The Benefits of Fresh Content
In the 21st-century digital world, where change continues to accelerate, there’s at least one constant—content is still king. Even with all the cool digital tools available to bolster digital marketing efforts, the most important thing in the final analysis is still what you convey via your website, social media platform, emails, or text messages. But you can’t simply provide informative content and walk away. When potential clients find your website, effective content can persuade them to contact you, but you also have to help them find your online presence in the first place. Regular fresh content is one way to do that.
First Things First—What Constitutes Effective Content?
Content includes words, pictures, videos, charts, and graphics—any form of media that provides useful and relevant information for a visitor. The most effective content answers three basic questions (what most searchers want to know):
- Can you help me solve my problem? – What goods or services do you offer? For a legal practice, the answer includes a listing or discussion of the different legal disciplines or practice areas at your firm.
- Where are you located? – While some business can be conducted remotely, when it comes to legal services, most people want to personally meet their lawyer. Furthermore, potential clients are unlikely to travel a great distance to see you, unless you have a rare specialty or come very highly recommended. Tell them where you’re located, where you practice, and whether you’ll come to them if necessary.
- Why should I hire you? – This is the most important question. Unless you practice in some highly specialized area of the law, there are many other lawyers doing what you’re doing. A potential client needs to have a good reason for hiring you. Tell them about your experience, any honors you’ve received, and anything else that makes you stand out.
What Does “Fresh Content” Mean?
So what constitutes “fresh content”? Simply changing a few words or adding/deleting a sentence here or there won’t do the trick. Search engines give the greatest weight to fresh content that involves new pages. That content can be in the form of content pages that more precisely define your areas of expertise, or it can involve more generally informative blogs related to your areas of practice.
Content freshness is not about just how old it is. Search engine algorithms look at various criteria to determine if a website’s content is fresh, including the following:
- How often new pages are published
- How frequently pages are changed
- The number of changes to an individual page since it was first indexed
- The extent of changes to a page’s core content since it was first indexed
- How many backlinks to the site are added or updated
How Does Fresh Content Improve Search Performance?
Adding fresh content can help you:
- Improve keyword density – As sophisticated as search engine algorithms have become, they still tend to focus on keywords. By adding pages with natural but frequent use of the right keywords, you’ll increase the likelihood that your pages will be crawled and indexed by search engines for the types of words and phrases your potential clients will type into a search box.
- Have more pages indexed – The more pages of content on your site with good keywords, the more your site will show up on search engine results pages (SERP).
- Bolster your online authority – Posting regular, fresh content is one of the key ways to have search engines see you as authoritative on a particular subject.
Let GetLegal Help You Craft and Post Effective Online Content
At GetLegal, we provide a wide range of digital marketing services to lawyers and law firms nationwide, offering an extensive selection of digital marketing tools to help strengthen and build your law practice, from full-service website development (with custom content and design) and search engine optimization to pay-per-click campaigns, directory placements, video production, online reputation management tools, and social media strategies. To take advantage of our 20+ years of experience, go to https://www.getlegalpracticebuilder.com/ or call 1-877-359-7077.
