Content Optimization for Attorneys

Content is King – It’s Really What Matters Most

Content – what’s found on your website – should be the cornerstone of your law firm SEO campaign. Content is what will drive the success of your law firm’s digital marketing efforts. We consider content to be the most important Google ranking factor.

To really optimize your website, you’ll need content that is:

  • Compelling
  • Relevant to your user’s inquiries
  • Easy to read

What is Law Firm Content Marketing?

Put simply, content marketing is the process of publishing high-quality content that attracts and engages your audience. It’s about creating enough value for your audience that they actively seek it out and can’t stop reading once they find it.

Content includes both your core website pages and more dynamic content, like blog posts and whitepapers.

The object is to publish enough content in your field that you become a credible advisor. Building this trust will motivate your audience to look to you when they need help from an attorney.

What Kind of Content Do I Need to Maximize My Attorney SEO Campaign?

First, it’s important to know what content is.

Content refers to anything that can be read, viewed, seen, or digested by web users. If you’ve put it on your site to convey information to the user, it’s content.

For attorney websites, the most important types of content typically include:

  • Practice area pages
  • Blogs
  • Resource pages
  • Longform content
  • Images
  • Infographics, and
  • Videos.

We’ll break down these different types of content, why they’re important, and how to create them.

Practice Area Pages

Practice area pages, or PAs, are where you sell your legal services. These are considered “evergreen pages.”

What makes a page evergreen? It’s content that is fresh, relevant, and informative for years to come after it’s published. It’s also easy to find on your firm’s website – it doesn’t get pushed down a long blog roll as new content is published.

Your practice area page should:

  • Provide potential clients with relevant information about motorcycle accidents
  • Explain laws and rules in your state that might affect their legal rights and injury claim
  • Sell your law firm and convince the user that they should call you for help getting compensation.

Blogs

If you run a law firm, have a website, and care about ranking, you need to be blogging.

Not blogging means lost opportunities when it comes to ranking, traffic, leads, and conversions. Small businesses that blog get 55% more traffic and 126% more leads (that are 6x more likely to convert) than businesses that don’t blog.

Resource Pages

Resource pages are a hybrid – not quite a PA and not quite a blog. Resource pages are evergreen, designed to capture a lot of traffic, and aren’t overly salesy. They’re really intended to provide more detailed and in-depth information than a standard Practice Area page.

Longform Content

Typically “gated” behind a sign-up page, Longform content includes ebooks and whitepapers. This content offers an in-depth exploration of a particular topic, with the landing page serving as an SEO-optimized gateway.

Images

Content isn’t just text on the page – it’s everything that you put there for people to see. That includes stock images and pictures of your firm’s attorneys and staff. You can use images on your web pages to make them more visually appealing and enhance its UX.

Infographics

A lot of people – nearly two-thirds of the population – are visual learners. So, it’s really important to give users information that’s easier to digest than words on a page. Infographics are images that relay information in an easy-to-understand way.

Videos

In today’s digital age, nothing beats a video. Many people – especially young people – would rather watch a video than read a book or web article. Statistics indicate that you can get a 41% boost in clicks just by integrating a video (or two or three) on your firm’s site.

Optimizing Web Content For Law Firms

Now that you know the types of content that you should aim for, it’s important to understand techniques for optimizing what you put on the page.

Aim for longer content: Content above 1,500 words consistently outperforms shorter alternatives in Google rankings.

Create topic clusters: That’s a primary “pillar page” on a core keyword along with plenty of shorter content around the various related subcategories.

Statistics: Keep your firm’s website content fresh with updated statistics that are geographically and informationally relevant.

  • Personal injury law firms should consider adding crash stats, data on workplace accidents and injuries, and other related statistics.
  • If you’re a criminal defense firm, data on local arrest or crime statistics can be helpful.

Keywords: Make sure your PAs contain the keywords that are driving searches. See our section on keyword research to get a better idea of how to find the right keywords for your law firm’s website.

Use Headings to Create a Clear Outline: People don’t read online, they scan. As such, you should create a clear outline using H tags.

Readability: Content needs to be written for the everyday person. The average American reads a 7th- or 8th-grade level.

Accessibility: It’s not just about putting good information on a page. It’s about putting good information on a page in a way that’s easily accessible to the reader.

Embrace Questions: Anywhere between 8% and 27% of all web searches are phrased as questions.

Featured Snippets: Featured snippets are selections of text in an answer box that are automatically displayed on a Google SERP.

Double Check Your Keywords: You have keywords – but did you incorporate them into your content?

Periodically refresh old content: Old content that once ranked well can hurt your SEO if it becomes stale and outdated.

Knowing What Content to Write

It’s one thing to do keyword research and know what phrases, terms, and questions have to be integrated into your content if you want to rank. But, outside of just putting keywords on a Practice Area page, what should you write about?

What should your blogs be about? How can you come up with ideas to keep your site active and your content fresh? We suggest doing some content research – which parallels what you’ll have already done to find your optimal keywords.