Law Firm Content Marketing Campaigns

Content Marketing for Law Firms: A Guide & Plan

A clear and effective content marketing plan can be put in place by law firms to build brand awareness, attract leads, and stay ahead of competitors. Content marketing is a proven and effective way to stay relevant in today’s digital realm.

Table of Contents

• Content Marketing for Law Firms: A Guide & Plan
• Content Marketing Overview
• Understanding Content Marketing and How It Applies to Your Law Firms
• Why A Content Marketing Plan is Important for Law Firms
• How to Create High-Quality Content for a Law Firm
• Key Elements of a Content Marketing Plan
• Choosing The Right Content Types
• Setting Goals for Your Law Firm Content Marketing Plan
• The Content Funnel and Lead Generation
• Analyzing Competitors To Uncover Opportunities
• How to Write Compelling Legal Content That Ranks
• Legal Blog Writing for Law Firms
• Formatting to Enhance User Experience
• Promotion & Distribution of Content
• The Importance of Promoting Content
• Stay Consistent
• Benefits & Value of a Content Marketing Investment
• How to Measure Content Marketing Success
• Advanced Strategies for Law Firm Content Marketing
• Be A Thought Leader
• Securing Media Coverage and Backlinks
• Staying Ahead of the Trends and Adapting Fast
• Optimized Contact Forms Assist With Conversions
• Site Architecture as Content Optimization
• Practice Areas
• Attorney Bios
• What PaperStreet Has to Offer
• Why An Agency The Best Choice for Law Firm Content Marketing
• Our Team and Process
• FAQs
• How long does it take to see results from content marketing?
• How much does content marketing cost?
• How is Content Marketing Different from Traditional Advertising?
• Which Methods of Content Marketing Perform Best?
• PaperStreet Client Testimonials
• PaperStreet Case Study Examples
• Resources

Content Marketing Overview

Understanding Content Marketing and How It Applies to Your Law Firms

Content marketing is the process of creating valuable, relevant content your client base needs. It is then distributed through a group of channels where readers engage with it and view your company as a thought leader. This helps them inform their legal decisions, because your content gives them a resource to help make decisions.

Why A Content Marketing Plan is Important for Law Firms

Today, nearly all consumers conduct online research before making decisions, and their legal needs are no exception. In order to capture their attention, your online presence must be noticeable, authoritative, and provide answers to their questions. Once they find your content, they will see you as an expert on the subject, and will begin to establish a lasting relationship with your firm. This is how content turns into leads. When you continue to produce content that satisfies their needs, you will continuously generate new leads, while maintaining relationships with current clients.

How to Create High-Quality Content for a Law Firm

In order to convert, your finished content must give the users what they need, or as we say in the content marketing world, match their intent. An experienced agency understands the needs of law firm clientele, and can create the right content strategy to match their intent, give them the best possible experience, and ultimately generate the lead.

Creating the right type of content within their set of needs is crucial. Different types of content are more effective in specific scenarios, and your agency will know when your audience will get the best experience from an infographic, an expert guide, a video, or another tool. Examples of content types for your law firm marketing plan includes:

• Practice Area Pages: Detailed explanations of your services offered, so the client knows you can address their needs.

• Attorney Bios: Details of attorneys in your firm that gives your potential client an overview of their expertise and credibility.
• In-Depth Blog Content: Regularly posted blog content that gives readers an in-depth look into legal matters that may apply to them and help educate their decision making.

• White Papers and eBooks: White papers are detailed, thorough explanations of a particular concept or service on which you have expertise. They are more accessible and easy to read than academic journals, but effectively establish your expertise on the matter. eBooks are similarly composed, but are generally presented as a free downloadable resource in exchange for a user’s contact information.

• Downloadable Content: As mentioned above, downloadable content refers to free resources available to your audience in exchange for entering their email address. The content is then emailed to them.

