Law Firm Marketing Agency
Your head is empty, the page is blank, and your website is sorely in need of new content. What’s a lawyer to do?
We work with some attorneys who are super excited to start writing for their new website. We say some because some want absolutely no part of it. But eventually, even the most motivated and creative attorneys hit a wall. Week after week, reality sets in and they find it increasingly difficult to come up with ideas.
Frankly, you deserve better than being mocked by a blinking cursor and a blank page. So we’re sharing our top five Inspiration hacks.
Here are five content writing tips you can use to find ideas for your lawyer website and never run out of topics again.
Tap into news stories and what’s trending
You can almost always find a relevant angle on current news stories. Start by checking out trending hashtags on social media or look at Google’s top headlines.
This technique tends to work best if you steer clear of personal opinions and critiques. Instead of diatribes or fluff, aim to deliver your thoughts with an air of informed authority.
Your goal is to educate, review, explain, and analyze the news from the perspective of a legal professional.
Remember to think about your audience as you craft your content. Don’t be afraid to add a bit of humor or try recording a video.
The major advantage of this tactic is that you’re likely to get a lot of eyes on this content if you can push something topical out while the iron is still hot. The disadvantage is that this content probably isn’t evergreen.
Check your call logs and emails
Look no further than your own call logs. You’ve got a veritable treasure trove of information at your fingertips, and in your ears, and scattered all over your inbox.
What questions are clients and prospects asking? Craft your next piece of content to answer one of these questions.
You may even discover trends in these questions, which is a good indication that you might want to create pillar content around this topic so your website becomes a real resource for clients.
Create sequels to your most famous hits
Look to your past Blockbuster hits and create sequels. Are there any pages or topics that have gotten a ton of views, comments, or engagement? Now is your opportunity to captivate your audience with related content.
We hear from a lot of firms that have a top-performing page and they’re afraid to mess with it. While it’s wise to avoid tinkering too much with a successful page, the best thing to do is use a top-performing page as the foundation for creating new content.
Choose a top-performing blog post. Then, produce a related piece of content that either expands further on this popular topic or provides an update.
If you’re clever, you could create a whole spinoff series of articles that explores the same topic from different perspectives. Experiment! Perhaps you’re a family lawyer and your top-performing blog post is an explanation of how to get visitation rights. In your next post, you could review a typical timeline for getting visitation rights or focus on a specific type of client like grandparents.
Crowdsource with your team
Don’t silo yourself. You work with other smart professionals, and each one has a slightly different perspective to offer on working in the legal industry.
Ask your colleagues for ideas and embrace crowdsourcing.
The person who answers your phone probably has some excellent content ideas for you. Your office cleaner may have valuable insight about security and waste management in a law office—a topic that could reassure your potential clients and spark conversation among fellow attorneys. A law school colleague could mention something that inspires your next thought leadership piece on LinkedIn for business development.
Be careful to avoid picking a random topic. Think about your audience, look for trends in your crowdsourcing research, and then find out which topics are truly important to your online visitors.
Put On Your Google Thinking Cap With AnswerThePublic
There is a nifty tool that can help you find out what people are searching for on Google.
AnswerThePublic is a search listening software that shows you auto-complete phrases related to your keyword.
It’s a gold mine. There’s no better place to look for inspiration than real Google searches, right?
For instance, if you enter “family law” into AnswerThePublic, you’ll get a big chart with a plethora of real search phrases related to family law:
- Can family court send you to jail
- Can family law trials have juries
- Can family court stop me from moving
- Can family court drug test you
- Are family law cases public record
- Family law can I move with my child
- Family law what age can a child decide
- Family law vs. divorce law
AnswerThePublic is free for up to three searches per day.
Review and next steps
The well of inspiration will never run dry if you use these five tips to generate ideas:
- Respond to trending news topics
- Check your call logs and inbox
- Create sequels to your most popular content
- Crowdsource ideas from your team
- Use AnswerThePublic to get help from Google
The truth is that anyone can find inspiration and create valuable content for their audience. But keeping up with content creation? It might be smarter to assign that casework to someone else.
Content generation is probably not why you became a lawyer. In most cases, the content demands of a successful law firm website are better delegated to a team of skilled legal writers.
Legal content marketing is what we do. Our team researches, develops, crafts, edits, publishes, and promotes content for growth-oriented law firms. Let us know if we can help you.