Blue Seven Content Uncategorized

Bad Law Firm Website Content – Have You Read Your Website Lately?

Bad law firm website content is a disease for your website. If you’re not reading the content on your website regularly, then you might be surprised by what others are finding there.

As legal content writers, we take pride in our craft. We know attorneys and law firms count on our creative ability to present legal information that is well-written and appeals to potential clients. Before publishing, our content goes through several edits because we want to make sure it fits well with the culture and practice of each client. 

But some content creation sources are not such conscious editors and it results in the publication of some really bad legal content.

We don’t mean bad because of legal inaccuracies – although it can happen. We mean bad, as in, the words being strung together literally do not make sense. We mean content so bad that law firms may well be sending business away as people attempt to make sense of what they are reading.

How We Know the Content is Bad

We read it. We read a lot of it. 

Before we write content, we research every topic. Our inquiries often retrieve articles from law firm websites. Naturally, we appreciate well-written material. Conversely, we are not very impressed with nonsensical, keyword-stuffed content that sounds like it’s coming from a robot. 

Legal content that leaves potential clients scratching their heads is not doing the job it needs to do and may actually be discrediting an otherwise very capable law practice. 

Just How Bad is Bad?

Well, bad is pretty bad. Lawyers want people to trust them with their lives and livelihoods. Competence is a big deal. First impressions are important. Poorly written content is one way to distinguish a law firm from its competitors – and not in a good way.

The following are actual samples of published content from law firm websites.

From the website of a South Carolina personal injury attorney:

  • “The classification of wrongful death cases as personal injury lawsuits means that wrongful death cases must have died by the personal injury statute of limitations.”

From the website of a Georgia personal injury attorney:

  • “During brake testing or mostly known as brake checking, you slam on your brakes sharply while driving along with another vehicle so that the unsuspecting car will slam on their brakes as well or swerve out of the way so that you will not cause an accident.”

From the website of a Montana criminal defense attorney:

  • “Criminal defense lawyer additionally offers personal sort of assistance by giving the respondent to realise the potential results and by assisting the litigant to manage the fears and frustration that might be coming forth because of being faced with the criminal justice framework.”

That’s some pretty bad content. 

We assume most law firms have professional standards higher than the content on their websites may lead people to believe. People are looking for lawyers because they have problems they cannot solve on their own. They need to feel comfortable with the professionals they are entrusting with their lives. Clear explanations are what they are looking for. 

Confused penguin is confused by your bad law firm website content.
Confused penguin is confused by your bad law firm website content.

How do People Pick an Attorney or Law Firm?

Prospective clients are often visiting a law firm’s website to further investigate a recommended attorney. There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to clients selecting the right attorney or law firm to work with. However, studies that have been done on the subject all suggest a general two-step process involving some combination of the following:

  • Asking trusted advisors, family, or friends for referrals and recommendations
  • Using online information to compare and contrast the suggested options

Content matters. Great content might not win a law firm every potential client, but it keeps them in the fight. Comparatively bad content makes it easy to eliminate at least one option among so many offering similar services. 

The Pressure on Law Firms to Consistently Post Content

By now, most law firms understand the importance of having their content rank high in search results. And they know it requires doing what will achieve and maintain the highest rankings. Consistently posting informative, timely, fresh content is a must to persuade Google that a law firm is the best answer to a search query. 

So, where does all the content come from? Content creation is going to cost a law firm money whether the content is created in-house or outsourced to a content creation agency. And while it may seem like an expense to those who have to write the checks, paying for well-written and edited content is really more like an investment in the future of the law firm. 

Good content does not depreciate after it is posted. It can actually appreciate in ranking value over time as it is read, shared, and linked to. When Google detects positive connections to the content, it becomes more trusted and will rank higher as an authoritative source.

Why AI is Not the Easy Solution to Your Legal Content Writing Needs

In the digital advertising age, it’s all about the content. What wins is great content and lots of it. Writing great content can take time. And extra time is something many lawyers never seem to have enough of. One proffered time and money-saving solution for creating legal content is an artificial intelligence (AI) content creation tool. 

AI content creation tools are typically subscription services. The programs need human input and then are able to create articles of a specified length on specific topics. Many offer templates to help create certain types of content. Some even allow a user to select the tone for the communication.  

But AI content creation has some limitations making it better suited to assist human content creation rather than replace it. AI makes bad law firm website content – humans make readable content that you need.

Artificial intelligence is only a tool to be used by a HUMAN when crafting the best legal content.
Artificial intelligence is only a tool to be used by a HUMAN when crafting the best legal content.

The Pros and Cons of Using AI to Create Legal Content

For persons who need to write content and are lacking inspiration, AI can be very helpful because it can access all available information about a topic. However, AI cannot generate new ideas. AI cannot give opinions. AI cannot add anything original to content. For these reasons, Google considers AI-generated content to be spam.

AI content creation works best on established subjects that are not controversial and not very likely to change. The less well-established the data is on a particular topic, the more likely AI will generate inconsistencies and inaccuracies. It also cannot distinguish the appropriateness of a particular term within the context of how it’s being used, which may convey a different meaning than intended.

An overuse of AI-generated content also detracts from user experience by serving up generic data that does not satisfy a novel search query. There is no value added and no information gained by selecting one piece of content over another. ‘Information gain’ is a measure of the difference in quality between the information provided by two pieces of similar content.

What does Google think about information gain? Recently, Google was given the okay to use information gain as a ranking factor. Google wants to be able to distinguish content on the basis of the value of the information presented. A higher information gain score will go to content that has unique information about a subject because it will be deemed more valuable to the user.

So while AI may provide assistance to get content creation started, it cannot generate the kind of information gain that will make the content uniquely valuable in search results and may even violate Google Search Essentials spam policy by being ‘spammy automatically-generated content.’

Freelance Content Writers and Bad Content

Freelance platforms can be a place where law firms turn to find legal content writers. But it can take a lot of sifting and sorting to find a competent, reliable freelance writer who can produce quality content in publish-ready condition. 

The claimed skills and experience of freelance writers are not verified by the platforms, and reviews can be misleading. Legal content that needs heavy editing or may not even be used as written can require a renewed search for a qualified writer – costing a law firm more time and probably more money for uncertain results. If you don’t want bad law firm website content, you need to seek out writers who have years of experience producing legal content that converts readers into clients.

How to Make Sure Legal Content is Good

Hire a reputable legal content writing agency you can rely on to produce timely, accurate, unique content that is well-edited and publish-ready. 

Or if you choose to have content produced some other way, be sure to review it or have somebody review it before it gets published. It’s best if the person reviewing the content understands SEO, the legal concepts being discussed, and how to write for the potential clients a law firm wants to attract. 

Even if a law firm is paying someone to edit its content, it is still a good idea for a firm principal to periodically read some of the firm’s content to make sure it is representative of the image the firm wants to convey. 

How do You go From Bad Law Firm Website Content to Good?

Our motives are mostly pure. We write legal content. We think it should be good. We think law firms should want their content to be good too. We’re here to help law firms get more clients, which means getting rid of your bad law firm website content.

Content is a big part of law firm marketing. Your content may be the first introduction someone has to your law firm. You want that introduction to let the reader know you understand their problem and can provide the solution they need. You want them to feel comfort in knowing they can trust you to help them resolve their situation. 

At Blue Seven Content, we know bad content on law firm websites can mean the loss of potential clients. Our content is written to give attorneys and law firms the best chances of attracting the clients that need their services. Want good content? Call Blue 7.

Written by Mari Gaines – Legal Content Writer

Blue Seven Content Uncategorized

Law Firm SEO: Legal Copywriter’s Guide

UPDATED MAY 2023

Law firm SEO is a highly competitive legal market, and reaching your target audience organically may not be enough. Writing the best law firm content will improve the quality of your website and help you obtain higher rankings on search engines.

Luckily, when you need the best legal content writers for attorney search engine optimization (SEO), Blue Seven Content can offer considerable insight. 

  1. Why is SEO Important for Law Firms?
  2. You Need Fresh, Well-Researched Content for SEO
  3. YMYL and Law Firms – What You Need to Know
  4. Google Search and AI-Generated Responses
  5. What You Should Know About Keywords and Keyword Phrases
  6. Why Style is Important When Writing the Best Law Firm Content
  7. How Important is a Blog to Your Law Firm SEO?
  8. What Are Some SEO Do’s and Don’ts for Law Firm Websites? 
  9. Law Firm SEO Considerations for State Bar Ethics and American Bar Association (ABA)
  10. Why Lawyers May Not Be the Best Legal Content Writers
  11. Why You Need a Law Firm SEO Copywriter

Why is SEO Important for Law Firms?

Having the best legal content means nothing if your target audience never sees it. A recent study analyzed billions of search results on Google:

  • 70.7% of users click one of the first five rankings
  • The 10th position on Google only gets a 2.5% click-through rate

Users rarely proceed to the second page of a search engine. If your website is stranded in Google’s “no man’s land,” it’s time to step up your SEO. 

Law firm SEO is something your firm must take seriously.
SEO for Law Firms can be confusing, but it’s not an enigma.