• Newsletters: Newsletters maintain relationships with clients on a long term basis. An agency will design newsletters aligned with your brand, deliver on a set schedule, and continually engage with your mailing list.
• Videos: Videos offer another means of delivering a compelling message for visual learners. PaperStreet offers a variety of video packages for every budget and will help with script writing, SEO and more.
• Media Mentions: Maintain your standing as thought leaders in the legal industry by garnering press mentions and guest blogging opportunities.
• Social Media Campaigns: Regularly posting content to your social media channels will add to your overall online presence while actively engaging with your following. PaperStreet can handle this process from start to finish.
• Infographics: Infographics are remarkably effective, and studies have shown they’re even 30 times more likely to be read than articles. The combination of text and design helps communicate complicated ideas in an engaging way. They are particularly effective on social media.
• Press Releases: While you may think press releases fall under the umbrella of traditional advertising methods, they have a revitalized purpose in modern digital marketing as they can be optimized for targeted keywords when distributed across your marketing channels.

• Branding: Well thought out, aesthetically pleasing branding will create a memorable identity for your firm.

Key Elements of a Content Marketing Plan

There is a general structure a content marketing plan follows.

1. Target Audience + Writing: First, there must be a well thought out strategy to reach a target audience, then comes crafting informative, engaging content like blogs or videos.
2. Optimized + Distributed: That content must be optimized for the web using current SEO best practices, once that is done it’s time to distribute it to audiences. Content distribution involves sharing it on social media, email, industry publications and of course, your website.
3. Analytics and Shares: Finally, once this is all complete, you gauge your content marketing plan’s success using analytics tools to measure conversions, views, shares, and other important performance metrics.

Choosing The Right Content Types

A content marketing plan isn’t just writing a blog post, sharing it, and then measuring success. There are multiple content types that make up an effective strategy, and choosing the right ones are vital to your plan’s success, as it brings its own set of benefits to the table. Examples of content types include:

• Content downloads
• eBooks
• Infographics
• Legal blog writing
• Newsletters
• Optimization
• Press releases
• SEO
• Site architecture
• Social media campaigns
• Videos
• White papers

Setting Goals for Your Law Firm Content Marketing Plan

It is important to set goals for your content marketing plan. Without clear objectives, your content will not be cohesive, and there is no set goal to measure its success. Typically, the common goals law firms hope to accomplish with content marketing includes boosting brand awareness, enhancing firm reputation, and ultimately increasing lead generation on a regular basis. In creating content that your user’s find helpful and authoritative, you will accomplish your set goals and convert those users to clients.

The Content Funnel and Lead Generation

The Content Funnel is a visual tool marketers use to explain a user’s journey from awareness, to consideration and ultimately taking action. Through this, you can cultivate a content marketing plan that anticipates your user’s needs, fulfills those needs, and shows them why you are the right choice for their legal representation.

Analyzing Competitors To Uncover Opportunities

Another aspect of content marketing involves analyzing the content of your competitors. Your findings will reveal opportunities to elevate your own strategy. Research their messaging, style, and overall strategy in order to educate ways to differentiate yourself in a crowded marketplace.

How to Write Compelling Legal Content That Ranks

First, accept there is no place for legal jargon on your website. Also, keep in mind you should avoid long paragraphs like the plague. As stated, engaging and informative content that your audience needs is the main component of an effective content marketing plan. However, there are certain strategies and tactics you need to put in place in order to make sure it ranks. Search engine optimization is the process of optimizing the content you distribute for success on search engines. In order to rank high on the search engine results page, your content must follow modern SEO best practices. This complex process includes keyword research, optimizing meta titles and descriptions, and writing headlines the right way. You can see a breakdown in Google rankings and changes for a project here:

Legal Blog Writing for Law Firms

Blogs effectively assist SEO by supporting your firm’s site content. They can generate both backlinks, which help your domain authority, and site traffic, which can lead to conversions.

The tricky part of blog management is knowing what topics to write about. Some of our favorites include:

• Answers to common questions on legal topics
• Community news that impacts your practice areas.
• Firm updates: Case verdicts, new partners, community service, etc.

• Popular culture: Commentary on legal matters in the entertainment industry are excellent for social media and search traffic.
• Educational posts: When you offer educational guidance without promoting your services, you’ll develop trust.

