Blue Seven Content Uncategorized

Creating Original Content for Law Firm Blog Posts

Creating original law firm blogs isn’t easy, especially when it comes to figuring out what to write.

At Blue Seven Content, we’re proud of the team we’ve amassed. Our writers come from varied backgrounds, and our writer meetings are always interesting. One thing that more than one of our writers has brought up is the ability to keep the content we create original.

Let’s face it – originality can be a problem when it comes to law firm content. How many times have you needed to write a law firm blog post on a certain topic only to find that 50 other law firms have written about the same thing?

I’m willing to bet you’ve experienced that. I’m also willing to bet that many of those 50 pages say damn near the same things. It may not be direct plagiarism, but it’s likely pretty close.

Here, we want to briefly discuss how we handle this problem here at Blue Seven Content (spoiler – sometimes you can’t avoid writing about the same topics as other firms, but you can control the quality of your writing).

Trying to Stay Original With Law Firm Blogs (It’s Hard to Do)

When I (founder Allen) was a kid, I had a poster in my room. It was a poster full of cats that looked like Dalmatians with one actual Dalmatian. On the bottom of the poster, it said, “In a world full of copycats, be an original.”

The poster from Allen’s room

I forgot about that poster until I had a recent conversation with one of our writers. She wanted to talk about how to differentiate our content from other content already in the web universe. Let’s face it – how many ways can you write about “Steps to Take After a Car Accident”? Worse, how many ways can you write about “Reasons Insurance Carriers May Deny a Claim”?

I used to relish writing these pages, particularly when I first started creating law firm content. Well, that was 10,000 pages ago. Now, I groan when I see a request like that. I’ll write them, but I won’t necessarily enjoy it. I know what the law firms want when they request these pages. They want the same thing that “Johnny Cash Law” down the street has (but, “please make it different…thanks”).

How We Keep Content Original and Interesting

I’ve tried to stretch my creative fingers when writing generic blog posts. I’ve often thought I’m more clever than I really am when writing. In the past, I’ve written some fiction stories in my free time, mainly because I need to activate that portion of my brain sometimes. I spent my grad school years as a research assistant, so I learned about the need to break away from dull writing every now and then.

Unfortunatley, my attempts at creativity have been met with pushback. I’ve even had a client tell me that “We loved what you wrote here, but we think we need to tone it back a bit and stick with the basic steps.”

Right…boring. I know.

But I oblige because I do need to get paid.

The only real way to differentiate some of these pages from other law firms’ pages is to do an excellent job geo-targeting your keywords and creating well-written, readable sentences and paragraphs. Make sure you have a good UX. Grin and bear it.

At Blue Seven Content, we generally let our writers have free reign over the blog posts that we provide law firms. Unless a client has a particular request about what they want, we scour each clients’ geographic area to see if there are any news stories related to their practice area. If there are, we’ve hit gold. We can use a recent local event, discuss it, and then round it back to the law firm. Completely original, and we can let our fingers craft an interesting story.

If there are no new stories that we can use, we take a good look at the law firm’s website to see what blogs have already been written. If we see that the firm could benefit from a new page, say something like “Why are There so Many Defective Products in the US?” then we go with it. Even though other law firms may have similar content, we have specific goals in mind when we write these pages.

We want to make every page we write “Original, Researched, and Optimized.” We take pride in the fact that our writers are REALLY good at what they do. We don’t have amateurs here. Nobody is moonlighting for hokey websites making “Top 10 Celebrity Dog” posts. We take this seriously. When we turn a blog post or practice area page over to a law firm, we know that it’s well-written, completely original, and researched. We use top-notch sources to gather statistics and data.

Oh, and the best part is this – law firms get their content properly formatted and ready to be put onto the site. We use proper headings (H1s, H2s, H3s), short sentences and paragraphs, bullets, internal and external links, etc.

Reach out to Blue Seven for Your Law Firm Content Needs

We know how to handle the content for your law firm’s website. We work with dozens of law firms and marketing agencies throughout the US, and we are ready to get started on your website today.

If you’re ready for some help with original law firm blogs for your website, our team is here. We specialize in all of the following:

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

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

Blue Seven Content Uncategorized

All Attorneys Can Write, But Not All Attorneys Can Write Well

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Reluctance Comes From Trust Issues

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

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

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

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

We Write For Two Audiences

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blue Seven Content Uncategorized

Law Firm Practice Areas – Niching Them Down

Law firm practice area pages are a firm’s gateway to more clients. Let’s face it – just about every client that a law firm ends up working with checked the firm out on the internet before they called or walked through the door. Often, clients are on the fence between two or three attorneys, and the presentation of information on a practice area page could make the difference between them choosing your law firm or another one down the street.

