may also be missing clients who aren’t searching for the terms that you’ve optimized for. The quality of the content posted on your web pages will affect your search rankings as well. If you have duplicate content on any page of your website, you won’t rank as effectively.
Every blog post you create will stand as its own unique web page. They will also link back to your homepage. Write each blog post to rank for its own search term. The terms you choose could relate to questions you hear often from clients or topics that relate to your practice area. You can write a blog post about anything potential clients might type into a search engine. Some terms are harder to rank for than others.
Blogging is Great for SEO
SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of optimizing web pages to rank in search results. There is much more to SEO than repeating a keyword a few times in a text. A professional SEO company understands how to implement various strategies to improve search rankings, ensuring content is both relevant and engaging for users. The images you choose, the embedded texts in your web elements, and the links going to and from your website also influence your rankings. Organizations who blog receive 97% more links back to their websites.
Blogging produces leads for attorneys by grabbing the attention of qualified readers when they are looking for help online. Once you’ve published a large number of optimized blog posts, they will act as a sort of net in cyberspace. Your best blog posts may even become compounding if they are established as an authority on specific subjects in search results.
Blogging Builds Trust
Once a reader has landed on your blog post, they’ll start reading. You need content that is well-written, interesting, and useful to the reader to keep them engaged. You may have read that the human attention span has become shorter than that of a goldfish. Regardless of whether or not this is hyperbole, it’s true that most people who read online articles will only scan the headline and read 20% of the text.
You need to build trust immediately if you want them to fully digest what you have to say. Put a strategy in place for when they don’t read the entirety of your post. Bold important text within your blog post so it gets noticed. Bold the major points of each section and any language you deem especially important to the reader. You can also use bulleted and numbered lists to simplify things.
Bodies of text that form calls to action also generate leads for attorneys. You can assume that most of your blog readers need legal assistance or are searching for legal advice. Inform them that they need to reach out to a lawyer in specific instances. You can do this without selling your practice directly. Here are a few ideas for blog posts that will generate leads for attorneys:
- Free Legal Advice
- Step Guides
- Recent Changes in the Law
- Case Studies
- Trial Process Guides
- Answers to FAQs
- Legal Strategy Guides
- Dispelling Legal Myths
- Guest Blog Posts
- Seasonal Blog Posts
- Future Law Predictions
Overall, your blog posts should provide readers with information that they didn’t have beforehand. When readers find your information useful, they deem you trustworthy and are more likely to contact you. Place contact forms on your blog posts to encourage readers to convert. Write about the nuances of your practice area, changes to the law, frequently asked questions, news, and anything else your clients may find useful. Remember, you’re blogging for them.
Blogging Generates Leads for Attorneys
You need to update your blog regularly and cover as many relevant topics as possible to maximize the effectiveness of your effort. If you don’t have the time to write or you aren’t confident in your writing ability, outsource your blogging effort to a marketing team. Ask if their copywriters are educated in effective writing. Make sure they have experience writing legal copy and are willing to refer to you for final approval of all content.