Legal Blogging: Creating Engaging Legal Content for Small Law Firms

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If you own or manage a small law firm, you need ways to consistently connect with potential clients. One look at your competitor’s websites will give you a clue about what attracts clicks and views — content. Explaining the services you offer on your practice area pages is a must, but so is having an engaging and updated legal blog. Here is what you need to know about creating an effective legal blog and engaging legal content for small law firms. 

Why Your Small Law Firm Needs a Blog and Engaging Legal Content

Small law firms often face the challenge of standing out in a highly competitive market, particularly when there are many larger firms with deeper pockets. Fortunately, the internet can be a great equalizer, making it just as powerful a marketing tool for smaller firms as larger ones. 

If you don’t already have a blog connected to your law firm’s website, it’s time to get started. Here are some of the most glaring reasons your small legal practice should be creating legal content and posting it consistently to a blog.

1. Enhance Online Visibility

The search engines, like Google, constantly crawl the internet to look for new content to index and rank. Blog content counts, and your blog posts can help enhance your law firm’s online visibility. You can not only show up in the search engines for more terms but also on social media sites when readers share your posts. 

2. Build Credibility and Trust

When readers and potential clients visit your legal blog, they may not know who you are, so there is no trust yet. By producing helpful and engaging content, you can demonstrate your legal expertise and begin to build trust with these prospective clients. 

3. Provide More Value to Visitors

When people are searching for online legal content, they are usually dealing with some stressful legal issues or have questions related to a problem they are trying to solve. Your legal blog can be an invaluable resource that offers simple answers and peace of mind. Many readers will decide to keep exploring your website and may eventually contact you for representation. 

4. Earn High-Value Backlinks

Backlink building is essential to your legal SEO strategy. By creating a well-rounded blog, there will be more content for others to consume and share. Eventually, you will begin getting some valuable backlinks, which can help with your website rankings. 

Tips for Creating Engaging Legal Content for Small Law Firms

Even if you’re ready to start blogging, the process might be a bit intimidating. Here are some best practices small law firms can use to create engaging content to produce positive results. 

1. Identify Your Audience

Before you become a legal blogger, know who you’ll be writing for. You’ve probably done this exercise before, but it’s worth it to create a detailed buyer persona so you truly understand your ideal client’s characteristics and pain points. 

2. Use a Content Calendar for Creating Engaging Legal Content

One way to be successful with blogging is to be consistent. This can be challenging when you are already busy running a business. It can be easier to stay on track if you sit down and create a content calendar that schedules out your blog posts with topics and publishing dates. 

3. Create Attention-Grabbing Titles

If you aren’t grabbing your audience’s attention quickly, you are in danger of losing them to a competitor. Take the time to craft engaging titles for your blog posts that also incorporate popular search terms. 

4. Understand the Appeal of Storytelling

Consumers can relate to stories, whether they are personal or professional. When it’s appropriate, find a way to weave interesting stories and examples into your content to get your point across. 

5. Answer Your Audience’s Questions

Instead of posting generic content that roughly aligns with your practice areas, consider addressing your potential clients’ most frequent questions and objections. You can write entire blog posts or create short videos answering a single question, such as “What’s the penalty for a DUI in Alabama?” or “What type of trust do I need to protect assets?”

6. Leverage Video Content 

Video content for law firms has become increasingly popular as a means of consuming information and staying entertained. For a small law firm, it’s a unique opportunity to showcase your personality and reach consumers who prefer to get their information via YouTube, TikTok, or Reels. 

7. Incorporate SEO Elements

While it would be nice to be able to free-form write what you want to hit “Publish,” it’s essential that you focus on SEO if you want your content to be found on search engines like Google. For example, you should include relevant keywords in your title and headers and write a descriptive meta description for the page. 

8. Integrate With Social Media

Social media is one of the pillars of a successful digital marketing program. As you post new content to your legal blog, you can boost its visibility by posting the links on your social media platforms. This also creates more sharing opportunities for your readers. 