Do you know what else could make the difference? – A prospective client landing on your page and reading about the exact reason they need you.

Sometimes this is accomplished by having your “regular” practice areas. However, there are times when law firms can niche down their practice area pages. Here, we want to talk about what it looks like when you niche down your law firm practice area pages in an effort to gain more readers and more clients.

Follow your niche spiral down!

What do we mean by “niching” down a law firm practice area page?

We know what a niche is. Presumably, you’ve chosen your “niche” in law if you have a firm. Granted, there are some law firms that cover a range of practice areas, though we generally find that firms focus on one overall practice area:

  • Personal injury law
  • Family law
  • Criminal defense
  • Estate law
  • …and so on

However, within all of these larger practice areas lies plenty of other topics. We can generally predict the typical order of practice area pages for a firm depending on the larger practice area. I can say with near 99% certainty that the next personal injury firm that contacts me will want the following pages:

  • Car accident
  • Truck accident
  • Pedestrian accident
  • Bicycle accident
  • Work injury
  • Construction accident
  • Dog bite
  • Slip and fall
  • Premises liability
  • Product liability

For law firms that are just getting started, it is completely understandable that the standard order is what they will go with for a while. However, as a law firm becomes more established, the attorneys may want to consider taking their pages even further.

We can niche down just about every bullet point mentioned above to get more granular. For example, we can take Car Accidents and build the following pages:

  • Uber And Lyft Accidents
  • Taxi Accidents
  • Deer Versus Vehicle Accident
  • Uninsured Motorist Accident
  • T-Bone Accident
  • Rear-End Accident
  • Head-On Collision
  • …and more

Of course, this applies to other types of law firms as well. For an estate law firm, we will obviously have a page devoted to establishing a power of attorney. But we can also niche that down to the different types of power of attorney, including pages devoted to:

  • Durable Power of Attorney
  • Medical Power of Attorney
  • General Power of Attorney
  • Limited (Special) Power of Attorney
  • Springing Power of Attorney

You see what we’re doing here. We’re just taking a topic and parsing out every possible thing that a person would search for online when they need help from your general practice area. If you can create a page devoted to something that your prospective clients regularly need help with, do it!

Law firm practice area niches will depend on your geographic location

As law firms establish themselves in their location(s), they will begin to see various types of cases that occur more often than others. In some areas, there will be more need for some types of pages than there is for other areas. For example, in an urban area where there are thousands of delivery drivers getting packages “rapidly” delivered each day, there may be a strong need for a practice area page devoted to every single delivery company – FedEx, UPS, USPS, Amazon, etc.

In a more rural area, someplace where there will not be as many daily deliveries, it will likely be okay to have a “Delivery Truck Accident” page that mentions all of the delivery companies that operate in the area.

Each attorney will know the needs of their law firm. They will know whether or not it would be beneficial to have a page devoted to Uber and Lyft, or perhaps a page for Uber and a separate page for Lyft. Maybe one city has electric scooters, but another does not. An attorney or law firm marketer will have to strategically decide what types of niches they may do well with in their specific geographic location.

Niching down adds more content, chance for internal linking

Content is king, and I’m sure you’re tired of hearing that. However, that is the truth. The more content you have on your website, the happier it will make search engines, particularly the king – Google. So, niching down your practice area pages will have the added benefit of bringing more content to your page and increase your visibility overall.

You will also have more opportunities to add internal links to other areas of your website. Internal linking not only helps out when search engines crawl your page, but they also help keep readers on your website longer.

Let Blue Seven Content help with your law firm practice area pages

If you are ready to create some niched practice area pages, we are here to help! Our team writes hundreds of these pages each month, and we are ready to get you through this next step of developing your law firm’s website. No matter what size your firm and regardless of your type of practice, you could probably use more practice area pages. If you want to talk about your next law firm practice area pages, you can contact us for a free consultation by clicking here or calling us at 843-580-3158. Our team is ready to talk to you today. If you want to take a stab at writing your own practice area pages, our team also has a guide that will take you through the steps to do so! You can click here to learn about our Law Firm Practice Area Page Writing Guide.