You Need Fresh, Well-Researched Content for SEO

Google’s search criteria change constantly. For 2022, SEO focused on fresh, quality content. According to Google Search Central, the search engine defines quality content as content containing expertise, content that is authoritative, and content that is trustworthy (E-A-T). What you previously knew as E-A-T, though, has transformed into E-E-A-T (but if you say it out loud as one word, people will think you’re having a medical emergency) in search and SEO.

What is (E)EAT? 

Under the Quality Rater Guidelines, Google released a 167-page document describing E-A-T and how the search engine is focused on the human experience, not bots. In December of 2022, Google updated E-A-T to E-E-A-T, and it was clearly a response to the late November 2022 release of ChatGPT from OpenAI. The guidelines emphasize the following:

  • Experience. Does the content you put on your website convey to the reader that you have some degree of experience related to the topic at hand? That’s what this new “E” is all about. Artificial intelligence programs like ChatGPT don’t have their own experiences – they take information from others and create a conglomeration of, sometimes incorrect, responses. This “experience” factor works to build on the other three parts of EAT by establishing the author as someone who has “walked the walk.” Google is looking mainly for first-hand life experience.
  • Expertise: Expertise is difficult to attain in the legal field. New practices may need to publish a substantial amount of content over time to be considered an expert by Google standards. Keep in mind that SEO expertise is very different from claiming legal expertise, which can put a law firm on ethically shaky ground. The idea is to have enough well-researched content on your site to position yourself as highly knowledgeable on the subject. 
  • Authority: Authority represents the evidence of your expertise online. How many other sites link back to yours? Do visitors to your social media sites find their way to a blog or news article you have published on your site? The more recognition your legal pages receive, the stronger “authority” you’ll have in your niche. 
  • Trustworthy: Making your law firm website trustworthy in the eyes of SEO involves proving your site as a quality source of information. Using external links to government sites and unbiased studies are great sources of data. Conversely, using an external link to an unreliable source, or source whose information can be altered by anyone, may hurt your SEO standing. 

Reader-Friendly

Reader-friendliness is crucial to any site. A lack of readability can increase your bounce rate, impeding your website’s ability to convert visitors to clients. Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who leave your legal website after viewing only one page. 

According to research:

  • The average bounce rate is 41-55%
  • A high bounce rate is considered 70% or more
  • A bounce rate of 26-40% is excellent  

A good bounce rate tends to vary by type of business. For your law firm website, aim for a bounce rate of 50% or less. 

To reduce your bounce rate, consider the following reader-friendly factors: 

  • Avoid long, wordy blocks of text
  • Too many or too few images
  • Too much clutter (e.g., pop-ups, banners, pages without headers)
  • Reading level

Lawyers have years of education and experience to offer prospective clients. Still, no matter how educated you or your audience, keeping your readability at an 8th-grade level is important.  

Keep Content Fresh

Google loves fresh content for several reasons. Fresh and recently updated content tends to be more accurate, adding to the expertise and trustworthiness of your site. In addition, fresh content gets indexed more frequently, usually resulting in higher search engine rankings. 

To keep your website fresh, consider creating a schedule to add new content regularly. Your law firm website could benefit from adding:

  • Practice pages 
  • Sub-practice pages to focus your service areas
  • A weekly or bi-weekly blog
  • Firm news and community

Also, make sure to update old content. Refresh the statistics on your practice area pages each year. Update old blogs with recent news stories. Check external links and update the source information. If you have similar blogs, think about combining them into a new one. 

YMYL and Law Firms – What You Need to Know

“Your Money or Your Life.” Maybe you’ve heard that before, but you may not know why that matters for your law firm website content or law firm SEO strategy.

YMYL refers to how Google classifies certain content that could impact “a person’s future happiness, health, financial stability, or safety.” There is no hard and fast rule about what is for sure considered YMYL, but some topics are clear. For example, pages related to medical advice, evacuation routes for hurricanes, local news about an ongoing natural or manmade disaster, how to fill out tax forms, etc. Law firm content/legal queries should be YMYL, but that’s not a guarantee.

There are also topics that could be YMYL, like weather reports, information about how to use certain products or when to replace products, and repair advice.

There are many other YMYL topics, but Google clearly states that YMYL topics should demonstrate the highest E-E-A-T levels of any content on the web. Google has not said that law firm content is for sure YMYL, but a few things are true – law firms and attorneys certainly help people in ways that affect their happiness, health, financial stability, and even safety.

As an industry, we NEED law firm website content to be considered YMYL, because that’s the only way SEO and SERPs matter. Google is experimenting with Bard, and AI responses could potentially be the norm at the top of the search results when you type in a query.

Google Search and AI-Generated Responses

Of course, Google had to respond to the rapid changes in internet user behavior brought on by ChatGPT. Millions of people were using OpenAI’s program within a week of its release, and it’s no longer a mystery that ChatGPT has affected many industries, including content writing, academia, medicine, coding, and others.

You may have seen the rollout for certain users as Google experiments with its own Google Bard to provide answers to users based on their search. They’re calling this Search Generative Experience (SGE). These answers pop up before any of the search results, paid or organic. The answers are presented similarly to ChatGPT, except in your regular search instead of a separate website. It’s an experiment right now, but you can expect it to become a reality. Google can’t fall behind because they know what happens to big tech that falls behind new competitors (anyone still missing their adjustable Myspace backgrounds?).

Google has said that this new SGE experience won’t affect YMYL queries, including legal ones, but that’s not a guarantee. Regardless of whether or not law firms get sucked into the AI responses for Google (we think organic and paid search will still matter for law firms), the content produced and put onto your web pages MATTERS.

Law firms should put out quality content that the reader can use and trust. They should do this for their potential clients and for their website’s trustworthiness factor, but they should also do this to prepare for any AI upheaval. Once ChatGPT and other AI platforms connect to the internet, the game changes.

But law firm websites won’t be replaced. Other YMYL websites will still matter. But these websites will be incorporated into the AI landscape somehow. We just don’t know what that will look like yet. We’re still figuring this new tech out. One thing we know is that 90% of what people think new tech will do for the world isn’t what actually happens. AI platforms like ChatGPT will grow a life of their own and, as with other tech in the past, carve out their own future while we play catch up.

What You Should Know About Keywords and Keyword Phrases

SEO basics center around the common keywords people search for a given topic. For example, if your law firm offers personal injury services in New York, some common keywords may be:

  • Car accidents attorneys in New York
  • New York Truck crash lawyers
  • New York Slip and fall injuries attorney

Keywords and keyword phrases help Google better categorize your page. A skilled team with experience handling content for law firm websites can help incorporate these keywords seamlessly.

Keywords for Law Firm SEO

Think about your legal practice and what services you offer. Do some practice searches in your area or use a keyword tool. A few companies, including Google, offer a keyword planner to get the best phrases for your SEO goals. 

 Consider the following when doing your keyword research:

  • What is the user’s intent?
  • How competitive is the keyword phrase?
  • Should you use long keyword phrases or short ones?

User intent, i.e., query intent, is what the user wants to find when doing a search. Does the user want information about a subject, or are they looking to hire an attorney? Keywords are phrased to capture the motivation of the user.

In addition, finding a set of keywords that are too competitive may leave your site stuck on page 2 or 3 of a Google search. Ideally, your keywords should be unique enough to offer low competition. Longtail keywords may be a great solution to lowering your SEO competition.

An example of a longtail keyword phrase could be, “Best legal content writers in Chicago.” A short keyword phrase may be “legal content.” 

The latter offers a much more generalized term, making SEO more challenging. Long keyword phrases provide focused results to drive prospects to your site. 

Don’t Forget to Include LSI Keywords

Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) keywords relate to the meaning of your overall content. Mixing short and longtail keywords is important, especially for headers. However, LSI keywords help Google recognize that your entire page relates to the topic. 

For instance, suppose you are a criminal defense law firm in New Orleans and would like to focus on DUI defense. Your short keywords may be “DUI defense,” and your longtail keywords may be “best DUI defense in New Orleans.” An example of some LSI keywords may include “defense for driving under the influence in Louisiana” and “New Orleans defense attorneys for a DUI arrest.”

Learn how your clients (or prospective clients) are searching for your service. The power falls to those who know what their clients’ needs are before they need them.

Make sure you produce quality content as opposed to quantity for law firm SEO.
Dedicate time to researching the content. Google wants quality over quantity now.

Why Style is Important When Writing the Best Law Firm Content

Writing style builds your online brand. For legal sites, the difference between using victim or survivor is can make a deep impact on the tone of your page. Consider the impression you want to make using your blog or practice area page. Which stylistic terms suit your target audience?

  • Crash/Accident
  • Plaintiff/Defendant
  • Claimant/Liable party
  • Victim/Survivor
  • Header capitalization and punctuation 
  • Descriptive bullet lists/H3 (heading size 3)

Whatever your choice, remember to stay consistent. Style fosters your developing voice and brand. Inconsistent styling can make your legal site seem poorly managed.  

How Important is a Blog to Your Law Firm SEO?

A blog is an excellent way to add continuously fresh, quality content to your law firm website and establish credibility in your niche. It’s also a great tactic to build trust with your prospective clients.  