9. Find Opportunities for Collaboration

Collaborating with other professionals or a digital marketing agency can make legal blogging much easier. Look for collaboration opportunities with professionals who have a complementary audience, such as a CPA if you are an estate planning attorney. A skilled digital marketing agency can provide direction or take the reins to get this done. 

10. Track Your Results & Adjust

Finally, small law firms don’t have marketing dollars to waste. You should always track every legal marketing strategy so you know what’s working and what isn’t. When a blog is hitting the mark, you can produce more of the same. When it isn’t, you can find out why and make some adjustments. 

Get Help With Creating Engaging Legal Content

While every law firm website needs a legal blog, conducting keyword research and producing engaging content regularly may not fit within your current bandwidth. We can help! Too Darn Loud Legal Marketing specializes in helping law firms of every shape and size elevate their online visibility. 

We can help your law firm get found and chosen by its target audience through engaging and useful content marketing. We’ll meet with you to learn about your business and industry before presenting the legal marketing solutions we believe will produce the results you need. Contact us today to schedule a free initial consultation. 

Using Hyper-Personalized Content As Part of Your Legal Marketing Strategy

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Hyper-personalization in content has become an effective marketing strategy in today’s competitive marketplace. As your law firm looks for new ways to make connections with potential clients and differentiate itself from the competition, using this strategy can help you create content that resonates with each individual. Creating highly personalized legal content can mean the difference between attracting and securing the right types of clients and missing the altogether. Here’s what you need to know. 

What is Hyper-Personalization and How do You Create Highly Personalized Legal Content?

Hyper-personalization is an advanced way of marketing your law firm’s message to individual clients or prospects. It leverages AI, analytics, big data, and automation to create targeted and custom content experiences in real-time. 

With standard personalization, a person might receive an email with their name inserted into the subject line or a geo-targeted social media ad, both of which serve relevant marketing content. While somewhat effective, it’s a common strategy used by businesses. Admittedly, many people have become “blind” to receiving emails with their names filled in to make them more personal. 

Hyper-personalization seeks to take this strategy to the next level. This strategy taps into the countless data points available from social profiles, mobile apps, website cookies, and other connective devices to gather real-time data on each prospect. This allows for highly individualized marketing messages to be sent at the right time and place to produce optimal results. 

Should Your Law Firm Personalize Content for Its Audience?

As more brands have adopted personalization strategies, it has created a certain level of expectation among consumers. Gone are the days when general advertisements to all potential clients would successfully boost engagement and drive conversion. Now that the technology is available for brands to be more personal and unique, consumers expect it. 

According to Segment’s annual personalization report, more than 9 in 10 companies are using AI-driven personalization for business growth. And more than half (51%) of consumers say they will become repeat customers after a personalized experience. 

Personalization can also improve the efficiency of your marketing efforts. According to the Harvard Business Review, this strategy can deliver up to eight times the ROI on marketing spend and increase sales by 10% or more. 

There is also a risk in not personalizing content. Because the digital space has become so crowded, many consumers are more discerning about the brands they follow. Roughly 69% of consumers say they’ve “unfollowed” a brand on social media. If you aren’t serving up interesting, engaging, and personalized content, your audience might turn to a competitor who is.

Examples of Highly Personalized Legal Content in Digital Marketing

The legal industry has many parallels with the financial industry, and it’s an excellent one for illustrating the use of hyper-personalization in marketing. According to one survey, 89% of U.S. consumers state that trust is extremely important when choosing their primary financial institution. 

Financial institutions and banks use hyper-personalization for product offers and customer service. They analyze customer interactions and transaction histories to deliver personalized financial advice. Here are a few examples of hyper-personalization in marketing:

  • Landing pages — The law firm with the right hyper-personalization tools can create customized campaigns using data detailing customer locations, preferences, and more.
  • Digital ads — Most legal consumers begin their engagement online. Law firms can leverage hyper-targeting to show the customer ads that are unique to their wants and needs. 
  • Recommendation engines — The algorithm will use data points it collects to present personalized content and service recommendations tailored specifically to a website visitor.
  • Service chatbots — Using a combination of conversational AI and data harvesting, website chatbots learn about what the client needs and deliver personalized support. 
  • Pre-populated applications — Existing customer data can be used to pre-populate various applications to speed up the process of certain actions, like filling out forms, which saves the client time and frustration. 

