Lawyers provide vital services. It’s often said that many people don’t realize how important lawyers are until they need one, and there is some truth to that idea. But it’s one thing to need a lawyer, and an entirely different matter to get in touch with the one that is right for your case. Many individual attorneys and law firms miss out on business because it’s too difficult for clients to find them; and even if a potential client finds your website, that doesn’t mean that you’ll earn their business or even have the opportunity to do so. You may be confident about your ability to win a potential client over once they reach out to you, but how do you get them to reach out? A lot of that has to do with having an established, strong online presence. It’s not enough to have a website. Your website needs to be streamlined, well-functioning, easy to navigate, and it needs to have a blog. That last point may surprise some lawyers. What is the point of having a blog on your website, you may wonder. What can a blog really add to a lawyer or law firm’s online presence, and what can it do to make clients more likely to get on the phone and call you?
Blogs are actually important parts of marketing any business, not just a law firm. This is because blogs are key to SEO, or search engine optimization. By using certain keywords in organic pieces like blogs, lawyers are able to draw a potential search engine user’s eye. Furthermore, the use of the blog format allows lawyers to educate their potential clients about what they do. As you know, not all lawyers practice within the same areas of law. Being able to educate clients not only about the law in general, but the specific type of law that you practice, will ideally enhance their trust in you and solidify your chances of representing them. Let’s look into some of the things that lawyers should prioritize when creating a blog meant to market their practices.
1. Choose The Right Blogging Platform
In this day and age, there are a lot of different blogging platforms for lawyers to choose from. This means that it’s easy for them to choose the wrong one if they aren’t careful, but there is more than one platform that could work for lawyers. One thing to keep in mind, of course, is security. The last thing you want is for your blog to end up hacked. It’s estimated that about 87% of all small businesses experienced a security breach of some kind in 2012 alone. The last thing you want is for your blog to stand as a means through which a hacker can attack your website in general. Lexblog was actually specifically made for lawyers, focusing on legal issues. However, it’s also easy for your posts to get lost in the shuffle there. WordPress and Medium stand as popular platforms for blogging in general, not just legal blogging, and your posts may come off as more individual there. Your choice will ultimately rest on a lot of factors, like how creative you want to be with your blog, what extra features you’d like it to have, and how user-friendly it is. Look at other law blogs to see an example of what you should be going for.
2. Hone In On Your Audience
Your target audience, of course, will depend in part on what kind of law you practice. For example, you’ll want to think about what you’ll want to include if you specialize in divorce and family law. Though about 40% to 50% of all marriages in the United States end in divorce, having a blanket idea of targeting people in troubled marriages won’t be specific enough for most law blogs. How serious should your target audience be about divorce? How do people in your area tend to go about divorce, and what kinds of resources will they, therefore, be seeking out? These are questions that you should ask yourself as you think about your target audience. For that matter, potential clients are not the only audience you may be seeking out. You should also think about reaching out to other lawyers and drawing them in with your blog as well, for referral purposes.
3. Create A Blog Schedule
It’s no use for you to have a blog if it isn’t regularly kept up to date. Therefore, it’s important for you to create a long-term schedule in order to keep your blog updated on a regular schedule. And it’s not enough to simply post; you also need to make sure that your posts are passionate, well-written, and informed. Your blog is marketing for practice, yes. But you don’t want it to feel as if it solely existed as a marketing material. It needs to be something that really sells your passion for practicing. Furthermore, it needs to set realistic expectations for potential clients. While plaintiffs do win 51% of the time when employment practices liability claims go to trial, that means there is still a significant amount of cases that are lost or otherwise settled. If you make those types of expectations clear through your blog, you’ll be more likely to get clients that will work with you successfully. With that in mind, have a goal to update your blog at least once a week, though no more than three times per week, lest you overwhelm your audience.
4. Utilize Social Media
Make sure that as many people have access to your blog as possible. You can do this by sharing it on social media, like Twitter and Facebook. The more accessible your blog is to the average person, the more likely it will be that your blog will be accessed by the right person. Keep people up to date with when you’re posting, and share as much as possible. Not only will this attract them to your blog; it will ultimately make you seem more human and accessible.