Unfortunately, the legal profession has led to some unfair stereotypes. Users looking to hire an attorney may feel put off by in-your-face advertising, especially if their legal issues are of a sensitive nature. 

According to a consumer research study, 82% of prospects feel more positive about a company after reading the company’s blog. Having a blog that helps the average user answer some simple legal questions or highlights a local matter can help bridge the gap. 

What Are Some SEO Do’s and Don’ts for Law Firm Websites? 

SEO is complicated, especially for those just getting started. For law firms, there are a few do’s and don’ts for the best legal content. 

  • Break up text blocks with bullet lists and headers (H2’s and H3’s)
  • Keep your sentences and information short and simple for the average reader
  • Get to the point and avoid lots of unnecessary fluff
  • Use the FAQ format for your headings to improve your organic searches and the possibility of a Google Snippet feature
  • Remember to include a call to action (CTA) on every page
  • Make sure you include relevant internal links and well-researched external links
  • Pay attention to your keywords and phrases
  • Remember your location matters in your keyword longtail phrases
  • Use too much CTA. A sentence at the beginning and end is sufficient 
  • Use legal jargon
  • Offer guarantees or absolutes
  • Write strictly for SEO 

Remember, your audience is human. While much of SEO involves keyword phrases and other taglines, your content should appeal to humans. Don’t write for a Google bot. Write for your prospective clients. 

Law Firm SEO Considerations for State Bar Ethics and American Bar Association (ABA)

After years of schooling and experience in the field, you’re likely familiar with all the ethical considerations for your practice. However, writing ethically for a website practice page may prove challenging. 

Specialization or Expertise 

After years in a particular field of law, you may feel like a true expert. Unfortunately, stating that you are an expert or specialist in a field can violate state and ABA ethics codes. The American Bar Association has its own board certification and specialization programs. 

Some examples of bord certifications include:

  • Board Certification in Family Law Trial Law
  • Board Certification in Criminal Trial Law
  • Board Certification – Consumer Bankruptcy Law

State bars also have their own certifications and specialty programs. Unless you are certified through the ABA or state board, refrain from using the terms expert or specialist. 

While you have the experience and education to accurately answer legal questions for your clients, remember to avoid giving legal advice. Instead, keep your explanations of law generally. For complicated topics, giving a hypothetical can help sidestep giving direct legal advice while keeping things simple for the reader. 

Avoid Absolutes 

As a rule of thumb, it is best to avoid words and phrases that are definitive or absolute. For example, replace always with can be or may be. 

Criminal trials are always a lengthy process.

Criminal trials can be a lengthy process. 

Speaking in generalities is a great way to stay compliant with the ABA and the State Bar Ethics Advisory:

Careful with Results

Many law firms like to put verdicts and settlements on their webpage. Showcasing your past successes can add credibility to your practice and value to your services. However, state ethics bards may regulate how verdicts and settlements are presented. For instance, South Carolina requires all favorable verdicts and settlements to be displayed with a clear disclaimer.   

Contingency Fees

Contingency fee structures can be a touchy subject online. While offering contingency fees can help drive prospective clients to schedule a consultation, the wording can be tricky. To avoid any issues with the bar requirements, use general terminology when describing your fee structure.  

Advertising vs. Blogs

Advertising is another tricky area in the ethics department. The ABA regulates how attorneys advertise for their services. In addition, many state bars have created advertising rules and regulations. 

Blogs, however, may not fall under the same strict code of ethics. Check with your state bar to see if blogs are free from ethical review. 

Why Lawyers May Not Be the Best Legal Content Writers

Writing the best legal content requires continuous upkeep, researching new guidelines, and knowing content style guides. While you know the law best, professional legal content writers know your target audience’s online behavior and how to drive them to your site. 

Whether your firm has been in practice for decades or is just hitting the stage, consider the following reason to outsource your legal copywriting. 

You would rather spend your time lawyering.

Writing copy tailored for SEO takes knowledge and work. Every hour you spend writing a practice page, a blog, or updating old pages is time away from lawyering. Every twenty minutes here and there you spend researching how to improve your website’s rankings on a search engine is a minute not billable to a client. 

Spend your time doing what you love. Leave the rest to a legal SEO copywriter. 

Legal SEO content is an entire field in an do itself. You focus on being a lawyer.
Focus on lawyering. Let someone else focus on your law firm SEO content.

Why You Need a Law Firm SEO Copywriter

You are a professional. Shouldn’t your law firm website support that? Point your law firm SEO strategy in the right direction.

Your legal content is an extension of the hard work and dedication you’ve given your field. Just as clients come for your experience and skill, every attorney deserves to have their content handled professionally.  Contact the Blue 7 Content Founders Allen Watson and Victoria Lozano today by phone or email to learn more about our tailor-made legal content pages. You can reach us at (843) 580-3158.

Written by Morgan Sprinkle – Legal Content Writer

Updated by Allen Watson – Co-Founder of Blue Seven Content

Blue Seven Content Uncategorized

How Law Firms Can Dominate For Local SEO 

Law firms need local SEO. When a search engine like Google receives a search query, it uses various indicators to determine the results that are most compatible with the search terms. Those indicators will influence how a search engine ranks and presents its search results.

Ranking in search engine results is extremely competitive. Focusing on local SEO gives Google the information it can use to identify a particular law firm as a high-ranking search result in response to a localized search query. 

  1. Organic (Local SEO) Search Results are More Credible
  2. Three Factors Most Important for Local Ranking
  3. Top 5 Marketing Practices for Local SEO
    1. 1. Google Business Profile 
    2. 2. Business Citations
    3. 3. Client Reviews 
    4. 5. Inbound Links
  4. Maintaining Consistent Local SEO Rankings

Why Law Firms Need to Optimize for Local SEO

Law firms that optimize for local SEO will greatly improve their chances of being found by persons looking for an attorney within a particular city or geographic area. Consider the following statistics compiled by HubSpot about searches for local information.

  • 97% of people learn more about a local business online than from any other source
  • 92% of people searching for local information will pick a business from page one of the search results
  • 88% of people who search for a local business on a mobile device call or visit the business within 24 hours
  • 72% of consumers who do a local search visit a business within 5 miles
  • 46% of all Google searches are looking for local information

Organic (Local SEO) Search Results are More Credible

When someone types a search query into Google, page one of the search results will feature a combination of paid advertisements and organic search results. The paid advertisements appear at the top and bottom of the page and the unpaid search results appear in between. 

Despite being positioned further down the page, more people are likely to scroll past the paid advertisements and choose to click on one of the top organic results. According to HigherVisibility:

  • Organic search results generate 53% of website traffic while paid advertising generates only 27% of website visits.

Why should non-paid results appeal more to searchers than paid results? First, people may feel more like services are being pushed on them with paid ads which can result in some initial distrust. Second, organic results (properly optimized) can be a more specific match to a searcher’s inquiry making an organic result the more relevant choice.

If your search console seems abysmal, it’s time for a change – perhaps a local focus?

Three Factors Most Important for Local Ranking

When determining how to rank results in response to a search for a local business, Google considers the following three factors:

  • Relevance – Relevance is how closely Google believes a law firm’s content matches a search query. Google determines relevancy from information in a law firm’s Google Business Profile. 
  • Distance – Distance is how far a search result is from either the location term used in the search or from the location generating the search (if no location term is used). 
  • Prominence – Prominence means brand authority. Google will access information about a law firm from sources all across the web to determine prominence. 

Top 5 Marketing Practices for Local SEO

Attorneys and law firms can greatly improve their visibility and credibility with local audiences by taking a few basic steps to optimize local SEO. 

1. Google Business Profile 

When a searcher is looking for a lawyer or law firm in a specific location Google uses information from the firm’s Business Profile to determine which local results most closely match what the searcher is looking for. The Business Profile provides an opportunity to do more than just list a few facts about a business. If optimized appropriately, it serves as a strategic resource to bolster consumer confidence and boost local rankings. 

Make sure your Google My Business profile is up-to-date.

Google offers some guidelines for completing a business profile that can help improve local rankings. After completing a business profile, it needs to be verified before it is authorized to be displayed in search results. 

  • Complete all parts of the profile. Be accurate, consistent, and as specific as possible. 
  • Under business description, use all 750 characters to provide the name of the law firm and lead attorney, the main location, primary practice areas, years of experience, and any notable peer or industry recognition.
  • Use as few categories as possible to describe what the core business is. For attorneys and law firms, the category will usually be law firm – though a few available categories describe particular types of attorneys. Once a category is selected, the various types of law that are practiced can be added as offered services.  
  • Add photos to provide a look inside the firm at the attorneys both at work and in the community. People are visual and will connect more easily with appealing pictures that give them an idea of what they can expect.
  • Create posts to share news about the law firm and the people in it. Announce community events local people might be interested in knowing about or that the law firm is participating in. 

2. Business Citations

Law firm listings on directory sites give search engines more information to learn from and can increase a law firm’s local ranking potential. BrightLocal has compiled a list of some of the top citation sites for lawyers. Many sites offer free as well as paid listing options.

