I know. You made it through law school, and there was plenty of writing in law school. Though I haven’t been, I’ve had friends that have gone through the grueling law school process. I feel horrible for them, and I’m thankful I can drink my glass of wine and not have to go through what they’ve gone through.

Let’s be honest though – you know people in law school who have gotten through it with absolutely horrible writing skills. I mean, maybe you’re that person. That doesn’t mean you aren’t brilliant in the courtroom. It just means that your strength isn’t the writing part.

All attorneys can write, but not all attorneys can write well. This matters, particularly when it comes to creating content for a law firm’s website.

The “I’ve Done It Myself” Law Firm Website

We’ve all been on websites for law firms that seem, umm, less than stellar. Just yesterday, I found myself on one attorney’s website and had all of the following thoughts just by glancing through his personal injury landing page (practice area page, parent page, etc.):

  • Why is the title two words?
  • Where are the headings?
  • There are only two long paragraphs
  • No bullet points
  • No law firm name
  • No call to action
  • No keywords
  • No geo terms

It was bad. Really bad. This page was supposed to be the jumping-off point for other types of injuries the attorney handled. The rest of the pages were just as bad, though I did find a single bullet point and a single heading on one of their pages.

I wanted to know who wrote the page, and I happened to know someone who worked with the firm (I was already 95% sure who wrote the content).

If you guessed that an attorney at the firm wrote the content, you’d be correct. I asked the person working with the attorney if there were any plans to change the content, and they told me that they’ve tried to have that conversation with the attorney. Unfortunately, the attorney insisted that he do all of the written content. He always had, and he always will.

The go-it-yourself approach is sometimes a fatal flaw for a law firm website.

The Reluctance Comes From Trust Issues

From what I’ve gathered from lawyers who work with Blue Seven Content after trying to do their own material, the website thing comes down to not trusting anyone else. I’ll readily admit that attorneys will know more than me about the specific area of law they practice, but I’ll also say that I don’t need to be a total expert to provide results. Nobody is coming to a lawyer’s website to read a legal brief or discover the finer points of litigation tactics. When people come to an attorney’s website, they want to see a few specific things:

  • An organized page/website
  • A page that is easy on the eyes
  • Understandable language and concepts
  • Short sentences and short paragraphs
  • If you handle cases like theirs
  • Why they should work with you
  • Whether they can afford you

When an attorney has Black’s damn near memorized, they have a tendency to try to overexplain things on their web pages. As soon as you start using complicated legal terms without a proper, simple explanation, your reader is clicking the back button and going to the next firm on the Google search results.

Oh, yeah. We almost forgot to say that most lawyers don’t have the time to focus on writing website content and keeping it up-to-date. They need help, and they need someone who can get the job done correctly.

We Write For Two Audiences

At Blue Seven Content, we understand that we write for two audiences – the prospective law firm client and Google (and other search engines). This isn’t as easy as it sounds. It takes people who are naturally talented writers who can communicate with a wide range of audience types. It also takes writers who have a firm grasp of SEO tactics.

Our writers come from varied backgrounds. We have people from the law profession and we have former teachers. Our degrees range from English and Political Science to underwater basket weaving (only kidding about one of those).

We have an in-house training manual that all of our writers use so we can ensure uniformity and quality of content. We have monthly writer training sessions so we can discuss what’s working and what needs improvement. We also have a team that is available nearly 24 hours a day to help any writer when they have questions about the content they’re writing.

What we are NOT is a full-service website company. We do content. That’s it. Our content is original, researched, and optimized, but that’s where we stop. We’ve chosen to focus on law firm written content because we know that’s what we’re good at. If we tried to branch into other services, we think we’d water ourselves down. We don’t want to do that.

If you’re ready for some help with your law firm’s website content, we’re here. We specialize in all of the following:

You can contact us for a free consultation by clicking here or calling us at 843-580-3158. Our team is ready to talk to you today.

Written by Allen Watson – CEO and Co-Founder of Blue Seven Content

Published by Blue Seven Content

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  1. Pingback: 5 Biggest Legal Content Mistakes to Avoid on Your Website - Blue Seven Content

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