5 Meta Description Tips to Help Your Law Firm Blog Get Clicks

Many marketers have difficulty with the writing portion of their jobs – and writing concise copy is even more challenging. Meta descriptions are an essential part of a successful SEO strategy, but it can be tricky to distill your most compelling content into only a few characters. Here are some suggestions from our team on how you can create meta descriptions that will drive traffic to your law firm blog. 

Some Meta Description Reminders

You probably see meta descriptions every day in your search engine results, but don’t really register them. Meta descriptions are the copy that appears alongside website page titles, sharing what the page is about. They typically end with ellipses to encourage further reading. Good meta descriptions are less than 156 characters and should have the most important text early in the content. Google typically chooses the meta description to display on SERPs, but sometimes other copy, like from a featured snippet, may appear. The important thing is to make the most of the space you do have in order to get people to click on your law firm blog.

Meta Description Tips for a Law Firm Blog

You know you need to do as much as you can with the small amount of copy you’re allowed. Here’s how to pack a punch with the meta description of your law firm blog.

1. Keep the Searcher Front and Center

Why would someone search for your content in the first place? Begin by researching target keywords and other aspects of your target audience. Do your best to make sure your meta description fits your target audience’s needs. 

2. Use Keywords, Even If They Are Already Placed in the Title of Your Law Firm Blog

A common writing best practice is to avoid unique words in consequent sentences. However, this doesn’t apply to meta descriptions. Even if you’ve already included important keywords in your heading and page title, add them to your meta description. Compelling meta descriptions aren’t about a grammatically perfect flow – they are about getting someone to click the law firm blog.

3. Entice a Click or Provide an Answer

When you write your meta description, keep in mind that there are basically only a few options: 

• Provide compelling information that encourages people to click and read more. 
• Provide the answer to an inquiry directly, so the visitor doesn’t need to do anything else. 
• Don’t provide much information and have people click elsewhere.

You definitely don’t want to go with that last option. Consider what you want people to do once they see your result. If you are able to provide a concise answer, that would be valuable to visitors, and you can go that route. Otherwise, include a CTA that makes it easy for people to click through to your site and keep reading. You might want to include verbiage such as “examples”, “templates”, “case studies”, etc. to give people specific ideas about what else they can learn if they click your law firm blog.

4. Weigh Your Firm’s Brand Recognition with Character Count

In some cases, including your firm’s name in the meta description can be beneficial. If people recognize the brand, they may be more likely to find the link credible and click through. If you think your firm doesn’t have this level of recognition yet, then you may not want to include the name. However, even if you think there would be value in displaying your firm name, you need to think about how many characters that would use up. Remember you only have 156 – don’t make half of them your business name. 

5. Use Punctuation

You may occasionally see meta descriptions that don’t have proper punctuation. Chances are the writers skipped punctuation in order to have more characters to use on words. Don’t be tempted to go this route, as it can make your description difficult to read and hurt your credibility. When you write, think about how your description will appear. Read and reread your descriptions to make sure they’ll make sense to people scanning quickly. 

Takeaway: 

Meta descriptions are one area where your best writing skills can really make a difference. For each description, think of the value the web page provides, and why someone would want to read it. Then summarize that content in as few words as possible. Use these tips as a quick checklist to create more powerful meta descriptions for your law firm blog. 

Want to learn more tips for running a successful law firm blog that generates leads and helps you reach your business development goals? Check out our latest on-demand course taught by renowned legal blogging expert, Kevin O’Keefe- Blogging for Lawyers. 

If you need more assistance with SEO initiatives, touch base with our team. We develop strategies and execute tactics that drive traffic to your website and raise your search rankings.