Law Firm Blogs — Content That Gets People Talking

Writ­ing about the law can help devel­op your busi­ness and attract new clients. Since legal writ­ing is not com­mon­ly excit­ing for read­ers out­side the indus­try, it is a huge con­tent are­na that is left unex­plored by many. Blogs are a clever way to share legal infor­ma­tion and advice with prospec­tive clients who oth­er­wise might not be inclined to research legal matters.

Masterful Content Can Lead to New Clients

Aside from shar­ing impor­tant legal infor­ma­tion, writ­ing blogs is a strong tac­tic for grow­ing your busi­ness. Blogs are one of the few ways to con­stant­ly add more and fresh con­tent to your web­site. Each time you add new con­tent with rel­e­vant key­words, SEO increas­es and push­es you and your firm clos­er to the top results that con­sumers find when search­ing for legal ser­vices in your area.

Law blogging requires time, depth of understanding and creativity

When your blog post is strong, Google will reward you gen­er­ous­ly and con­sumers will tune in to read your con­tent reg­u­lar­ly. If you can get read­ers fol­low­ing and shar­ing your blog, you can quick­ly ascend to an author­i­ta­tive posi­tion in the mar­ket. To climb the ranks of qual­i­ty con­tent writ­ing, you’ll need ded­i­cat­ed time, expert legal under­stand­ing and cre­ative ideas for con­vinc­ing con­sumers to read your posts.

The best legal blog is educational and entertaining

Writ­ing legal con­tent that keeps read­ers’ atten­tion is crit­i­cal to get­ting prospec­tive clients to stay on your blog long enough to devel­op both inter­est and trust in your firm. The sweet spot for legal posts is con­tent that is high­ly infor­ma­tive but also con­ver­sa­tion­al, it reads as enter­tain­ing instead of edu­ca­tion­al. Hon­ing this craft is no easy feat, but we’ll do our best to pro­vide insight on how to craft the most enter­tain­ing blog pieces.

Tips for legal blogging

Before you start blog­ging, it’s impor­tant to under­stand the task ahead. Research­ing the mar­ket, your audi­ence, cur­rent events, and com­peti­tor pieces will help you make the most of your legal writ­ing. Let’s look at a few tips to keep in mind when pub­lish­ing posts:

Research your consumers thoroughly

Before com­ing up with law top­ics to write about, research your con­sumers. If you pro­vide DUI rep­re­sen­ta­tion, there’s no need to brain­storm a hun­dred ideas about over­seas trade law or cur­rent events that aren’t rel­e­vant to the ser­vices your firm offers.

As you research con­sumers, pay atten­tion to what ser­vices they’re look­ing for; if they’re in imme­di­ate need of rep­re­sen­ta­tion; if they’re look­ing for local help; whether they relate more to cur­rent events or pop cul­ture. All the infor­ma­tion you col­lect on prospec­tive clients will paint a clear pic­ture of what con­tent they’ll be will­ing to read. Remem­ber, you are ulti­mate­ly writ­ing to win clients, so ensur­ing posts are in the wheel­house of con­sumer inter­est is key.

Come up with more ideas than you can post

Once you have the basic para­me­ters for what will inter­est con­sumers, host a brain­storm­ing ses­sion with every­one at the firm. Gen­er­ate as many ideas as pos­si­ble so you always have a large sup­ply of top­ic ideas to write about. Once you have a healthy list, you can orga­nize them by con­sumer rel­e­vance, enter­tain­ment val­ue, con­tent fill­ing, and avail­able research.

Use timely legal research

If you are ref­er­enc­ing legal advice or events, make sure to find recent qual­i­ty sources. Advice is futile if it’s not up to date, and it won’t reflect well on the pro­fes­sion­al­ism of your firm. Take the time to search or to keep writ­ers up to date with the lat­est. Once you have qual­i­ty sources, use them to boost the author­i­ta­tive voice of your post.

Speak conversationally

Legal infor­ma­tion is hard to digest, so speak con­ver­sa­tion­al­ly and as sim­ply as pos­si­ble. Avoid details and pro­vide links or con­tact infor­ma­tion to dis­cuss ideas at greater lengths.

Opt for a thematic niche

Per­haps your blog can fol­low a theme through­out its life­time. Con­sid­er stay­ing on the beat with cur­rent events, pop cul­ture, humor, sto­ry or a par­tic­u­lar legal genre.