The most important thing to remember with business citations is to be consistent with your NAP (name, address, and phone number) from listing to listing. Discrepancies in NAP information leave a search engine uncertain about the credibility of search results. Less certainty about a search result means lower rankings because a search engine cannot be sure the result is a good match for the search.

3. Client Reviews 

Positive reviews not only help law firms earn the trust of new clients, but some of Google’s most significant local ranking factors come from customer reviews. Law firms that want to get the most local SEO mileage from client reviews should have an active strategy for soliciting and responding to reviews. 

Popular platforms where law firms can collect reviews include:

  • Google
  • Yelp
  • Facebook
  • Avvo
  • Martindale Hubble
  • Findlaw
  • Lawyers
  • LegalMatch

While good reviews can be very beneficial to a law firm, negative reviews can quickly damage marketing efforts. Negative reviews should be responded to quickly and with genuine empathy for a client’s bad experience. A good response to a bad review can actually help potential clients understand more about working with a particular attorney or law firm.

4. Keywords

For content to perform well in local search results, it must be optimized with the keywords that searchers are using to find a local business. Try to incorporate geographic location information in as many forms as people generally use to refer to a particular area or region.

Make sure that all of the critical on-page SEO elements include keywords – URL, title tag, meta description, headings, and body. Using longer-tail keywords (5+ words) with more specific detail can produce more targeted results and will usually be easier to rank for.

For instance, instead of the rather generic ‘Portland personal injury attorney,’ a more targeted keyword might be to focus on a Portland suburb or nickname and a particular type of accident or injury – ‘Hillsboro car accident injury attorney’ or ‘Traumatic brain injury lawyer in Rose City.’

Inbound links or backlinks are links to your website from another website. Having other popular and authoritative websites link to your website is a positive sign to Google, and it increases the prominence ranking factor of your content.

Investigate options for getting some easy inbound links such as professional organizations, alumni associations, and the chamber of commerce. Other options for increasing inbound links might include:

  • Sponsoring a local event 
  • Donating to a local cause 
  • Writing an article for a local or industry publication 
  • Being a featured guest on a local podcast.

Remember, quality counts with backlinks. Try to obtain links from sources that are legitimate and relevant. 

Maintaining Consistent Local SEO Rankings

A good local SEO strategy is dynamic. After the initial pieces are put in place, regular updating is necessary so accuracy and consistency are maintained. Fresh content must be added on a regular basis so that Google continues to index variations of local search terms. 

At Blue Seven Content, we know it can be quite a challenge to consistently produce quality legal content that is well optimized because it’s all we do – and we’re not trying to practice law at the same time. We write about the laws to educate. We write about local news and events to inform. We create engaging legal content helping lawyers and law firms get noticed by the clients who need their services. 

To find out more about how Blue Seven Content can improve your local SEO with original, well-researched, strategically optimized content, call 843-580-3158 or visit Blue Seven Content.

Written by Mari Gaines – Legal Content Writer

Blue Seven Content Uncategorized

Top 10 Pages You Need On Your Law Firm Website 

There are 10 types of pages that you need on your law firm website to remain effective and competitive in today’s legal services market. When the internet was young, having a few well-made pages was enough to prove your credibility as a firm. Now, having only a few pages puts doubt in a visitor’s mind if they manage to find your site at all. 

The top search engine in the world is Google. For your law firm’s website to position itself as a credible source of information and authority, there are certain pages you must have. 

  1. 1. Your Homepage: The Traffic Controller of Your Website
  2. 2. Practice Area Pages: A Detailed Menu of Your Services
  3. 3. Sub-Practice Area Pages: Increase Your SEO and Focus Your Pages 
  4. 4 and 5. About Us Pages: Why Choose Our Law Firm and Our Team
    1. Why Choose Us?
    2. Meet Our Team
  5. 6. Review Page: Testimonials from Clients
  6. 7. Results Page: Can You Win My Case? 
  7. 8. Blog and News Source: Why It’s Crucial to Have Continuously Fresh Content
  8. 9. FAQs Page: A Must Have for Google’s New Snippets Function
    1. What is Google Snippet?
    2. Why Are Questions Important for Google Snippets?
  9. 10. Contact Us Page: Request a Consultation with Us Today
  10. Blue Seven is the Best Law Firm Marketing Site for Better SEO and Your Content Needs 

1. Your Homepage: The Traffic Controller of Your Website

Your homepage serves as a directory of your firm, attorneys, and services. Just as traffic controllers direct motorists through intersections, your homepage directs visitors to the information they need.

A website is designed to convert visitors into clients. The average user is not sitting at their desk dutifully researching legal help. It is far more likely they are simultaneously scrolling on their mobile phones, watching Netflix, and browsing their social media pages. Your homepage must be able to provide enough easy-to-digest information that is relevant to the user to capture their attention. 

According to a recent study:

  • 71% multitask by watching television and using social media
  • 63% of employees use their mobile phones while working
  • 54% of adults simultaneously watch TV and online shop 

Since mobile phones became a part of every household, the adult attention span has decreased by 25%. Today, the average human has an attention span of only 8.25 seconds. To prevent visitors from jumping off your homepage, i.e., avoid a low bounce rate, it must load quickly and clearly show your page links. 

2. Practice Area Pages: A Detailed Menu of Your Services

Practice area pages tell visitors what services you offer. The average person knows very little about the legal world. Your practice area pages define how your firm can help potential clients. 

Picture trying a new restaurant. You may have an idea of the cuisine you are in the mood for but not the dish you’d like to try. You peruse the menu, read the descriptions, and see if an option jumps out. 

Your practice area pages do the same for potential clients. Users who visit your site have an idea of the services they want but need to scan your page for decision-making details.  

3. Sub-Practice Area Pages: Increase Your SEO and Focus Your Pages 

Sub-practice area pages give your site more opportunities to earn higher rankings on Google and focus on the services you offer. For example, suppose you are a personal injury lawyer. You create practice pages that best reflect the largest percentage of your business, including general personal injury, car accident claims, and slip and fall injuries.

Over time, you notice the firm’s case load has not increased. The phone isn’t ringing. A quick Google search later, and you find yourself in “no man’s land” on the fourth page. 

How can you get your phone to ring?

Create pages that focus on your services. In addition to “Car Accident Attorney,” produce “Truck Accident Lawyer” and “Motorcycle Accident Attorney.” Instead of having only a “Slip and Fall Lawyer” page, turn it into a sub-category of a premises liability page. Then add sub-practice area pages like “Negligent Security” for “Occupational Falls.” 

Whether you have a personal injury practice or a criminal defense law firm, sub-pages can expand on your services and increase your Google rankings. The latest search engine optimization (SEO) algorithm from Google depends on the following factors:

  • Keywords and keyword phrases that appear organically in the text
  • Strategic use of headers to make a page easier to scan for pertinent information
  • Relevant internal and external links that will increase your site’s authority in the field
  • Continuous fresh content that can be frequently indexed

Using sub-practice area pages to dive deeper into your legal services creates more opportunities to utilize the above SEO elements. 

4 and 5. “About Us” Law Firm Website Pages: Why Choose Us and Our Team

Who are you and why should we care? 

Today’s legal market is highly competitive. If you have successfully kept a visitor on your site long enough to see your list of services, they’ll likely want to get a feel of who you are as a firm before requesting a consultation. It’s okay to have law firm website pages that talk about you.

Why Choose Us?

While practice area pages are essential to connecting prospects with the services you provide, demonstrating how your firm differs from the competition is critical to converting visitors into clients. 

A “Why Choose Us” page can highlight your firm’s best attributes and showcases your awards and recognitions. Consider what makes your legal practice unique.

Do you offer boutique-style service? Are you family-owned? 

Think about the significant honors your firm has achieved.

Have members on your legal team been recognized by Super Lawyers or AV Preeminent? Does your firm have a long history in the area? Have you won cases that effectively helped create or change a law?

Meet Our Team

Potential clients want to know who will represent their case.

Will they advocate for my best interests? How long have they practiced? What is their education? What have they accomplished as attorneys?

Having a page dedicated to attorney biographies or profiles increases your legal team’s credibility and your law firm website’s authority. Prospects may be impressed with your firm and its achievements. However, seeing professional pictures of your team members and reading about their individual experiences can help visitors connect to your team. It is also critical to increasing your visitors-to-clients conversion rate. 

6. Review Page: Testimonials from Clients

What do your clients think of you? What do they think of your services? 

Potential clients are looking up your reviews on Google and LinkedIn. Help your firm’s credibility by putting testimonials from past clients on your site. Create a dedicated page that showcases how your firm has helped people and what prospective clients can expect from retaining your services.

According to data collected from Statista, website visitors expect a significant number of reviews when evaluating products and services:

  • Prospective clients expect an average of 112 reviews per product or service
  • 62% of visitors read reviews before choosing a service
  • The most important factor when evaluating a business is its overall star rating

Don’t be afraid to reach out and ask for a review from past clients. Your firm has cultivated a valuable attorney-client relationship. Make writing a testimonial a great way to button up the end of your journey together. 

