12 Law Firm Content Marketing Tactics That Work

Today in legal marketing, it’s all about sharing your expertise and gaining new leads. Though law firm content marketing comes in many forms across several channels, effective strategies increase web traffic, convert more leads, and win clients over time. 

There are other benefits too, such as:

• Increased organic website visitors due to SEO
• More followers and awareness on social media
• Backlinks generated from other websites
• A growing email list for nurturing
• More leads gathered through gated content and lead magnets
• Local leads and recognition through localized content

Effective content marketing means you are creating the right content for the right people at the right time. How do you do that? At a high level, the steps you’ll follow are: 

1. Research
2. Create 
3. Promote
4. Convert 
5. Measure

Here are specific tactics that will pull your strategy together. 

Content Marketing Tactics for Getting Traffic and Generating Leads

1. Research Your Target Market

Your ideal audience should be a lot narrower than “people with a legal issue”. Conduct complete research so that you know your audience inside and out. You want to understand things like the most important legal issues they’re facing, which resources they’ve explored, their goals for legal matters, and what topics they want to learn more about. You can create client personas in order to better tailor content. 

2. Perform SEO Keyword Research

Keyword research tells you what people are looking for online and how they find firms like yours. Keywords will drive a lot of your digital content, and you can use third-party tools to find related phrases, research your competitors, find backlink opportunities, and more. Assess your keywords and determine if they’re a fit for blog articles, web content, etc. 

3. Assess Your Competition

Understanding your competitor’s content strategies can help to inform your own. Make a point to check out their blog, review their web pages, and see what they’re using for lead magnets. You can also use SEO tools to “spy” on them by inputting competitor domains. That being said, your competitors likely have a differing strategy from yours, so make sure your ideas are informed mainly by your own research. 

4. Create Content Around Your Brand Narrative

Your brand narrative is composed of things like your values, mission statement, relationship with clients, and other characteristics that are specific to your firm. Any content you create should be aligned with this narrative. We suggest creating an internal document that any content writers can refer to as they create items. It should include elements like your target audience, specific services, value propositions, values, and benefits of working with your firm. Creating content that has these unique concepts at the core will mean your marketing is a good reflection of your firm and what you offer.

5. Build a Content Funnel

Every funnel should address a top, middle, and bottom, which moves from awareness to consideration to decision. At each stage, you should have content that addresses that particular audience. For example, at the top of the funnel, content should be more informative and high level, and at the bottom of the funnel, content should have more sales language and a CTA. 

6. Try Different Content Types

Content marketing involves so much more than just blogging. Experiment with interviews, landing pages, eBooks, video, webinars, podcasts, paid ads, and even classes. Resource guides, case studies, and first-party research and study results are particularly important for law firms. Find out which keywords are best suited to which platform.

7. Have a Blogging Schedule

A consistent blogging schedule is important. Though you shouldn’t blog just to blog (remember, you want to add value), having an active blog presence is essential. We suggest using PM tools like Asana to keep track of deadlines. Set deadlines for each of the steps we mentioned above, from the research to the measuring stage. 

8. Contribute to Other Content in Your Niche

Guest posts are ​​a great way to attract authority-boosting backlinks to your website, which in turn can help you rank higher in the Google search results. Similarly, many podcasters are looking for new guests for their programs. Reach out to people in your network and see if they need any contributions for initiatives they have coming up. 

9. Create Linkable Content Assets

Content assets are pieces of content that provide something unique and/or highly valuable so other site owners want to link to them. Things like eBooks, exclusive interviews, free tools or calculators, and in-depth guides tend to be very effective. Promote them organically, and you can also reach out to publishers directly asking them to link to the work. 

10. Optimize Landing Pages

Since service-level landing pages tend to be bottom of the funnel content, they need to be highly optimized. They need to have targeted keywords included with SEO best practices in mind. Make sure you include the benefits of working with your firm and a strong CTA. 

11. Develop a Promotion and Distribution Strategy

Now that you’ve researched and created a bunch of great content, how do you get people to find it and read it? Start by sharing on your blog, email list, and on your social media channels. You should also consider what content is appropriate to be shared in LinkedIn or other online groups, or on a social blog like Medium.com. 

12. Measure Your Results

You need a real way of understanding if your content is bringing in leads. You can use Google Analytics to track traffic, sources, bounce rates, and goals, while social media platforms have native tools that help measure clicks, engagement, etc. Monitor and track things like web page views, goal completions, downloads, social media clicks and shares, new subscribers, and form fills – along with anything else that is important to your campaigns. Use what you’re learning to optimize future efforts. 

Takeaway: 

Content can be a very powerful tool for gaining visibility online, reaching new potential clients, and nurturing leads through the decision-making funnel. These tactics will help you to develop a worthwhile strategy, but they’re just the beginning. If you’re looking for more insight on content marketing for lawyers, download our free eBook, The Law Firm Guide to Content Marketing to learn more.