The Key Elements of Effective Digital Content
If you hope to build a law practice in the 21st century, you need an online presence. You’ll need more than an attractive website or a social media account, though. In the highly competitive world of online marketing, content is king. That includes images and videos to be sure, but it’s mostly about the written word.
Understand Your Audience
The ultimate goal of anything you put online is to bring new clients to your law firm, clients who have the types of problems you can resolve. That’s a two-step process—you first need to get potential clients to your website, and you then need to convince them to contact you.
Step One—Driving Traffic to Your Website
If no one ever makes it to your website, it won’t matter how informative or persuasive your content is. While you can drive traffic to your site through online directories or backlinks from other sites, one of the most common ways is by optimizing content so that your website will place higher on search engine results. Optimizing content is both an art and a science, combining effective keyword research and placement with natural, informative, and authoritative text. Because search engine algorithms are constantly changing, it’s in your best interest to work with a search engine optimization (SEO) professional.
Step Two—Persuading Web Visitors to Contact You
Driving traffic to your website provides little benefit if none of those visitors contact you. Accordingly, your content must convince visitors to call you or send you an email. How do you do that? You answer their questions.
Think about it—why does someone go to Google and initiate a search for legal counsel? Because they have questions that need to be answered.
- They may need help setting up a plan to pass on their property when they die.
- They may have been hurt in a slip-and-fall or auto accident and have questions about how to recover compensation for their losses.
- They may be facing a criminal investigation or criminal charges and have questions about their rights.
Typically, when someone is looking for an attorney, they have three questions:
- Can you help me solve my problem?—I need to do some estate planning. Can you help me with that? You answer this question by telling the web visitor what you do, the types of cases you handle.
- Where are you located?—While virtual conferences are becoming more common, most clients still want to come to your office, at least initially. They also need to know that you practice in their jurisdiction. If you don’t include geographic information in your content, you may get calls from potential clients on the other side of the country.
- Why should I hire you?—Unless you practice an esoteric area of law, there are likely to be many other attorneys in your area who handle the same types of cases as you. A potential client will look for reasons to hire or not hire you. They may decide based on your experience, in terms of both the number of years you’ve practiced and the types of cases you’ve handled. They may give weight to the size of your firm or your commitment to working directly with each client (rather than using an associate or paralegal). When preparing website content, think about why your existing clients chose to work with you. Maybe even ask a few of your best clients that question.
One last caveat—a website visitor typically won’t spend a lot of time on your site, so it’s important to answer these questions as soon as possible, usually within the first couple of paragraphs. Include a call to action (a phone number or link to send an email) near the beginning and end of your content so that it’s easy for potential clients to reach out to you.
Let GetLegal Help You Craft 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 strengthen and build your practice, including full-service website development (with custom content and design), search engine optimization, 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.