Components of a Successful Hyper-Personalization Legal Marketing Strategy

Today’s clients expect more personalized experiences, even from law firms. New advancements in AI and data analytics make it possible to deliver tailored services and content. This fosters stronger client connections and relationships. Here are the components of a successful hyper-personalization legal marketing strategy:

1. Collect and Analyze Data

Data is the foundation of hyper-personalized marketing strategies. According to an Eloqua Benchmark Report, companies with consistent data collection and hygiene processes generate 400% more leads than those that don’t. Because of the sheer volume of data available today, it’s vital that you address how you’ll mine this information efficiently. 

2. Craft Engaging Messages

Your firm can create a series of engaging messages that apply to a wide variety of situations, such as a prospect who is considering divorce but is concerned about finances or a person who has just had their second DUI. 

3. Personalize Your Marketing

As you mine and analyze data from a visitor’s previous engagement with your brand, you can start delivering more hyper-personalized messages to them through chat, email, video, and even blog posts. Instead of sending out cookie-cutter content that may or may not be relevant, your content will be so targeted to the client’s wants and needs that it will be more likely to produce results. 

4. Leverage All Channels

Websites, email, social media, and smartphones offer advanced levels of personalization and customization. As you begin to create more targeted marketing messages and distribute hyper-personalized content, don’t just stick with one channel. Mix it up so you have a greater chance of making those lucrative connections. 

5. Perfect Your Timing

The data you collect can also tell you about your audience preferences with respect to timing. When will they be more likely to respond to marketing messages or be active online? This can help you determine the optimal timing for your campaigns. 

6. Track Your Results

Identifying the most effective elements for a hyper-personalized strategy can be challenging. Fortunately, you can test your methods, track your results, and make adjustments to achieve a strategy that works best for your business. 

Ready to Get Started Making Connections With Your Audience?

Creating highly personalized legal content is a new strategy your law firm can use to show you understand and are ready to meet the needs of your potential clients. Your firm can benefit from this strategy because it builds client loyalty and generates positive referrals. But you need the right knowledge and resources to execute it. We can help. 

At Too Darn Loud Legal Marketing, we take pride in offering our law firm clients cutting-edge legal marketing solutions that produce results. Our legal marketing specialists will learn everything possible about your firm and its goals before recommending a customized digital marketing strategy for your business. Give us a call at (800) 649-1764 or contact us online to schedule a free initial consultation. 

The Art of Blogging for Lawyers — Establishing Authority in Your Niche

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The legal industry is one of the world’s most competitive markets. Because of this, it’s vital that law firms find unique ways to connect with the people, prospective clients, who need their services the most. One effective strategy is to produce authoritative content that you post to your legal blog. Here’s what you need to know about establishing authority and the art of blogging for lawyers. 

What is a Legal Blog?

A blog is simply another area of your website dedicated to ongoing legal content related to your legal practice areas. Whether you are a sole practitioner or have a medium to large-sized firm, you need a blog. 

According to a recent ABA Legal Technology Survey, more than one-third of law firms report having a blog. What’s more important is that, when asked whether a client has retained legal service because of blogging efforts, 34% of firms report that they have.  

Establishing Your Authority Through a Blog

Consumers are more likely to hire someone they like and trust. And when they have a legal issue, trust is everything. How else can you build trust other than by demonstrating authority? In the legal industry, expertise and authority go hand in hand. Blogging provides you with a way to showcase your in-depth understanding and knowledge of various legal concepts while you build trust with potential clients. 

When you share informative content that addresses frequently asked legal questions, analyze recent court cases in your practice area, or discuss other relevant matters, this positions you as a go-to resource in your field. A legal blog provides the ideal platform for you to demonstrate your knowledge and experience. 