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

Blue Seven Content Uncategorized

Creating Authoritative Law Firm Website Content That Everyone Can Read

Law firm website content is important, even as AI has crept into the digital marketing space. Human legal writers, by and large, are still much better at developing the voice of a law firm than any machine. However, it’s easy to get bogged down in complicated legal jargon, and it’s easy to craft a page that just “looks” unappealing.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

“If I do what you’re asking me to do, it’ll be dumbing down the material.”

That’s what an attorney told me once as I was coaching him through the process of crafting the content on his webpage. At the time, I didn’t have the exact data that I’m going to share with you today, but I had been a public school teacher. I understand the importance of being able to communicate with your audience.

One thing I know for certain is this – complex legal terms, long sentences, and bulky paragraphs are a non-starter for law firm websites.

For the purposes of law firm website content, you can’t write as “lawyers.” You aren’t at a law conference, and you aren’t going head-to-head with opposing counsel. You’re trying to talk to someone who needs your help, and the best law firm content writers will help you connect more deeply with prospective clients.

The literacy problem in the US

Content for law firm websites is all about knowing your audience, but do you really know yours? The National Literacy Directory has some alarming statistics about the state of literacy in this country:

  • 14% of the employed population has low literacy skills.
  • 1 out of every 6 adults in this country lacks basic reading skills
  • Approximately 36 million people in the US cannot read a job application, understand basic written instructions, or properly interpret what they find on the Internet.

Data provided by the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) shows that 21% of adults in the United States (about 43 million) fall into the illiterate/functionally illiterate category.

To be sure, even people who have excellent literacy skills are still likely to struggle with complicated legal terms that they do not hear every day. The reality is that you do need written content on your law firm’s website, but you need to make it as simple as possible for the reader while still maintaining authoritative integrity. This can be hard to do when you’re used to crafting legal briefs or writing research papers.

You Can Create Legal Content Everyone Can Read

  • Use everyday words. There is no need to use anything other than simple English when you are creating your law firm website content. At Blue Seven Content, we’ve previously discussed why using complex legal terms is a bad idea.
  • Explain legal terms if you have to use them. If you find that using a legal term is absolutely necessary, then you should properly explain it to your readers using plain English.
  • Shorter sentences. Your sentences should generally be short and to the point. If you find yourself creating multiple complex sentences, go back and think about how you can shorten them. Reading your post out loud really helps catch these longer sentences.
  • Shorter paragraphs. Big and long paragraphs or an immediate turn-off to a reader. In fact, your reader is very likely to either hit the back button or skip over long paragraphs altogether. Seriously, if you find yourself using more than three sentences in a paragraph, ask yourself why and if the additional sentences are necessary.
  • Bullet points all the way. We love using bullet points because our readers love having bullet points. We’re willing to bet that regardless of what type of information you are looking for, you scroll right to the bullet points to get the gist of the post. Your law firm’s prospective clients do the same thing.
  • A clear CTA. Regardless of the type of information you are creating for your law firm website, every page should have a clear call-to-action for the reader. They need a sentence or two pushing them in the direction you need them to go, which is to call your law firm or fill out a contact form.

Your Prospective Clients Should Not Feel Shamed – They Should Feel Welcomed

Any person reading your webpage should never feel ashamed for not understanding what your page says. Regardless of what type of practice areas you handle, the reality is that most people only need your services if they are at a particularly low point in their lives. They’re already going through something tremendous, and they just want some help. Your law firm’s website should convey to the reader that you can help them and that they will not feel any shame when they call you.

We should take the concept of knowing your prospective clients/audience a little deeper. How much do you know about the literacy and education levels of your specific geographic area? Are you in an area where literacy is fairly high, average, or below average? When crafting your pages, you should always have this thought in the back of your mind – “Will the person who needs to read this be able to understand everything on the page?”

Now, this doesn’t mean they have to understand every aspect of their case or the law surrounding what they need. That’s your job to explain when they come to you for a free consultation and after they’re your client.

But they should understand the content on your page.

Law Firm Content Complexity Based on Practice Areas

Another factor to consider when creating content for lawyer websites is practice areas. There are certainly cases where the reading level of the page should be elevated. For example, law firms that cater to specific types of professionals or businesses, such as doctors, academics, inventors, investors, and other “white collar” professionals may need to examine how to get their writing closer to a college level. These are individuals and organizations who won’t need a seventh- or eighth-grade reading level to understand their issue.

However, just because you handle higher-level issues doesn’t mean you should fill the page with legal terms and compound sentences. After all, consider that almost everyone, regardless of their education level, will skim through a page. You still want your desired audience to understand the page, find the information they need, and call you for help.

