content for law firms imageIt seems that everyone and their brother is serving up content these days, and they’re all anxious to share their incompetence with everyone they can find, including law firms. Some of these people even work for law firm marketing companies or call themselves content marketing experts.

I analyze personal injury websites every day. There are probably 25 or so personal injury attorneys in the USA doing content in a way that is eventually going to get them cases. Half a dozen of these lawyers are my clients!

Note: This article is a bit of a long winded rant; you are interested in getting content, skip the rest of this page and go directly to SEO and content marketing for personal injury lawyers.

What content does not work

  • Simply having content is useless. I have seen paralegals, medical professionals, and attorneys much smarter than myself writing content for law firms and their blogs and unfortunately the content is just not “written for the web”. That means, although the article is a wonderful and informative masterpiece, it is going to end up on page 3 next to a page about pickle flavored popcorn and Barney the dinosaur. It just takes a unique skillset to write content that ranks. I have written thousands of articles. In the last 3 hours I have put out over 15 articles. 7 are on the front page of Google search now and the other 8 will be there by Monday. Without this experience, content just won’t be seen.
  • Social media is worthless. For law firms that is. Nobody on Facebook wants to hear about your latest traumatic burn injury article, about what to do when they are facing bankruptcy, or who to call when they are imprisoned. Google search is where you want your content to display. That way, when someone needs your service, they find you when they need you. Transmission repair shops are in the same boat. Sure, you can use Twitter to find other attorneys to network with if they happen to be on there, but chances are some “guru” is running their account and will completely miss any potential opportunities anyways.
  • Most content won’t get you links. So at this point, you know you need content, even if you don’t know why. If you hammer away on a specific topic long enough you will increase rankings some, boost the value of other internal pages, and eventually get some exposure. Still, many attorney articles need a helping hand in attracting links. Some WILL get natural links, but you really need to cover something completely unique. You may end up writing 150 articles before getting a good link.
  • Worthless content. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen the article “Teen driving tips”. Do you know how many teens are reading that article? Zero. And, if you’ve already been involved in a collision, you’re not going to go looking for driving tips, you’re going to search for a law firm, and that is done by having good content for law firms on the web.

What content does work

  • Unique content. During your journey to page 1 for “Car Accident Lawyer”, putting up completely unique content will always get your front page rankings. Think “Hot Air Balloon Accident Lawyer in Alaska”. This type of content will get very little traffic. There just is not much traffic involved in the world of law. I have a website about my dog which is visited over 10,000 times each month and also manage law firm sites which get under 500 hits per month. People would rather see pictures of puppies than read about spinal injuries, what can I say. This is the type of content that will eventually land a case. There may have to be 6 or 7 hot air balloon accidents before the phone rings, but having content up like this will eventually pay off.
  • Answering questions. People ask Google questions. You do it yourself every day! People ask “What if I have been injured outside of a crosswalk?”, “What if the other driver had no insurance?”, “Should I give a statement to the other insurance company?”, “What if the people who hit me were in a stolen car?”. Having this content on your site will eventually result in cases.
  • Shareable content. Sometimes content sticks. Maybe an interesting graphic goes up showing the most dangerous intersections in your area and other people want to reference your article or borrow the image and link to you for attribution. You never know. I have written thousands of articles which never get a link and I’ve also put a handful up that have received over 20.

Where to get content for law firms

If you do not have time to write your own content, find someone who can do it properly. Feel free to email me for examples of amazing content; I will be happy to provide you with examples of people doing it correctly and obtaining a return on their investment.

Content takes time but is extremely cost effective. Content can make the phones ring off he hook for small businesses, but take quite some time to get results for law firms. Stick with it; it will pay off, and when it does it often better than you ever hoped for.

Feel free to visit my page on content for personal injury lawyers. If you do not like the examples I send you, I know a handful of other great legal copywriters. We also offer content services such as content editing, content strategy, content structuring, content publishing, and content hierarchy solutions. For some criminal defense attorneys we simply plan, consult, and give them ideas, for others, such as bankruptcy lawyers, we edit content, and for personal injury law firms, we develop their content and provide a full suite of services.

Len
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On August 30, 2015   /   Content Creation   /   Leave a comment

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