Reviews and testimonials give your law firm online validation and increase credibility in the eyes of prospective clients. 

7. Results Page: Can You Win My Case? 

Potential clients want to see what your firm has done for other people in similar circumstances. 

What kind of success have you had in your field? Do you have any high-dollar settlements? Have you defended any high-profile cases?

Confidentiality is essential in the legal world. When describing a case, use vague references and focus on the facts. If your settlement involves a high number, but your client is bound by a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), it is ok to say as much on your page. 

Prospective clients want to know that they will be represented by a winning law firm. Seek out permission to disclose as many verdicts and settlements as possible. 

8. Blog and News Source: Why It’s Crucial to Have Continuously Fresh Content

Google’s search engines are constantly looking for new information. You can build an amazing law firm website with all the bells and whistles. However, if you do not update or add to your site on a continuous basis, it will be in danger of becoming obsolete. 

Consider a classroom full of students. A teacher will view students who frequently participate in class as smart and hard-working. The student who never raises their hand but shows up every day may be just as bright but will not receive the same recognition.

Your website works similarly. Having a blog or a page dedicated to news about the firm is an excellent vehicle for continuously adding fresh content. 

9. FAQs Page: A Must Have for Google’s New Snippets Function

Since 2014, Google Snippet has grown exponentially in the world of SEO. Today, a snippet is often the first content a visitor may read about your site. 

What is Google Snippet?

Google snippets are short pieces of information that appear at the top of a search query. When a user poses a question or topic on the search engine, Google will extract some data or text to show as a snippet underneath the link to a website. Creating a well-written or rich snippet is an excellent and often overlooked method of increasing your search engine rankings. 

Why Are Questions Important for Google Snippets?

Google never releases its exact algorithms to create higher search engine rankings. Instead, experts painstakingly study search results and theorize what works and what does not. 

Recently, it was noted by several SEO experts that featured Google snippets often lead with a question. The questions are featured as headers before the snippet. In many cases, the questions are featured as H2 and H3 tags. 

Having a dedicated Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):

  • Presents multiple opportunities for a featured Google snippet
  • Quickly answers common questions to capture a visitor’s attention

By putting the questions in header form, they are more likely to increase your search engine rankings and serve as a rich snippet. FAQs are excellent ways to increase the amount of law firm website pages you have, thereby increasing your credibility (if the pages are well-written).

10. Contact Us Page: Request a Consultation with Us Today

Every page on your law firm’s website should have a call to action (CTA) that links to your Contact Us page. When a potential client has decided to reach out to your firm for a consultation, having a mobile-friendly link to call your firm or fill out a Consult Request Form is one of the most important features of any website. 

Without a clear CTA link, a prospect may move on to the next law firm’s website. Generally, visitors are media-multitasking when on your website, i.e., switching between apps on their mobile devices while on their tablet or watching TV. Telling a visitor what action to take next, e.g., click here, call now, substantially increases your visitor-to-client conversion rate. 

Your law firm content must be toned towards what your prospective clients need to see.

Blue Seven Content is Ready to Enhance Your Law Firm Website Pages

Content is king in the world of Google and other search engines. Carefully crafting well-researched, quality law firm website pages is as important, if not more so, than the format and design of your website. 

At Blue Seven Content, we have years of experience creating SEO-rich content specific for law firms. Our dedicated team of writers all have bachelor’s degrees or higher. Many have pursued careers in the legal field.  

After years of school and service to clients, you deserve time to focus on your law firm. Let our experts work for you. We’ll keep the phone ringing. 

Contact Founders Allen Watson and Victoria Lozano today by phone or email to learn more about our tailor-made legal content pages. 

Written by Morgan Sprinkle – Legal Content Writer

Blue Seven Content Uncategorized

Law Firm Blog Topics: Five Steps to Success

You need law firm blog topics. Like it or not, blogs are an essential part of search engine optimization and rankings. The reasoning behind it is simple: more content shows Google, Yahoo, and Bing that your site is updated and relevant. 

Although the creation of blogs to improve search engine optimization is standard practice, it is far from simple. Each step that goes into blog creation is just as important as the next. Tone of writing, style, legibility, grammar, and so much more work in unison to improve rankings for millions of law firms across the country. 

Yet the component that hangs most people up is not the writing itself but the construction and formulation of law firm blog topics. This is difficult for many as there are many cogs working around a blog topic. It may be the targeted audience or even how relevant something is in the news today. Regardless, it is always important to consult the best legal content writers from a law firm SEO firm such as Blue Seven Content.

  1. 1. Define Your Goals
  2. 2. Determine Your Target Scope and Range
  3. 3. Conduct Research into the Timing of Your Blog Topic
  4. 4. Identify the Target Audience
  5. 5. Know the Facts
  6. How a Legal Content Firm Can Take Your Webpage to the Next Level

1. Define Your Goals

Setting proper goals is the very first step in formulating law firm blog topics. The best law firm content has a clear set of goals that have been used to formulate the topic in question. Doing so gives you a rough outline of the “why” and the “how.” Why are you writing about this topic? How do you execute your goals with this topic? A strong blog is one that successfully answers these questions in its writing.

Are you trying to:

  • Drive-up clicks to your website with your content?
  • Get new clients in cases for your legal team to take on?
  • Build a better reputation amongst law firms in your area?
  • Become one of the leading law firms in blog production?
  • Fill a niche that has yet to be filled?
  • Capitalize on a recent news event?

Setting specific yet attainable goals is the primary driving force behind quality legal SEO content. By setting these goals, the topic that you choose will have a greater chance of fulfilling your expectations.

Law firms should always keep a list of blog topic ideas.

2. Determine Your Target Scope and Range

Law firm SEO is a complex industry. You have a broad range of topics to choose from that must balance the needs of both the market and the capabilities of your law firm. While some firms may aim for automobile accidents in general, others may try to go for motorcycle accidents specifically. This can be for any reason but is usually done with a certain degree of intention.

If there have been an abnormal amount of motorcycle accidents in Phoenix, Arizona for example, A local law firm may find it useful to specifically aim for motorcycle accidents. This can be especially useful if other firms in the area have not yet identified this niche, making the chance of increasing rankings and driving up clicks all the more probable.

On the other hand, it may be the case that smaller cities and less populated geographical areas do not have a lot of firms tackling blogs to stay relevant. A firm in this scenario may find it more useful to cast a wide net and become one of the leading law firm content producers in the area. The reasoning behind the importance of the scope and range of your topics is that this strategy has led to many law firms becoming the most sought after in their respective communities. A healthy amount of market research is always the best path to understanding your market.

3. Conduct Research into the Timing of Your Blog Topic

It may seem easy to just write about whatever pops into your mind. However, this is rarely the best option. More and more firms are finding it worthwhile to target their topics according to events such as a certain season, holiday, or news event. The timing of a specific topic can be critical to the blog’s success.

Some firms failed to produce content during certain times of the year. Whether it be fatigue or overambition, there seems to be an ebb and flow in the production of content. You may be able to use this to your advantage. For example,  immediately after Memorial Day may be a good time to publish one about how your firm can help after a drunk driving accident. This is just one example of a technique that can be used by law firms to improve the probability of getting a service request from a customer.

4. Identify the Target Audience

Identifying the target audience that you would like to market to is essential when deciding which law blog topics you are going to utilize. Audiences are extremely important to law firm SEO producers as they completely determine which topic is most likely to be used. 

For example, communities that have a high number of blue-collar workers in industrial and manufacturing environments may benefit more from tackling worker’s compensation content head-on. A rural, Southern California firm may take it a step further and produce content aimed toward agricultural workers that are suffering from heat stroke during the summertime. A stellar firm will take this even further and translate its blog into Spanish to reach that critical population. Law firm websites and their content must be optimized to increase traffic by identifying the target audience.

5. Know the Facts

Before diving headfirst into law firm SEO content, a healthy amount of research and investigation into the facts of the matter should be conducted. Thorough fact-checking and a deep understanding of causation, correlation, and impact will make your communication of the topic reliable and educational. With this step, content can be more informative and less jam-packed with filler material. Knowing the ins and outs of the topic will give you the information you need to craft a proper blog.

How a Legal Content Firm Can Take Your Webpage to the Next Level

These five steps for formulating law firm blog topics are applicable to every law firm in the country. The audience, fact-checking, timing, goals, scope, and range are all crucial pieces to the puzzle of creating a worthwhile blog topic. As more and more firms pick up on the importance of creating a living, breathing website through law firm SEO content, it becomes ever more critical to make sure yours is quality. 

Taking your content to the next level by translating it into Spanish for a Hispanic audience, discovering the abnormal amount of motorcycle accidents in your city, and deciding to produce over party-ridden holidays are all examples of high-quality content strategies that lead to further reach and revenue. To learn more about the very best law firm content strategies, please reach out to the best legal SEO copywriters in the business at Blue Seven Content or by calling (843) 580-3158.

Written by Ian Shotts – Legal Content Writer

Blue Seven Content Uncategorized

Smaller Law Firms Must Continuously Update Their Website

If you aren’t continuously updating your law firm website content, you’re going to fall in the search engine rankings. That is, if you’re even ranking at all. Small law firms and solo practitioners – I’m talking to you.