Promote your blog

Use all oth­er mar­ket­ing means to get the word out about your blog. Find room for a plug-in for your month­ly newslet­ter, in emails, in your for­mat­ted sig­na­ture and in the con­tent you write for oth­er sources. The more traf­fic you get to your blog, the more clicks and poten­tial clients you initiate.

Stay on brand

Use your blog as a plat­form to share more about your brand, includ­ing per­son­al­i­ty. Once you estab­lish your brand voice and deter­mine how to con­vey com­pa­ny cul­ture to con­sumers, stick with it in every piece you share.

Collect, analyze and use data

Set up a data track­ing sys­tem for your blogs so you can see which posts fare well with con­sumers and which top­ics to avoid in the future. Make sure to imple­ment the analy­ses you draw from col­lect­ed data.

Once you are set with how to imple­ment your blog writ­ing, jump­start the blog top­ic brain­storm­ing. Com­ing up with ideas to dis­cuss can be a ton of fun and pro­vide ample room for expan­sion, so set a time when your whole team can get togeth­er and come up with new focus­es, together.

Here a few idea starters to get the group thinking:

Ideas for legal blogs that get people talking

Use a narrative

Nar­ra­tives are the eas­i­est way to con­vey com­plex infor­ma­tion in a user-friend­ly way. When shar­ing legal advice, frame it in the con­text of a rel­e­vant exam­ple, allow­ing the read­er to iden­ti­fy with the protagonist.

Discuss a current event with a legal tie

Incor­po­rate pieces on cur­rent events that have some­thing to do with the law. This lets con­sumers know you are on top of local or nation­al events and how to under­stand them from a legal firm’s point of view.

Showcase wins and losses

When you have cas­es (win or lose), use them with client per­mis­sion to exam­ine and show­case firm suc­cess­es or miss­es. Point­ing out where a case goes awry can be a pow­er­ful way to show strength in vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and uncov­er what you learned from the case (or from another’s exam­ple) and how to per­form better.

Include infographics or visuals

Legal jar­gon is tax­ing to digest, so help move your read­ers along the page by pro­vid­ing info­graph­ics and rel­e­vant visu­als. These pic­tures break up your con­tent into sev­er­al sec­tions, mak­ing it more enjoy­able to move through. Addi­tion­al­ly, it serves your team to pro­vide read­ers anoth­er form of infor­ma­tion to under­stand and break down. On top of visu­als help­ing break up con­tent, it speaks bet­ter to some consumers.

Share advice and use a disclaimer

Use blog posts to share tips or cours­es of action to take when face to face with a legal sit­u­a­tion that your com­pa­ny rep­re­sents. Be sure to include a dis­claimer that clear­ly states the blog post is not offi­cial legal guidance.

Invite guest bloggers

Add diver­si­ty and out­side insight into your post by invit­ing indus­try-rel­e­vant fig­ures to blog on the firm’s behalf. Ask the writer to share the post on their social chan­nels, too.

Have an idea to share?

Did we miss any impor­tant blog writ­ing tips? Do you have advice to share with fel­low legal writ­ers? If so, please let us know in the com­ments so every­one in the mar­ket­ing com­mu­ni­ty can ben­e­fit and improve their blog qual­i­ty, together.

When to outsource

Some­thing to con­sid­er with blog posts is the time need­ed to ded­i­cate to con­sis­tent­ly cre­at­ing and post­ing qual­i­ty blog posts. Most like­ly, the experts and tal­ent­ed writ­ers at your firm are your strongest prospec­tive writ­ers. But, ask your­self: is this the best use of my employee’s time? 

Qual­i­ty blogs take hours to research, write with an enter­tain­ing edge, edit to per­fec­tion and post in a read­er-friend­ly for­mat. If your lawyers, para­le­gals, and staff have addi­tion­al hours to spare sev­er­al days a week, then they’re a great resource. If it’s not the best use of your firm’s tal­ent, then it’s time to out­source, and let a com­pe­tent writer curate enter­tain­ing and indus­try-lead­ing con­tent on your behalf.

Are you ready to out­source your legal blog writ­ing? If so, we are here to help you pub­lish the high­est qual­i­ty and most infor­ma­tive legal blog posts. Whether you need help think­ing of ideas to share, pool­ing ade­quate research, writ­ing, edit­ing, or automat­ing your pub­lish­ing sched­ule, our team can pro­vide the solu­tion to meet your needs. Reach out to us, today.