Find out how to build a content library that drives website traffic and builds a robust email list for your law firm.
As attention becomes the most valuable commodity, the economy has shifted to capturing it. That is the core philosophy behind digital marketing and ultimately what such efforts are about. Ultimately, capturing that attention is the root behind SEO strategy and the creation of content.
The internet’s hunger for content is in part to win this battle for attention. Content—meaning interesting, valuable, and informative articles, podcasts, videos, or anything else—is what users consume in the moments between meetings or in line to get coffee or on the treadmill. It is also a cornerstone of a good digital marketing strategy.
The Importance of Content Marketing
The specific form your content will take depends on your individual talents. A strong writer can make good use of a blog, while a radio-friendly voice can work wonders with a podcast. You might have to experiment to find the best format for you, but rest assured, there is one. Once you get started, you’ll be astounded by all the good a robust content strategy can do for your law firm.
Content Marketing provides the perfect opportunity for your law firm to build an audience and email list that you can leverage for sales opportunities.
Drive Website Traffic
Over 90% of the organic searches that find your site will be from Google. One of Google’s core principles is to deliver its users to sites that are useful, informative, and up-to-date. Google uses a site’s content to make the determination. It can measure the first two by the number of links a site accumulates pointing back to pieces of content. It can also determine when content was uploaded or updated and prioritizes the new pieces.
Effectively, this means that an organic search is more likely to find you twice over. The first is that the content you’ve created can specifically attract organic search by incisively answering an important question. The second is that the algorithm will automatically prioritize your site due to frequently updated content.
Download our free guide: Supercharged SEO for Law Firms for in-depth tips and strategies on how to make sure your website shows up at the top of local searches.
Build Trust
As people consume content from a specific creator, a parasocial relationship can develop. This is especially effective in the podcasting medium but is present in all forms of content. The content creator, partly by virtue of being present, becomes a trusted voice in the consumer world.
The building of trust dovetails nicely with the demonstration of expertise. As the expertise will appeal to a potential client’s rational, logic-driven decision-making, it also enables the nurturing of trust.
Building a robust library of informative, relevant content will draw potential clients in and go a long way toward establishing a relationship built on trust.
Create Brand Awareness
As you develop an audience, your brand awareness will naturally grow. The better the content becomes, the more likely you are to reach beyond your law firm and to a general audience. This builds on your earlier benefits as your brand awareness becomes inexorably tied to your expertise in the law.
Crafting Your Content Strategy
The need for a content strategy isn’t debatable, so the question becomes how does one go about developing one? As with every other aspect of digital marketing, there are concrete steps to take and each one is supported with a raft of data.
Optimize for Long-Term Results
Think of your content library like a snowball rolling down a hill. The farther it rolls, the bigger it becomes. Create with the end goal of the bottom of the hill in mind.
This means that you will by necessity start slow. Your first foray into content creation is highly unlikely to attract much attention. This isn’t a problem. Search engines take time to recognize a regularly updated library by design—it helps them avoid flashes in the pan that might dilute good search results.
The bigger that snowball gets—the more quality pieces of content you have in your library—the more the results will drive traffic. And the higher quality the content you create, the longer shelf-life it has. Relevant content can accumulate backlinks months or even years after it is published.
Content Marketing is an investment that can pay huge dividends in the long run. Create high-value content that will be relevant for years to come for the best results.
Research Your Audience
Producing content that is relevant to your desired audience requires understanding the needs and concerns of that audience. This starts by building a profile of who you believe your perfect client to be. Then, as you accumulate clientele, you can ask them directly. In the case of something like an FAQ, they will spontaneously provide what you need.
If your content is a conversation, or an answer to a question, it is directed at the individuals in your profiles. The best content addresses an audience specifically. You can home in on precise needs and exact questions, and in turn attract the attention of the client base you want.
Utilize Keywords
Keywords are an important part of the overall strategy, as they speak directly to search engines. The trick is to seed your keywords throughout any content you create, but not to oversaturate them. If the search engine detects you are trying to game the system, expect to be penalized in the form of declining SERPs or even outright banning.
The Google Keyword Planner is a great place to start researching. You can also look at the autocomplete function in any search engine. These are built to help users down an often-used path, and they can provide a blueprint of the roads your potential clients are already on.
Proper keyword research and usage can inform the content you create while making that content rank higher in search results.
Success Stories
So much of content marketing involves building trust. What better way than with stories from former clients satisfied with your sterling representation?
Writing these kinds of stories can be a challenge, as you must preserve their anonymity, but can be worthwhile from a marketing standpoint. Lead with the good news, the outcome. Then move into the specific challenges this client faced and how they chose you for representation. Then move into how your representation solved their problem and reiterate the outcome.
Choose Your Medium
The precise form of content can vary. The most common include blogs, podcasts, videos, infographics, and webinars. Certain mediums lend themselves to specific kinds of content and vice versa. Including your FAQ as a podcast, for example, would be a terrible idea. However, producing a series of informative and entertaining videos about famous cases can give you wonderful traction.
Rest assured that the longer you work in a medium, the better you will get with it. Cultivate a group of trusted associates who will look at what you create and give you honest feedback. Look to which pieces of content move the needle and use them as a guide for what to do in the future.
The best piece of guidance is to look at content that you like. Analyze what works about it and what doesn’t. Then import those lessons into your own content creation. The best part of the process is that there are far more right answers than wrong ones. The challenge comes in which of those right answers works for you.
Lead Science: Your Content Marketing Partner
Content creation is a cornerstone of an effective digital marketing plan. It helps you on multiple fronts, winning the SEO struggle, connecting with potential clients, and marketing directly to an interested base. These tips are an excellent start for your content creation journey.
At Lead Science, we have over two decades of experience with content marketing. We know the pitfalls and can leverage the unique strengths of the medium to supercharge your presence. Schedule your Lead Science Discovery Call today. We can show you that content creation isn’t a challenge. It’s an opportunity, and one you can’t afford to pass up.
