To have a reputable, successful legal practice in today’s digitally-dependent world, you have to do more than just be a great lawyer who cares for clients and wins cases. People are searching for legal guidance online now more than ever, so your firm or solo practice needs an online presence that:
- Brings in new clients, maintains rapport with existing clients, brings back previous clients, and builds trust with all of them.
- Accurately represents your practice or firm as personal, compassionate, communicative, and determined to win for your clients.
- Enriches brand awareness.
- Establishes expertise and visibility in AI and traditional search.
Your competitors have likely already caught on to this. They are already creating content that introduces their firm to people who may have never heard of them, keeps their practice in the mind of people who already know about them when it’s relevant, informs people about legal topics they want to know about, and converts their audience into clients.
Now is the time for you to leverage content marketing for your practice, and our content specialists at Uptick Marketing are here to teach you how.
Pillars of Effective Content Marketing for Law Firms
To effectively market your law firm online, you need to create digital content that blends:
- Educational Content
- Humanizing Story-Driven Content
- AI and Traditional Search Optimized Content
The reason you need a blend is that educational legal content not only demonstrates your expertise to potential clients but also proves your trustworthiness to both AI and traditional search engines. This increases the likelihood that your practice will be recommended when people in your target audience search for related information.
Educational Content
One of the three most important types of content you should be leveraging for your firm or solo practice is educational content that clearly explains and answers questions people have about legal concepts or specific scenarios. This not only demonstrates your expertise (without overdoing it with industry jargon, because you’re trying to resonate with non-lawyers, not other lawyers) but also helps potential clients feel informed and empowered by the wisdom you impart to them.
A great way to brainstorm ideas for educational content (i.e., blogs, social media posts, or ads) is to provide answers to questions that people in your life (clients, consults, or even your friends or family) ask you because they know you have expertise in that area. Niche legal topics that you have experience with are especially important to write content about because you’re answering questions that no one else may be answering online yet.
Humanizing Story-Driven Content
Another essential type of content your legal practice should be writing (or if you outsource content creation to a digital marketing agency like Uptick, approving and publishing) is humanizing, story-driven content. This is where you exhibit your authentic compassion, ability to communicate, and determination to win for your clients because you genuinely care about them, not solely for your own gain or payment.
This type of content includes posts, blogs, and ads where you share anecdotes from your work and highlight relevant case studies. You can also spotlight attorney profiles, biographies, awards, and accomplishments that demonstrate your values while using client-centric, jargon-free language to show you’re more than just someone with a law degree reaching out from behind a screen; you are a real, personable individual that clients can connect with and trust.
AI and Traditional Search Optimized Content
Optimizing your content for search increases the likelihood that your law firm will appear when potential clients search for legal topics or services online using AI or traditional search engines like Google or Bing. To do this, you’ll want to use a keyword strategy, in which you’ll weave in specific terms and phrases suggested by SEO (search engine optimization) keyword tools like Semrush or SEO Surfer while you write. Using these keywords in your content signals to search engines your content’s relevance to a topic, increasing your visibility in searches and, overall, far beyond what word-of-mouth referrals can.
Effective, strategy-based SEO also bolsters your entire digital ecosystem, strengthening your rankings for practice-area pages, FAQs, blogs, and other resources that drive qualified leads to your site consistently over time.
Avenues of Effective Content Marketing for Law Firms
You have to be marketing your law firm online these days, or you’re missing out on a lot of clients. Traditional marketing only delivers so much value when everyone has their heads down, looking at their phones, rather than up at billboards, in magazines, or in newspapers. Commercials on TV don’t even deliver the same value (like they once did) to measure up to online marketing approaches.
Here are the most effective forms of online content marketing for law firms and solo practices:
- Social media posts
- Local SEO updates (i.e., GBP posts and profile information)
- Blogs and other web page content
- Pay-per-click, web retargeting, and social media ads
Examples of Law Firms That Do Digital Content Marketing Well
Alexander Shunnarah Trial Attorneys
If you’re from Alabama, you know Alexander Shunnarah and his slogan “CALL ME, ALABAMA!” For years, his firm, Alexander Shunnarah Trial Attorneys, has been ahead of the curve in utilizing the most effective forms of content marketing at any given time. They have incredible brand awareness, demanding attention and reminding people about their firm repeatedly, unlike any other lawyer in the state. This began with their numerous billboards throughout Alabama and persuasive commercials.
Now, Shunnarah’s firm has multiple locations and a massive digital marketing team that has expanded its reach throughout all the aforementioned avenues of content marketing. They’ve always had a diverse audience and client base, and interestingly, they have recently begun to market to Gen Z with a separate Instagram account dedicated to “brain rot” style memes about him. Yes, Shunnarah’s that iconic a figure in Alabama from his years of content marketing, that he can have a dedicated page making jokes referencing his rigorous marketing.
It resonates and continues to keep Shunnarah a household name among young people from or currently living in the area, and likely as the first lawyer they think of when they need one, just as he already is for Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers.
Glenda Cochran Associates, Attorneys at Law
We may be biased, but our Birmingham-based client, Glenda Cochran Associates, Attorneys at Law, has implemented a highly effective content strategy with the help of our digital advertising, social media, and website content experts. Leveraging our strategies, Glenda’s firm has a strong online presence and ranks well in both broad and niche searches for personal injury law information and services.
A prime example of Glenda’s growth with our content marketing strategies is this recent stat about her social media post boosting ad campaign (provided by our excellent social advertising manager, Elling):
“Over the past 90 days, the boosting ad campaign has driven 1,780 people to [Glenda Cochran and Associates’] website. More than half of the website traffic—57%—is driven by the social boosting ad campaign. The rest of the site traffic is from direct searches, organic searches, and social media posts.”
Compliance and Restrictions on Content Marketing for Law Firms
As with healthcare, government, and other sectors, law firms face limitations in content marketing; however, compliance standards are relatively straightforward to follow when you know what they are. For the most part, these standards vary based on the platform.
Facebook’s ad compliance checks, for example, are much stricter for lawyers than for many other types of businesses, which affects costs, ad categories, KPI (key performance indicator) tracking, audience targeting, and risk of account suspension.
Ready to Leverage Content Marketing for Your Law Firm?
If you don’t have the time to try out these strategies yourself, don’t worry — we offer full-suite content marketing services that have delivered great results for lawyers across the U.S. and would be delighted to do the same for you.
And if you’re interested in trying it out yourself but need a little guidance, we have you covered for that, too, with consulting services from our content marketing experts. Reach out to us today to get started with a data-backed content strategy or consulting session that’s sure to help you get the results you’re looking for.