Additionally, use blog posts as "spotlights" for your practice area pages. These can be posts such as:

• Statistics connected to your practice areas
• Comparisons of the types of cases you handle
• Safety tips connected to your practice areas
• Detailed discussion on a particular topic within your practice area

At PaperStreet we provide turnkey blog writing services, delivering fresh, SEO-optimized content to enhance your website's authority and attract organic traffic. Our services include research, topic development, writing, SEO, editing and uploading directly to your site.

Formatting to Enhance User Experience

Proper formatting of site content enhances readability and user experience. If you haven’t already determined, user experience is extremely vital for executing an effective marketing plan, no matter the content type. With formatting, design elements such as headings, bullet points, and visuals both break up text and introduce new information effectively.

Examples of formatting rules to follow include:

• Small paragraphs of just a few sentences each.
• Headers that break up every few paragraphs
• Bullets and/or ordered lists
• A call to action at the bottom of the page with a linked phone number and contact page

Not only should your site look visibly appealing, it must also engage and inform your potential client as to why your law firm is right for them. Thus, your law firm content marketing strategy is as critical as all of your other marketing efforts.

Promotion & Distribution of Content

The Importance of Promoting Content

Whether your chosen medium is social media promotion, email marketing, press releases or some other form, it is crucial to get your content out there. An experienced marketer can determine which channel will best reach your intended audience, whether it’s the firm's website, social media platforms, email newsletters or industry publications.

Stay Consistent

Staying consistent is a tough habit to build, but it’s crucial to keeping your content strategy alive. Depending on your goals, you may not need to publish more than one piece of content on a monthly basis. Whatever your content calendar looks like, the key here is to commit to writing quality online content that will keep your readers' attention so you can turn that into leads.

Benefits & Value of a Content Marketing Investment

The undeniably cost-effective ROI, combined with advancing industry trends, makes traditional advertising less attractive in comparison to content marketing. The long-term benefits of establishing a loyal base are hard to quantify, but are undeniable. Investing in content marketing will give your firm an edge over competition, while continually bringing in clients.

How to Measure Content Marketing Success

Marketers measure the success of your content marketing plan with metrics including website traffic, engagement, lead generation, and conversion rates. This data will pinpoint exactly how successful your plan was in reaching your goals. Engagement metrics, such as bounce rate, time on page, and click-through rate reveal if your audience is having a good user experience while on your site, and if not, you can adjust accordingly. Social media success is typically measured by likes, shares, comments, and follower growth. As you post, you’ll begin to understand your following’s preferences, and can post tailored content accordingly. You can see an example of Agency Analytics charts here:

Advanced Strategies for Law Firm Content Marketing

Considering the legal field is such a competitive environment, the fundamental content marketing techniques must be enhanced by more advanced tactics.

Be A Thought Leader

Establish your firm as a thought leader in the legal industry. Post your commentary on industry trends via your blog, or social media channels, and your following will have no doubt you're an authority on the subject matter. This content will actively generate leads as users search for insight into the areas you cover. Here is an example of Thorn Tax Law’s #1 ranking for a specific FATCA article.

Securing Media Coverage and Backlinks

Building a portfolio of backlinks from reputable sources to your site is a key part of establishing its domain authority. PaperStreet has experience in media outreach and other successful link building tactics.

Staying Ahead of the Trends and Adapting Fast

As search engines continue to evolve, marketers must stay up to date on industry best practices, and adjust quickly. As algorithms change, content must adjust to whatever new standard is set in place.

Optimized Contact Forms Assist With Conversions

Most attorneys simply generate a standard contact form that collects very little information from potential clients. A more enhanced contact form, however, prompts more engagement from clients. Expanded contact forms encourage potential clients to describe why they need legal services a bit more than just asking for contact information.

As an added bonus, your client intake manager or whoever assists with scheduling clients will have a better understanding of what will be discussed at your consultations -- and whether the site visitor has a valid claim.

Site Architecture as Content Optimization

This is the process of optimizing website structure so the most relevant content is front and center, and accessible on an easy to use site. In a perfect legal marketing world, a potential client would simply visit the practice area page that corresponds with their claim and contact you right then and there. Unfortunately, the process is not as clear-cut as that. Experts know how to create a site architecture that is both search engine and user friendly, without sacrificing aesthetics. A workable site architecture helps boost crawlability and indexation.