Blue Seven Content Takes Complex Law Firm Website Content and Turns it Into Conversion Material

A team at Blue Seven Content understands the need to craft law firm website content that is readable by a wide audience. In fact, many of our writers have a background in education. We all have stories of being young teachers walking into the classroom full of what we think is high-level pedagogical understanding only to realize we know nothing about communicating with our audience. We learned the hard way, and we want to make sure you don’t make the same mistakes. If you have any questions about how to craft the following, we are here to help:

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

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

Blue Seven Content Uncategorized

Outbound Links on a Law Firm’s Website – The Eternal Debate

We had a client that runs a fairly reputable law firm in Florida. We started working with him in late 2019, and it was an interesting experience. He was a great guy to work with, but he already had a major legal marketing firm handling his law firm’s website (I’ll leave the name out, but trust me, you’ve heard of them). That’s no problem – the team at Blue Seven Content doesn’t handle anything other than content, so we regularly work with other agencies.

This client loved the work we provided. We wrote about three blogs that he and his law firm partner checked and green-lit. However, when they turned the blogs over to the marketing firm to publish on the website, the marketing firm sent them back. Their problem was our inclusion of a few outbound links within the content. They proceeded to convince my client that the links had to be removed and that we should simplify the blog to contain only general knowledge on the page so we didn’t have to cite anything.

This, of course, made me laugh out loud. First of all, there was nothing overly complicated about the information we included. If I recall, it was statistics related to pedestrian and bicycle accidents for their geographic area. For another blog, I think we included a link to a new law that was passed that affected the practice area. This type of data wasn’t going to confuse the reader, but it was relevant.

Using outbound links on your law firm website

If you’re an attorney, the terms internal links, external links, and outbound links may not have too much relevance. However, they all have a purpose. The links that my client’s marketing agency was having a problem with were external outbound links.

At Blue Seven Content, we strive to provide our clients with law firm practice area pages and law firm blog posts that are original, researched, and optimized. Part of that is ensuring that the data and statistics we include are actually researched and cited. We cite our sources, like most people do, by hyperlinking them into the page. This creates an external outbound link.

We cite our sources because we know that anyone can make up data and statistics and throw them onto a page. That’s not how we operate. Our writing team is filled with former teachers and college professors who understand research, citing, and producing quality work. We’ve graded enough papers to know what is acceptable and not acceptable.

Using made-up data is not acceptable, and neither is leaving out citations.  

Why did the marketing firm take out our outbound links?

Ultimately, we removed the outbound links and provided proper citations for the material at the end of the posts we sent over. Their sole arguments were that the links had no SEO benefit and that the links draw readers away from the law firm’s website. However, I did put up my arguments for why we used outbound links and why I believed they should remain on the page:

  • Outbound links to reputable sources create authority for your law firm’s website. So many law firm websites seem to come up with data and statistics out of thin air. We want to make sure that readers know we are providing them quality data.
  • We don’t believe readers will be drawn away from law firm websites if a quality source is provided. In fact, we think it will help “hook” the client. If a prospective client clicks one of our outbound links, then they are engaged and are genuinely looking at the topic. They are going to return to your page if they need your help because you are the one who gave them the quality information. If the reader doesn’t come back after reading an outbound link, they probably didn’t need your help. Let’s face it – not every reader is a potential client, but we want to hook the ones that are.

Using quality sources for outbound links

When we use outbound links for our content, we are fastidious about the sources we use. We secure outbound links to our pages and blogs from:

  • Websites that are considered “high authority.” This generally refers to websites that end with .org, .gov., and .edu. In general, these pages will be filled with trustworthy, quality content.
  • News websites, though we tread lightly. In the highly polarized political climate we live in, we have to be careful when linking to news agencies. We really only use news sources when crafting law firm blog posts related to relevant and timely stories that tie back to the firm’s practice areas.

We also choose the “anchor text” for the outbound links carefully. The anchor text refers to the highlighted words that are clickable and direct the reader to the source. Which words we use as the anchor text will vary depending on the goal of the post, but we try to make the link fit seamlessly into the paragraph and sentence.

Blue Seven Content – crafting your law firm’s website pages from scratch

At Blue Seven Content, we are sticking with outbound links. We understand their purpose, and we think they add value to the page and the overall website. If your law firm or agency has any questions or needs help with any of the following, we are here:

Please reach out to us for a free consultation by clicking here or calling us at 843-580-3158. We’re off to a busy start to 2021, and we have a few spaces left for content at the end of March and the end of April.

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