The Art of Blogging for Lawyers — Getting Started

Lawyers are already gifted writers. After all, you didn’t get through law school without being able to string words together coherently. Lawyers are trained to write with clarity and precision, from constructing clear contracts to drafting persuasive legal arguments to crafting plain-language communications. 

Blogging for lawyers can be slightly different because you are targeting a different audience. Instead of writing for the court or other attorneys, a legal blog should generally resonate with people who have no knowledge of your practice area. Here are some tips for getting started with legal blogging to gain authority and connect with your audience. 

1. Clarify Your Niche

As you get started with legal blogging, it’s critical that your law firm focuses on one or a few select niches. If you’re a family lawyer, you ideally would want to write about topics like divorce, child custody, and child support. But it’s important that you narrow your focus even further to reach potential clients in your geographic area. Some attorneys also focus on certain audience segments, such as “divorce for men” or “family law for military.”

2. Identify Your Audience

When clarifying your niche, you should also be thinking about your audience. If you haven’t already done so, it may be helpful to create buyer personas, which are detailed profiles of your target clients. These personas can help you identify what problems your audience is looking to solve. 

3. Choose Relevant Topics

The law is an incredibly broad topic, leaving countless opportunities for content. Your legal blog should cover the issues that are the most pressing for your target audience. For example, if you offer DUI defense, many potential clients will want to know about things like potential penalties for a first-time DUI, how to beat a DUI charge, or the DUI prosecution process in your state. 

4. Conduct Effective Research

Whether you do it yourself or outsource, whoever writes your content should be a thorough researcher. The last thing you want is to post content on your legal blog that isn’t accurate. Gaining authority in your field means you can be trusted to give correct information backed by credible sources. Your readers will gain confidence in your knowledge and will be more likely to turn to you when they require assistance.

5. Write in Plain Language

The average consumer won’t respond well to legalese because they aren’t trained legal professionals. What they’re looking for is reassurance and answers to their most pressing questions. Your blog will appeal to the widest audience if you make sure it is written in plain language. Ideally, your content should be written at about an 8th-grade reading level, using plenty of lists and bullet points for easy understanding.

6. Adhere to Legal Ethics Rules

Producing high-quality content is vital for your firm’s blog. But one thing many lawyers fail to pay enough attention to is the ethical rules for legal marketing. Specifically, the ABA’s Rules of Professional Conduct require that lawyers avoid setting realistic expectations, such as promising a specific case outcome through marketing materials. 

7. Maintain a Consistent Posting Schedule

An effective legal blog isn’t a one-and-done project. If you want to gain and maintain credibility in the eyes of your target audience, you’ll need to post new content regularly. To do this, you should create a content calendar for weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly (minimum) posting and stick to it. 

8. Deliver High-Quality Content

When producing content for your legal, it must be of the highest quality possible. The average consumer won’t be content to read content produced overseas or by an AI generator. It must be written clearly, through research, and from citeable sources. Readers should also be encouraged to contact your firm by using appropriate calls to action (CTAs). 

9. Consider SEO

While you never want to “stuff” keywords into your content, it’s helpful to do some keyword research so you know what search terms are popular among your target audience. Through your legal writing, you can use some high-value and longtail keywords in your titles, headings, and content to help with your SEO. 

10. Promote Your Content

Finally, don’t forget to amplify your content once you post it and engage with your audience. You can post links to your blog posts on your social media sites. As people comment on your blog or social media posts, make sure you respond and encourage commenters to contact you directly. 

Get Help With Your Firm’s Legal Blog

While the idea of creating a legal blog might sound appealing, you may not have the extra time to devote to researching keywords or ideas and creating content regularly. We can help! Too Darn Loud Legal Marketing specializes in helping law firms get found and chosen by their target audience. 

When we work with your law firm, we don’t offer cookie-cutter services. We take the time to get to know as much as possible about your firm and your legal niche. We only recommend the legal marketing solutions we believe will produce the best possible results. 

Call us today at (800) 864-1764 or contact us online to schedule a free website evaluation and assessment.