Fresh Advice For Law Firm Content Marketing

It should go without saying at this point that content is an integral part of any successful online marketing strategy. And that as digital trends change regularly, your law firm content must accordingly adjust. What worked a year ago online may not work today and certainly will not work in the future. So what are busy lawyers to do when Google adjusts its core algorithm? How can law firms make the content others consider dry and dull enticing and readable for online users? We have some fresh tips for how to update your law firm content marketing strategy:

1. Have a Visual Vision

Visual content can boost engagement by up to 94 percent, so when using images or creating infographics, focus on capturing the audience’s attention. Visuals in content will only get more interesting in 2020, since it seems like the sky is the limit. We can already create Snapchat filters, make our own memes and GIFs, and utilize various forms of dynamic imagery.

While attractive visuals can be beneficial on a website, they must be properly optimized to capitalize on their full potential value. Image SEO refers to work done to make an image more accessible online, such as reducing the image size, writing useful captions, using naming conventions, and more. With a few simple steps, optimized images can help your law firm website rank for local search queries and can even show up in search results themselves.

2. Good Enough To E-A-T

E-A-T is an important Google acronym for “Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness.” EAT applies to digital authors, which is one reason among many every lawyer author on your website should have a thorough and updated biography showcasing their qualifications to write about their practice areas. EAT also applies to an entire website, contemplating signals like off-site mentions by credible third party sites and online reviews. You’ll want to make sure you work on and improve all elements of EAT in order to have greater content marketing success.

Listen to Stacey discuss E-A-T here:

3. Go Omni-Channel or Go Home

Each of your potential clients and referral sources uses some combination of the marketing channels available, so your content strategy needs to be omni-channel. Some potential clients may prefer Facebook while others would rather watch YouTube videos over reading written website content. An omni-channel content marketing plan doesn’t just involve regurgitating the same content everywhere you can. Instead, customize your content based on where your audience is reading it and where they are in their decision-making process.

Make sure your brand voice is consistent, and be sure to strategically plan not only website content but content for ALL of your marketing channels.

4. More Words, Less Pages

The days of gaining any online value from putting two paragraphs of “news” content on your law firm website are over. Google favors long form content pages, with the average word count of a blog post on the first page of search results coming in at 1,890 words. Moving forward, shorter posts won’t cut it when it comes to hitting the top spot in Google search results. Articles covering a topic in-depth already perform significantly better on Google than less in-depth posts.

This isn’t to say quantity is bad; in fact, if you maintain content writing best practices, having more webpages offers your website more chances to rank in search results. Just make sure you carefully balance quantity with quality.

5. Make it Mobile

The transition away from desktop computers to mobile devices means marketers have gone from “optimizing for mobile” to developing dedicated mobile marketing strategies. The average American spends an average of five hours a day on their smartphone, the majority of it on the Internet. The total page views on mobile increase year-over-year, currently accounting for almost 50% of worldwide traffic – making mobile more crucial than ever to your digital strategy.

6. Video, Video, Video

Video can present the same information as text based content in a format that works perfectly regardless of platform. An added bonus is that if your site includes video, it’s 53 times more likely to get a first page spot in search results because video improves SEO, which boosts rankings.

Content Marketing For Lawyers

Stacey Burke has been a licensed Texas lawyer since 2001. Stacey E. Burke, P.C. crafts custom law firm content for lawyers around the country. For more information on how we can help your law firm with its content marketing needs, contact us today.