Your lawyer website is finally up and running after hiring a professional web designer. You invested in SEO services to drive even more organic traffic to your brand new site. There’s only one thing left to add: Content.
Content for lawyer websites is overlooked, with 97% of law firms lacking content entirely. Weekly content in the form of blog posts, white papers, or visual media will help you to build a greater web presence and rank on Google. For written content, expect to pay between $.02 and $1 a word.
Content can turn a normally bland website into a lead generating machine. So, let's go over everything there is to know about adding content to your lawyer website.
Without content on your lawyer website, what’s left? You probably have a page dedicated to your contact information and a few pages describing what it is that your law firm does. Lack of content on attorney websites is a huge problem in the legal field.
Here’s what the data shows:
Based on the data, it appears that many lawyers overlook the potential benefits of having content readily available on their websites.
You might be assuming that since most lawyer websites don’t have content, that your website doesn’t need it either. Not having content will allow your website to blend in with all of the other lawyers in a 30-mile radius. But having content will help you to stand out.
Here’s why.
A greater amount of content typically means more web visitors.
So if you have 50 blog posts that include specific related SEO keywords, that means there are at least 50 pages linked directly to your website that can be accessed via a Google search. And the more visitors you get, the more potential leads you can capture!
Well-made content will also help you to build relationships with clients.
Hiring a lawyer is a huge investment for a majority of people and clients want to know about who you are before they decide to hire you. Your contact information doesn’t give clients any insight that can be useful. On the other hand, fresh and frequent content will prove you to be a reputable and knowledgeable source in your niche.
But most importantly, you need content because your competitors probably don’t have it.
Content can mean a ton of things when it comes to lawyer websites, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. Here’s a look at the different types of content you’ll want to invest in and what the benefits of each are.
Having a blog helps to set your firm apart from your competitors. This is your chance to serve as a source of information and advice to the general public in a more casual and informal way. Blog posts can answer questions (such as “How Long Does a Lawsuit Take?”) or share information only those in the legal field know (such as “7 New Laws Coming in 2020”).
Unless your web visitors are looking for a specific topic in the news, then they probably won’t hear about it at all. But that doesn’t mean that these topics aren’t relevant to the general public. Publishing monthly newsletters about legal topics in your niche can help you to keep the general public informed in a more general sense.
You went to law school and had been practicing in the local community for years. One of the best ways to show your skill and expertise is by writing and publishing white papers. These are reports that are written in-depth about a particular topic that the news websites don’t cover.
In this day and age, people don’t want to sit down for 10 minutes and read an entire article. Web visitors are much more likely to read over statistics on an infographic or watch a short video explaining a certain topic. In fact, content that contains visual media is likely to receive about 94% more views.
How often you post content on your lawyer website will play a huge role in how successful your content ends up being.
After all, web visitors who see that you haven’t posted new content in three months may assume that your firm or website is no longer active. On the other hand, posting content five times a day may come off as spammy and may limit how many views your posts actually get.
For lawyer websites, the general suggestion is to post weekly.
Yet, more might be better if you’re really looking to generate more traffic to your website organically. Some research goes on to suggest that 16 or more posts a month can potentially improve traffic by over 350%.
Unless you have your own personal content creator on standby or have enough time in your schedule to write the posts on your own, you’re probably going to be subcontracting your content to freelancers or professional writers.
You may pay by the word, by the project, or by the hour. And in many cases, what you’ll end up spending on content for your lawyer website will depend on the type of content you’re planning to publish and how experienced the writer is.
This can range anywhere from $.02 a word to $1 a word.
That means you’ll be spending anywhere between $80 to $4,000 a month on content if you’re planning to post four 1,000 word pieces. Then again, you may be charged additional fees if this content is focused on SEO and improving your rank on Google.
Make sure to plan your marketing budget around content creation. It’ll pay itself back in no time if you’re publishing the right types of content.
Hiring a writer and publishing content weekly sounds easy enough, but you need to make sure that you’re hiring the right people. You don’t want to hire a random person off the street with absolutely no writing experience just as you don’t want to pay $1 a word if your marketing budget is very thin.
So, here’s a look at where you can source your content:
Be aware that it’s not having content that’ll change your law career forever: It’s having good content. Content that is plagiarized, poorly written, or factually incorrect may hurt your reputation and your legal career.
Are you still wondering if you should source your content or write it yourself? Check out this video explaining what actually goes into writing web content.
All lawyers should have a website. And all lawyer websites should have content.
Content will help you to set yourself apart from your competitors in the area and in your niche. You’ll be able to represent yourself as personable, knowledgeable, and interested in more than just improving your revenue.
To get started with adding content to your lawyer website, make sure that you’re setting an appropriate monthly marketing budget and that you’re hiring skilled writers. Try to publish content at least once a week in order to boost traffic to your site.