Practice Areas

As a rule of thumb, the most important content marketing tip is to clearly establish what services your law firm offers. The more clicks it takes for a potential client to see if you can help them, the worse your conversion rate will be. Therefore, clearly state what you can do for potential clients in order to avoid confusing or misleading site visitors. The key is to build content hubs dedicated to your service areas. This involves a catalog of related content on the subject, all working together to establish your firm’s expertise on the matter. An example of clear practice areas for the website is with Warren Baker. You can see an example of 50 best practice areas here.

Attorney Bios

Working in SEO, we see that the attorney bio pages are often what receive the most traffic. Many site visitors are looking to see how experienced you are, your practice areas, schooling, etc. Therefore, an important aspect of your content marketing strategy is to focus on the quality of the content of each bio. Visitors want to get a better feel for who you are.

An example of one attorney bio is below for Stacey Ann Taylor. You can see 50 more examples on our blog post on Best Attorney Bios.

What PaperStreet Has to Offer

Why An Agency The Best Choice for Law Firm Content Marketing

You practice law, not marketing. Working with an agency ensures you have the time you require to practice law, without distraction. This relieves the pressure of time constraints, and gets your marketing plan out the door faster, and leads in the door sooner. When you hire an agency, you are hiring an expert in audience engagement, creating long form content, and legal industry specialists. At PaperStreet, our content marketing team includes former practicing lawyers and attorney writers. We have a unique insight into the legal market, as well as knowledge of the latest web-writing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) best practices.

Our Team and Process

PaperStreet has been providing content marketing solutions to attorneys and firms alike for over 20 years. Our company founder is an attorney, and he established the company because he saw the need for high-quality legal web sites and content. We have a proven track record of helping clients obtain top rankings. We use experienced, professional writers and editors to produce accurate, engaging content. We conduct a full analysis of your site, discuss goals, and help you create the campaign that best fits your firm.After our initial strategy consultation, we will deliver the following items monthly:

• Research: We conduct keyword research, analyze competitors, and build a content plan.
• Outline: We outline a 2,000-word article with 10 to 20 subtopics, subject to your approval.
• Writing: We compose monthly long-form content pieces targeting a specific practice area.
• Editing: After your review of the content, we will complete one round of revisions based on your feedback.
• Publishing: We post the article on the desired platform.
• Link Building: PaperStreet will acquire links focused on supporting the content.

FAQs

How long does it take to see results from content marketing?

There is no definitive timeline for your marketing efforts to take effect. Patience is key.

How much does content marketing cost?

Typically businesses allocate a portion of their overall marketing budget to content marketing.

How is Content Marketing Different from Traditional Advertising?

Content marketing promises the user value and a resource they need. It does not interrupt their day, they are actively seeking this information.

Which Methods of Content Marketing Perform Best?

The success of a tactic varies based on the subject matter and target audience. For brand awareness, visual content and social media posts have a lasting impact. For communicating complex concepts infographics can be effective. For lead generation, gated content such as ebooks and whitepapers work well. For customer retention, newsletters, blog posts, and testimonials are valuable.

PaperStreet Client Testimonials

PaperStreet Case Study Examples

Examples of successful long-form pieces of content and their rankings are outlined below:

• Thorn Tax Law - Achieved and held the #1 nationally ranked page for “fatca tax lawyer”
• Martin & Jones - Content marketing strategy resulted in 90 leads in 1 week for this firm’s a personal injury law firm, and 9,000 conversions in just one year
• Stacey Ann Taylor - A business law firm saw 80% conversion increase and 50% site traffic increase in four months.

Resources

• 49 Impactful Infographics Statistics For Marketers (2024)
• Mastering the 7 Most Popular Content Types For Law Firms
• 16 Visual Content Marketing Statistics to Know for 2024
• Content Marketing ROI: How to Measure Your Success
• 35 Content Marketing Statistics You Should Know
• Visual Marketing: The Power Of Images & Videos For Promoting Your Brand
• The 6 Elements of the Content Marketing Process