Legal Blogging Mistakes That Hold Back Lawyer SEO
Updated: Feb 2, 2022
The Important Don'ts Of Writing A Law Firm Blog
Legal blogging has many benefits to Lawyer SEO. It can boost site traffic, build authority, and allows you to compete for keywords. Not to mention, it can all be done by one person, which makes it a cost-effective marketing strategy for any law firm.
However, you can't just sit down, write something, and post whatever you like. So despite being great vehicles for your content marketing strategy, it still has to appeal to readers, rank high in the searches, and get promoted to effectively drive traffic back to your domain. So if you want good ROI for your legal blogging efforts, you first need to know how to write, optimize, and post them.
Below are a few legal blogging mistakes that might keep you from getting the most of your content marketing strategy.
1. Using A Lot Of Legal Jargon
You're writing a blog for potential clients who might not know too much about the law. So keep your terminologies simple, unless your target audiences are lawyers or individuals who might know something about the legal process.
If you really have to talk about a legal concept, you might want to do the following:
Introduce them in a short summary that's digestible to the average person.
Spell out the abbreviations the first time you use them.
Link blog posts that go in-depth about the specific legal topic, like citations.
Add graphs and visual representations to help the reader understand.
Remember, your blog posts are meant to educate potential clients looking to you to explain a legal concept. So make it as easy for them to understand as possible.
2. Not Using Visuals
As mentioned before, there's a chance your readers aren't lawyers. They might not be able to fully grasp a legal concept that they're just learning about. Photos, illustrations, charts, maps, infographics, and videos can be used as excellent visual aids to convey your message.
In general, blog posts with no photos or other visuals to break up the walls of text just look uninteresting. In addition, it could either intimidate and bore a reader.
Remember: These visual elements add to the aesthetic of your page, too. Blogs with photos just look nicer, and while that sounds arbitrary, making your site more appealing to readers is still a Lawyer SEO tactic.
Ever been to a poorly designed blog that doesn't have a single photo or visual element in it? It's doesn't look as inviting or as interesting.
3. Writing For Search Engines Instead Of Your Readers
If you managed to rank high because of Lawyer SEO, you also want to convert as many site visitors as possible. It's one thing for people to click on your links and visit your site; it's another to get them to subscribe to your newsletters or set up an appointment with your law firm.
So when you're optimizing for specific keywords, make sure to be wary of the following:
User Intent. By using that specific keyword, what is the searcher specifically looking for? Do they want to know the statute of limitations? Are they looking to know what "damages" are? Do they want an approximate breakdown of the damages and settlements they can collect?
Grammar. Sure, that long-tail keyword might have an ideal search volume, but does it make sense in a sentence? Does your title read awkwardly when you force it? If you have a great keyword that doesn't make sense in a proper sentence, use it in your tags or alt texts.
It would be best if you also considered the reader when you're writing meta descriptions. Keywords are great, but if they don't the user in on what your content is all about, they won't know if it's really what they're looking for.
This same reader-first principle also applies to your headlines, summaries, social media posts, and so on.
4. Inconsistent Posting Schedules
Set a publishing schedule that allows you to consistently post on your legal. While you don't have to write several blog posts a day for it to be an effective marketing strategy, leaving your blog with no updates for months on end can make it look abandoned.
Remember: Quality over quantity is the rule to content creation for Lawyer SEO. So if it takes you one to two weeks to come up with the idea, do your research, write, edit, and publish your blog posts, note that in a schedule and stick to it.
Readers who might find your content interesting might come back to your website or subscribe to RSS. You want to give your readers something new every now and then. If not, you might find it challenging to build a steady readership.
Need Help With Legal Blogging? LawyerLeadMachine Can Assist.
Lawyer SEO and Content Marketing helps you get more site traffic, leads, and conversions. Legal blogs are the most common (and most cost-effective) way of doing so, especially for new and small law firms.
If you need help with blog content and general SEO, we have SEO experts to help you.