At Blue Seven Content, we work with a range of client types – small law firms, big law firms, small legal marketing agencies, and massive legal marketing agencies. We get a front-row seat to some of the best and some of the worst legal marketing strategies. One of the biggest mistakes we see with smaller firms and solo practitioners is a misunderstanding of the importance of regular content on their websites.

Regular Content and the Search Engines

You would be surprised at how many law firm websites we go to that have not had any content updates for years. One of the first things that we do is click over to the blog section of a website, if the website even has a blog section. Sometimes, the last blog posts are from 2019 or 2020. This is unfortunate because blogs are one of the easiest ways to keep a website “fresh.” If your website content could all be certified “Pre-Covid,” you’ve got a problem.

Your law firm website can become stagnant. This matters when it comes to the search engines, particularly Google. Search engines are going to crawl your website on a regular basis, and these algorithms reward websites that continually refresh and update. There are various ways to add fresh content to your web pages. This can include going into existing pages and improving them, adding new practice area pages (maybe for different locations or by niching down), and having regular blog posts.

The longer your website sits stagnant, the harder it will be to regain any kind of control in the rankings. Your website will drop from page 1 to page 2, and then to pages 3 and 4, and then into oblivion. By the time many law firms and solo practitioners come to the realization that they need to add fresh content to their pages, they have put themselves in a position where it is going to take a significant amount of time to get back to where they want to pay.

Don’t let your website fall into search engine oblivion because you refuse to add new content.

The easiest way to stay on top of the content game is to never leave the game at all. Create some type of content plan that adds fresh material each month at least.

What Regular Content Tells Your Readers

All too often, we get caught up on what Google and the other search engines want to see. However, if you are not creating your website with the reader in mind, you are doing yourself a disservice. The entire goal of creating your law firm website is to get new clients. The last thing you want is for the reader to be turned off as soon as they hit your site. They will smash the back button and go on to the next law firm on the search engine list.

If your website it is written in complex legalese, poorly formatted, or is just slow and bulky, you are probably losing clients. Additionally, you may be surprised at how many prospective clients can tell if your site has not been updated. Remember when we mentioned that we go to the blog section of a website to see when it was last updated? Your readers may do this as well.

If you have an engaging website, including a blog that is updated weekly or monthly, this tells your readers that you, as a law firm or a solo practitioner, are on top of things. It sends a signal that you are engaged with your practice area and your community.

Be like Tom Hanks. Start typing your law firm website content.

The Start and Stop Method Doesn’t Work for Law Firm Website Content

Blue Seven Content has worked with a significant number of smaller law firms. However, one common theme that comes up over and over is starting a content plan and then the law firm or attorney deciding that it is not working within a month or two and hanging up the towel.

Good content strategies, and any type of SEO strategy, take time. There is no such thing as immediate results. In fact, if anyone ever tells you that you will rank number one for something within a week or two, they’re selling you snake oil and likely doing detriment to your long-term website rankings.

Starting a content plan and then stopping after a few months, and then starting again once you realize you messed up by stopping, is not the way to go about handling your website. We strongly encourage law firms to set aside a monthly budget for legal content and stick with it. Let the results happen over time organically.

At Blue Seven Content, we help come up with new law firm website content and refresh existing content every day. This includes examining and creating:

We are ready to have a conversation about your website. You can contact us for a free consultation by clicking here or calling us at 843-580-3158. You will immediately be put through to a real person, most likely the person writing this blog, Blue Seven CEO Allen Watson. Let’s have a chat.

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

Blue Seven Content Uncategorized

5 Biggest Legal Content Mistakes to Avoid on Your Website

Legal content writing mistakes can kill a website. Writing content for a law firm’s website is uniquely challenging. Consumers typically visit legal sites to read reviews and get quick answers to their questions. 

However, the law is highly complex. There are rarely short and sweet answers to legal questions. On the other hand, if the content is too complicated for prospective clients, they may move on to the next site. 

Below are the 5 biggest legal content mistakes our writers have noticed and how to address them. At Blue Seven Content, we have years of experience adding, revising, and updating content. Our team of legal writers takes pride in creating high-quality, informative content optimized for search engines.

  1. 1. Writing Content for Lawyers, Not Prospective Clients
  2. 2. Failing to Write for Current Search Engine Optimization Standards
  3. 3. Including Weak or Poor Quality Content
  4. 4. Failing to State Why Prospects Should Hire Your Firm
  5. 5. Failing to Include Testimonials
  6. Why Work with Blue Seven Content to Prevent Legal Content Mistakes?
Law firms and content writers stay busy, and they can make mistakes. Let’s help each other avoid them.

1. Writing Content for Lawyers, Not Prospective Clients

After years of prepping and drafting documents, litigating in court, and negotiating with opposing counsel, legal jargon can become ingrained in your mind. Every industry has unique terminology that can sound foreign to those outside your field. When creating content for your law firm, it is important to remember your audience. 

Prospective clients are viewing your website on their mobile device, skimming through information, and usually engaging in another activity. According to a recent study on smartphone multitasking:

  • 76% of adults use their phones while watching television
  • 63% use their phones while doing another activity at work
  • 40% admit to reading the news on their phone while watching TV

Your content is competing with TV shows, work, and other distractions. If a prospective client has trouble finding the information they need or cannot understand the content, they will likely bounce off your site.

Depending on your target market, successful and engaging content is typically written at an 8th or 10th grade reading level. Keep the language simple. Metaphors and analogies are excellent tools to simplify and convey complex legal doctrines. 

2. Failing to Write for Current Search Engine Optimization Standards

Search engine optimization (SEO) is constantly evolving, and most attorneys aren’t SEO experts. In the early days of Google, pages could be packed with keywords and achieve commendable search engine rankings. However, through the years, SEO has become increasingly more sophisticated. 

Now, pages that are overstuffed with keywords are punished and drop significantly down Google’s ranking system. Conversely, informative and well-written content is rewarded with higher rankings.  

Keywords are still critical for search engines. However, key terms and phrases must blend seamlessly into a page that is brimming with valuable and relevant information.

Google’s latest algorithm favors content that is: 

  • Well-researched with reliable data and statistics
  • Informative with credible external links
  • Clearly composed with directly answered questions (e.g., consider Google snippet)
  • Well-written (i.e., no grammar or spelling mistakes)
  • Considers the user’s intent (i.e., what was the user’s search goal, and is your content relevant?)

High-quality pages that offer current and valuable information in an engaging way are valued most. If you are unsure if your content meets SEO standards, conduct a webpage audit. Check the number of visitors to each page and the traffic conversion rate. If your pages lack traffic, revising and updating your content can dramatically increase your SEO rankings. 

3. Including Weak or Poor Quality Content

When legal firms rush to launch a website or are unable to devote the time needed to produce quality pages, content can be over-generalized and lack value. Weak pages may be characterized by:

  • Thin content with duplicate or sparsely written information
  • Poorly structured pages that make it difficult for consumers to read
  • Failing to update existing pages that are outdated or irrelevant 
  • Publishing content with grammatical and spelling errors

One of the most overlooked legal content mistakes is poor quality writing. Quality content is written differently than a great novel. While a book seeks to engage the reader and provoke emotion, quality website content is informative and drives traffic and leads. Filling a website with weak or thin content will only push your website down in search engine rankings. 

4. Failing to State Why Prospects Should Hire Your Firm

The legal services market is highly competitive. Suppose your website is full of high-quality content and regularly reaches the first page of Google in local searches. Your firm still must compete against all the other legal practices at the top. 

Firms need to stand out from the legal services crowd. Failing to showcase your firm’s unique selling points (USPs) is a huge missed opportunity and detrimental to your traffic conversion rate.

Consider what makes your legal practice different from similar firms in your area:

  • Do you offer boutique-style service? 
  • Has your legal firm been in practice for decades?
  • Is your firm a family practice?
  • What awards and recognitions has your legal practice earned?
  • Are any of your attorneys certified in their respective fields?
  • Are members of your legal team permitted to practice in federal court?

Take the time to highlight your distinctive qualities. Ensure you have a strong call-to-action (CTA) that encourages prospective clients to call for a consultation. 

5. Failing to Include Testimonials

Testimonials are paramount to an effective marketing strategy. Once you have successfully crafted quality content, reached the top of Google search, and told prospects why they should hire your firm, you need to be able to back up your claims.

Consumers frequently look to google for service reviews. Unfortunately, happy people rarely feel motivated to write reviews. On the other hand, unhappy people tend to use reviews as an outlet for their frustration. 

Including genuine testimonials from clients can mean the difference between a prospect calling to set up a consultation or leaving your site in search of reviews. Once a visitor leaves your site, the opportunity to convert them into a client diminishes exponentially. 

Why Work with Blue Seven Content to Prevent Legal Content Mistakes?

Your website is an extension of your practice. While content should reflect your firm’s uniqueness, its purpose is to turn prospects into clients. The writers of Blue Seven Content excel at translating your firm’s vision into content that:

  • Is optimized for current SEO trends 
  • Captures and keeps the attention of the reader
  • Is well-researched and informative

We take the time to listen and understand your goals and needs. Contact our exceptional legal content team for a consultation today by clicking here or calling (843) 580-3158.

