After doing a recent podcast with a couple great legal marketing minds in the industry (check it out here), I realized there are still a handful of pressing questions that can be answered about content marketing, even after our guide and all of the blogs we’ve put out over the past several months.
Below are some of the most common questions that arose in our recent conversation. If you have any questions after reading this blog, always feel free to reach out and our team will personally respond!
How Much Content Should I Be Writing on a Monthly Basis?
We’re already starting off with an “it depends,” but it does depend on all of the content you already have on your website. If you have already completely built out all of your geographic pages and granular practice area pages, you may only need to be consistent with your blog. (And for blogging, you could do 4–6 a month depending on how many questions consumers normally ask or what laws are trending.)
If you have your work cut out for you in the webpage department, you’ll want to ramp up that part of your strategy over time. If you could service 20 cities around your main location and write 40 granular practice areas, you could make a plan to also develop these on a monthly basis depending on how aggressively you want to get your content to potential clients.
Having trouble coming up with different types of content you can create consistently on your website? Check out our blog on the subject.
How Important Is a Blog on My Law Firm’s Website?
Short answer: extremely important! Your blog is the mainstream of ongoing, trending content that keeps your website relevant and answers questions. In addition:
- Visitors to the website see a consistent, up-to-date effort to stay relevant via the blog.
- It adds to the LSI (latent semantic indexing) of the website with the topics/keywords you use in the blog, creating a general authoritative theme of what the website is about (and gives Google a stronger understanding of what you practice and what you should come up in results for). You can get an idea of the weight Google puts on LSI via your Google Search Console and the keywords Google is monitoring as far as overall usage.
- A blog creates additional opportunities to boost SEO with referencing practice areas and geo pages on your website with strong internal linking.
Need help coming up with topics for your blog? We have a blog to give you all the ideas you’ll need.
How Do I Know If My Content Is Working?
If the content isn’t generating qualified traffic—and, in turn, qualified leads—what’s the point of going through all the trouble? We can certainly find out if someone comes through by SEO/organic, but what about on the page level?
There are a few different approaches to knowing if our content is going in the right direction: KPIs (key performance indicators) and actual leads.
To start with KPIs, the common ones we can use for content are:
- Organic traffic (Google Analytics)
- Impressions (Google Search Console)
- Rankings (your favorite ranking software)
Some secondaries that are worth considering from a conversion standpoint, but may be a case-by-case basis, are:
- Bounce rate
- Time on site
- Pages per visit (all Google Analytics)
These numbers may not matter at all, based off of intent found on the particular page.
To learn more about your KPIs, whether they’re headed in the right direction, and setting up Google Analytics goals, please refer to this blog.
If you use a chat service, they should provide a “referral path” for the source of how someone got to the website, along with what page they are on when they initiate the chat. For calls, which have historically been more difficult to track a source for, quality vendors like CallRail have had success with dynamic number insertion depending on where a visitor came from to the website, along with where they may be on the website when they make a call to your firm.
Is Plagiarized Content a Big Deal?
While we know plagiarized content doesn’t provide value to our website, does it really hurt in the long run? After all, if we’re citing statutes and laws in their entirety, are we really getting dinged with negative effects when citing the source?
Your website failing a plagiarism check could happen a few different ways:
- Rewriting someone else’s content without a high enough degree of uniqueness
- Simply lifting someone else’s content
- Another website simply lifting content off of your website (cease and desist?)
- Including too much content word-for-word even though it cannot be rewritten (laws, statutes, etc.)
When quoting other content with a link to the source, it is important to give the page enough content to dilute the plagiarism. The red flag typically arises at over 20%, so if you plan on using a 200-word quote, write at least 800 words of content.
Should I Be Doing Video Content?
Video is an excellent medium for providing another way for potential clients to interact with your content. There are many benefits that typically outweigh the additional time for its production, such as:
- Ability to be highly viewable on all platforms, browsers, and devices
- Put a face to the name, create a “Rockstar” status
- Transcription for easy, quality content
- Featured on other websites like YouTube and Vimeo for additional visibility
- Easy shareability on social platforms
Though it does take dedication to put together quality videos, I would advise a client to knock out videos on a weekly or monthly basis and follow the impact it has for the firm.
Where Should I Be Hosting My Video Content?
This is an interesting new debate among marketers, mostly in regard to YouTube. By embedding YouTube videos on your website, you are exposed to some unideal features, such as autoplay and suggested videos after your video ends. If there aren’t settings in which you can adjust this from happening as of my writing this (10/27/20), you can also look into Vimeo to host your embedded videos on your website. No one wants a video to autoplay and then have a visitor assume you are affiliated with something undesirably political/social.
You can ask your host or webmaster about the benefits and options of hosting videos on your own server. Some benefits may include faster load times for the page without having an embedded script or a video sitemap that can be submitted to Google for stronger indexing.
What Can I Do to Get More Visibility for My Content?
Plenty! Content refreshes, best practice for on-page optimization, stronger/more unique topics, building more authority, and numerous other options come to mind. For a more in-depth look, please refer to our article unpacking the topic.
Boost Your Law Firm’s Success with Innovative Marketing Strategies
Content is a vital part of your law firm’s identity and success. Finding the sweet spot of enough quality content to generate leads will make your website an effective tool for your firm.
Still have questions? Contact Market My Market and schedule a free consultation.
The ongoing digital revolution is transforming the way that all businesses interact with clients and customers. Consumers rely heavily on digital channels for researching products and services and expect to make buying choices with the swipe of a finger. For organizations that want to remain competitive, having a defined digital marketing strategy and execution plan is essential for successful outcomes. With a demonstrated history of creating and implementing strategic digital marketing initiatives that drive growth, I am committed to delivering real, measurable results for my clients.