Written By Morgan Sprinkle – Legal Content Writer

Blue Seven Content Uncategorized

Increase Your Rankings With New Law Firm Content – Refreshing Your Website

Websites need frequent maintenance to remain effective, especially concerning new law firm content. Continuously adding fresh, new information is essential for search engine optimization (SEO) and business credibility. However, old content can drag your website down the rankings.

At Blue Seven Content, we understand the importance of having the best law firm content. Marketing trends change, and search engines regularly adjust their algorithms. Outdated content can work against your new content, adversely affecting the quality of your website. 

Why You Need the Best Law Firm Content Possible

Competition is high in the legal world. Talent is increasingly difficult to find and retain. The legal services market is projected to grow 2.6% over the next six years, further driving competition. Law firms will need to differentiate themselves in new and innovative ways. 

While touting responsiveness has been a key stand-out factor for legal practices in the past, the global pandemic has pushed most firms into utilizing AI and other technologies to better communicate with clients. Responsiveness is no longer unique. 

Instead, law firms are seeing success when they can develop a reputation for efficient, trustworthy service. High-quality website content can help a company establish themselves as an authority in their field while garnering consumer trust. 

Prospective clients are turning more and more to online searches to find the legal services they need. According to a recent study:

  • 57% of people find legal representation through an internet search
  • 59% of consumers will ask for a referral

The 16% overlap involves consumers who ask for a referral and then turn to the internet to review the quality of the firm. 

The majority of people click on the first page of search results. The second page only sees half the number of clicks. Whether the client is searching for legal services online or in conjunction with a referral, it is essential your website rank high on the search bar. 

Get back to the drawing board – or never leave it – when it comes to new law firm content for your website.

How Outdated Content Hurts Your SEO

Understanding how outdated content hurts your search engine rankings begins with familiarizing yourself with the basics of SEO. Google is king among search engines, capturing nearly 88% of the market share. The best law firm content is geared towards Google’s algorithms.

Google rewards quality content, defined by the following elements:

  • Well-researched pages that provide meaningful information
  • Keywords and variations of keyword phrases
  • Content that considers the user’s search intent
  • Questions answered directly
  • Internal and external links
  • Longer, well-written pages

As content ages, it loses its accuracy and relevance. Perhaps the traffic accident statistics on a practice page are out-of-date or the external links on a blog no longer work. Whatever the reason, Google will punish websites with obsolete information.

Even if your site continues to add new content, Google’s algorithm will evaluate your website as a whole. If irrelevant data outweighs the new information, your site will suffer.

How Updating Existing Pages Will Increase Your Rankings

Think of your law firm’s site like a hot air balloon floating in the Google-verse. As content ages, the hot air cools and causes the balloon to sink. The more outdated and inaccurate the information becomes, the lower your balloon will sink. 

Adding fresh, quality content can act like a blast of hot air and push your balloon up in the search rankings. However, those older pages are still dragging your balloon down. You can solve this tug-of-war between new and old content by updating your pages. 

Search engines are designed to find the most accurate information for their users. Newer content will always have priority. When you frequently update older pages, Google’s search engine takes note that your website is continuing to offer relevant information and rewards it in higher search rankings. 

How to Decide What Content to Update or Delete

Deciding what content to update or delete begins with an audit. Analytics tools can help you decide what pages are seeing good traffic and conversion rates and which pages need more love. 

From here, you can prioritize your content. Review what pages used to get a significant amount of Google traffic but now have stopped performing. These pages can come alive again with updated links, data, and added content. 

For pages that never seemed to perform well, examine whether or not the content is still relevant and can be improved. If the page is short, could adding 1,000 words of well-researched, quality content provide value to prospective clients? Is the page written for an older Google search algorithm and can benefit from a rewrite? 

Deleting pages should always be a last resort. If your page or blog post can benefit from new information, keep and update the content. 

What Updates to Make to Existing Pages

As you manually go through our older pages, spelling and grammar mistakes are typically very obvious. However, sometimes deciding what updates to make is less apparent. Consider the following:

  • Can recent headlines replace old news stories?
  • How current are the statistics? 
  • Can external links be updated with more relevant sources?
  • Are the keyword phrases up-to-date?
  • Have the laws changed, or are there proposed bills that could affect the law? 

For example, some states have legalized the recreational use of marijuana while others have proposed legislation. A defense firm may need to update their practice pages and articles to reflect the new law or make a note of potential changes. Google loves frequent updates with valuable information. One change in the law could lead to numerous pages in need of updates. 

How Blue Seven Content Provides the Best New Law Firm Content

Blue Seven Content specializes in SEO-rich content for legal firms. With the expected growth of the legal services market continuing to drive competition, you need the best new law firm content to stand out against competitors and establish a trustworthy, successful reputation. 

Our writers provide high-quality, well-researched pages customized for each client. We can breathe new life into older, outdated pages by revising and adding content. Every time your site updates an existing page, Google indexes the new information. Frequent indexing will improve your website’s Google rankings. 

Schedule a consultation today and speak with one of our highly experienced SEO writers. You can call us at (843) 580-3158 or click here to send a message. 

Written By Morgan Sprinkle – Legal Content Writer

Blue Seven Content Uncategorized

Law Firm Translation – Why Your Website Needs to Be Translated to Spanish Today

Have you thought about law firm translation services? In a growing, ever-diversifying world, changes are often required. With a large and growing number of Spanish-speaking individuals in the United States of America, it has come to the attention of many firms around the country that law firm SEO must be accommodating to this reality. It is therefore true that the best law firm content is one that includes Spanish on its webpage as they adjust to the times. 

Here at Blue Seven Content, we are committed to educating the public on new SEO trends while simultaneously offering the very best services for all of your online legal marketing needs.

The Numbers Send a Clear Message

It is now estimated that over 13% of the American population speaks Spanish, rounding out the figure at about 37 million hispanophones. To put this in perspective, the United States is fifth in the number of Spanish speakers of any country on Earth. We, as a nation, have more Spanish speakers than Venezuela, Peru, Chile, Ecuador, and a slew of other native Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America. 

In the coming years, it is expected that with the population growth the country is experiencing, the United States will surpass Spain and even Argentina to become the country with the third-largest Spanish-speaking population in the world.

Many law firms make the mistake of overlooking the Hispanic and Latino population of the United States. Spanish is present in every state in the country, and its outlook for growth only further provides proof that the language will need more attention over time. 

The opportunity to translate your website into Spanish is therefore one that is a near-necessity if you wish to capture new audiences and gain a competitive edge over other law firms. Missing out on nearly one-seventh of the American population due to issues with communication is a potentially detrimental mistake.

Secondary Effects of Translating Your Website

Expanding your audience will have other impacts that are consistent with those seen across the field of marketing. With a commitment to community and diversity, your law firm will begin to gain credibility amongst Spanish speakers and English speakers alike as they begin to take note of how your firm is dedicated to working with the community and adjusting to its needs. 

It should be remembered as well that your network will be able to flourish with your newfound commitment to a marginalized community. Even with over hundreds of Spanish newspapers, magazines, and publishers in the United States, one of the primary means of referencing within communities that speak a language that is not the official language is word-of-mouth. Expanding services to Spanish speakers will make them more likely to recommend you to friends and families where you otherwise would not have been able to market your services.

The Baseline for Online Marketing – SEO and Rankings

Of course, the bread and butter of legal marketing is search engine optimization. It has been revealed that including reliable SEO material in other languages boosts Google Analytics and performance in search engine rankings. This is a critical step for so many firms that are constantly vying for the top spots on Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Your firm will not only be utilizing completely novel SEO keywords (with the use of a different language) but will be also pleasing the algorithm as it recognizes non-machine translation of a webpage.

Why Machine Translation Doesn’t Get the Job Done

Despite the aforementioned reasons for providing Spanish translations on a website, it is often the opinion of law firms that they do not need to manually translate their pages as Google translate and other machine-based translation services are available to them at the click of a button.

It is a common misconception to those unfamiliar with machine translations and the cultural intricacies of languages that these are largely unreliable. Unfortunately, technology has only come so far. As it currently stands, machine translation services still make many elementary errors in their translations. This is often the case when anything such as a compound sentence is processed through an online machine translation service. Law firm translation services need to be done by a qualified person, not a machine.

Cultural and Nuanced Considerations in Machine Translations

Apart from simple errors in grammar and spelling, there is a larger underlying issue regarding machine translations. Languages are extremely complex and have an insanely large amount of nuances within small amounts of language. This means that, for example, while the word “lamp” may mean a light fixture that sits on a table or the ground in English, its Spanish equivalent may only refer to light fixtures that sit on the top of a table. 

On many occasions, there’s more than one word to describe what we only have one word for in English. While this is a completely fictional example, there are an infinite amount of words with different nuances between the two languages that are not able to be picked up by a machine.

Law firm translation services can increase your client base.

Speakers’ intentions and cultural considerations are also important when considering hiring a translator versus using machine translation. Spanish has two voices for formality, for example. Even more compelling, across all varieties of Spanish, there are five different ways to say the word “you”. 

Machine translation is not able to tell in which voice and to what audience you are directing your message. On top of this complexity, there are cultural considerations to taking the place such as what may come across as rude or too forthcoming for an individual that was born into a different culture. All of these are important to remember when moving forth with a translation campaign for your webpage.

Want to Get the Leg-Up on Your Competitors? Contact Blue Seven Content Today for Law Firm Translation

As previously covered, there are more than enough reasons to decide to translate your law firm websites into Spanish. Everything from potential clients to law firm SEO greatly benefits from this addition to your website. It has been proven time and time again that the best law firm content is one that is readable and accessible to people from all walks of life. 

By investing in law firm translation and legal SEO copywriter, your business will benefit greatly from the uptick in visits to your website and eventual clients that you’re able to take on from Spanish-speaking clients. For more information on law firm SEO, translations, and online marketing, please visit the Blue Seven Content website by clicking here or calling (843) 580-3158 and getting connected with a passionate and experienced legal copywriter.

Written By Ian Shotts – Legal Content Writer

Blue Seven Content Uncategorized

Law Firm SEO – 15 Tips From Legal Copywriting Experts

You need a law firm SEO strategy – you just don’t know it. If you’re an attorney or law firm that wants (needs) a steady stream of quality clients, you can’t afford to ignore the vast client potential available on the web. It’s where more people go to find answers to the problems they are trying to solve. The trick is to get your services in front of the users who are looking. And that requires search engine optimization (SEO).

Pleasing Google bots is the goal of SEO. When the bots like what they see in content, it equals positive ranking factors. Positive ranking factors tell Google to rank the content higher in the search engine results pages (SERP). The higher content is ranked in search engine results, the better the chances it will be seen by the people you want as clients. 

Statistics show that most people will make their selection from the results that appear on the first page of Google search results. According to Smart Insights, 77% of user clicks go to the top five organic (non-paid) search results. Needless to say, there is fierce competition to gain one of those coveted five spots for whatever keywords are targeted. 

Law firms that create content optimized for search engines greatly improve their chances of getting their name and their services in front of potential clients. But that’s only half the battle. After getting the click, the content needs to keep users on the site to show Google that the content is good stuff and should be shown to more people. 

Copywriting is how you hook someone’s attention with your legal content and keep them interested in learning more. The best content conveys empathy for the problem and instills confidence that the law firm can provide the most satisfactory solution. 

Desktop or mobile, your clients are using the web to find you. Law firm SEO is critical.
  1. What is Law Firm SEO?
  2. Technical SEO – Law Firm Website Mechanics
  3. Legal Copywriting Incorporates SEO
  4. 15 Tips to Improve the Reach and Engagement of Legal Content
  5. What You Have to Keep in Mind About Law Firm SEO

What is Law Firm SEO?

Law firm SEO is mostly about content. It’s about content written in such a way that search engine bots know that the content is a top source for the information that people are searching for. It’s about content that is an authoritative and trusted source of information others are willing to share. 

What law firm SEO is not about is prioritizing SEO over the quality of the content or the user experience. Google may actually penalize content that violates their quality guidelines by trying to manipulate the algorithm or deceive users in some way. 

Good law firm SEO is striking a balance between optimizing for search engines and providing valuable and engaging content for users. 

Technical SEO – Law Firm Website Mechanics

It’s important to mention that well optimized, superbly engaging content may not perform well in search engines or with users if a site’s pages do not load quickly. Page load time is a ranking factor that Google considers. And page load time is definitely a factor that a person attempting to access a website considers. 

Moreover, pages need to load quickly in a format compatible with mobile device users. There are nearly 100,000 Google searches every second. About 60% of the search volume is on mobile devices, and the numbers continue to grow. Mobile users also have the highest bounce rate, which speaks to the need to make sure mobile users will have a good experience on a law firm’s website. Google offers a free mobile-friendly test where you can input your website URL for an evaluation. 

Think of SEO as a crucial component of digital legal copywriting. Once SEO does its job of getting a law firm’s content in front of a searching audience, copywriting connects the words to the reader and gets them to take that critical next step toward becoming a client. When content appeals to a user, Google takes that as a favorable sign which boosts the chances of higher rankings.

After Google ranks a site, it further evaluates how well it’s done based on user actions. One of the metrics that Google uses to evaluate how well it was able to match content to a search query is the click-through rate (CTR) of searchers to a law firm’s website. The more often people click through to a law firm’s website, the more Google learns to trust that site as a credible source of information. 

Google also monitors how long a user remains on a page after clicking through – referred to as a user’s dwell time. The more time a user spends on a website, the more favorably Google views the site. 

15 Tips to Improve the Reach and Engagement of Legal Content

Legal content writers integrate SEO into copywriting. The content must be able to appeal to two different audiences and must find the right balance to attract both. Good legal copywriting will have that magical combination of getting your content in front of the people you want to reach and then convincing those people to pick up the phone or fill out your contact form. 

The following tips will help law firms improve their content marketing. 

  1. Plan your content – Make sure you include information users might want or need to know, answers to questions that users would likely ask, and why your law firm is the best choice to solve the user’s problem.
  1. Don’t be afraid to be specific – Content that provides detailed answers to narrowly focused questions can rank high for users with a very specific search query.
  1. Use a keyword research tool to learn what terms people are searching for that relate to your practice areas and the popularity of particular keywords.
  1. See what your competition is doing. Search the keywords you want to rank for and see what others are doing that you may be able to learn from and improve upon.
  1. Don’t overuse keywords or risk offending Google for keyword stuffing and detracting from the user experience. A general rule of thumb is to limit what’s known as keyword density to 2% of the content. A quick way to measure keyword density is to divide the number of times a keyword is used by the total word count of the piece. 
  1. Link to one or two credible outside sources such as a statute, a relevant news article, statistics compiled by a legitimate agency, or a scientific or educational study.
  1. Use internal links strategically. It helps keep people on your site and shows Google you have good content. Google interprets internal links as pointing to important pages. You can make Google recognize particular pages as important by having more internal links to them.
  1. Keep the paragraphs short. Walls of text are a reason to bounce. Try paragraphs of three, four, or five sentences.
  1. Make the information easy to consume. Use bullet points and lists. Get to the point. Don’t use more words than necessary or useful. 
  1. Use familiar language and avoid using legal terminology that isn’t widely understood. 
  1. Be consistent with style, terminology, and facts throughout all content. If you decide to refer to your potential clients as ‘survivors’ rather than ‘victims’, make sure all of the relevant content uses the same terminology. When similar facts are used in different content, make sure that you’re not providing inconsistent information. 
  1. Write with empathy so that the content is more likely to connect with the user and keep them engaged. Have you ever been where your clients are when they come to you? Do you know someone who has? How can you let users know that you understand what they need and can help? Do you have something personal you can share? This might be a line or two in the opening paragraph or a bit at the end as part of your call to action. 
  1. Don’t be afraid of writing longer content. If the content is well written and provides accurate and useful information, people find it a better resource and are more likely to share it. Google takes this as a good sign. 1,000 words per piece are starting to become the minimum for legal content. Pieces 1,500 to 2,000 words can work really well for in-depth discussions of practice areas and other relevant legal topics.
  1. Update older content – especially foundational content. Updating content tells Google that something is new, and Google likes fresh content. It also gives you a chance to review keywords for continued relevance, test links to make sure they are still accurate, and update any firm information or modify an out-of-date call to action. Updating older content can serve the same purpose as creating new content while also saving precious time and keeping your website current.
  1. Make your metadata work for you. Metadata is input when content is uploaded to the web and is what people see in their search results pages in the form of a title tag and a meta description. The title tag is the first line of a result and should be informative and concise. Meta descriptions appear under the title tag and provide a little more detail about the content. Metadata should summarize the content and include keywords to help both search engines and users understand what the content is about. Good metadata is the hook that gets the click. 

What You Have to Keep in Mind About Law Firm SEO

Law firm SEO is an ongoing and long-term marketing strategy. It’s about building goodwill with users who are then more likely to become clients when in need of your services. And it is a must for law firms that are looking to stand out and continue to grow their businesses in an ever more competitive online marketplace.  

Writing legal content that gets seen and converts users to clients is part science and part art. 

The people who are handling the digital marketing efforts for a law firm really need to know what they are doing, which requires having the time to dedicate to learning about it and becoming good at it. 

There are only so many hours in a day, and if you would rather not try to find an extra one or two to spend figuring out how to create amazing legal content, Blue Seven Content can help with that. 

At Blue Seven, we specialize in creating well-researched, authoritative, original legal content that is optimized to achieve the best results for our clients. Many of our legal content writers have JDs or experience working in the legal profession. We can write any type of content for a law firm website, including:

  • Landing pages
  • Practice area pages
  • Blog posts
  • FAQ pages
  • Attorney bios or ‘about us’ pages

If you are interested in exceptional quality at a fair price, call us at 843-580-3158 or contact us here to discuss your law firm’s legal content needs. 

Written by Mari Gaines, JD – Legal Content Writer