Content Writing for Law Firms

Is your law firm missing out on the most effective strategies in the field of digital marketing?

Creating effective legal content has been called a game-changer for attorneys, but too many lawyers are still standing on the sidelines, not sure how to get started. Every day that you put off launching your own content marketing campaign sends the cases and clients you want most straight to your competitors.

NextLevel has a history of success developing both sales-focused website content and content marketing strategies for attorneys. Whatever your law firm's content needs are, we're fully equipped to exceed them.

What's on Your Website?

Your website is the digital home of your law firm. Often, it's the first impression potential clients have of who you are and what it would be like to work with you.

Your website should always be as impeccably maintained, professional-looking, and inviting as your real-life office - because make no mistake, your clients are meeting you for the first time in this virtual atmosphere. Yet many law firms still do too little with their website content, and they're losing out on valuable leads as a result.

Is your website fully-developed, teeming with all of the useful information your ideal client needs, all flawlessly organized for a streamlined, intuitive experience? That's the equivalent of showing a new client into an impressive, spotlessly maintained office adorned with the awards and credentials that prove your expertise as an attorney.

Or is your website small and underwhelming, the equivalent of meeting your potential new client in a cramped closet? (Don't forget - your competitors' imposing office buildings are easily visible next door!)

Perhaps you've put effort into fleshing out your law firm's website, but the content you've created has been haphazardly uploaded to your site, stuffed in random places where it doesn't belong. Many lawyers would be embarrassed to meet clients in person in an office that was half as cluttered as their website appears.

Does your site look exactly like every other attorneys'? Does the content sound like it's stuck on repeat, full of clichés? If nothing about your website sets you apart from the thousands of other attorneys practicing in your state, why would you expect a new lead to choose your firm?

More clients now find attorneys online than ever before. Simply put, you can't afford to get it wrong - not when your competition is getting it right. The content on your website can make or break your chances of getting your share of the droves of plaintiffs and defendants searching for a lawyer online.

What Is Content Marketing?

No conversation about content for law firms is complete without talking about content marketing. Content marketing is a form of marketing that focuses on providing free, valuable information in written, video, or other forms. The content you create for this purpose should inspire interest in your legal services without focusing on selling readers on the idea of hiring your law firm.

Content marketing is about educating - something that many attorneys, who by definition act as advocates for their clients, are already passionate about doing.

What Content Marketing Is Not

The definition of content marketing can seem so vague that it's easy to mistake any text or video your firm produces for content marketing. You may think, "yeah, we've already tried content marketing, and it didn't work" - but only because the content you created wasn't really content marketing at all.

If you're treating any of the following as content marketing, the reason why your efforts aren't producing results - and will never produce the results you want - is clear.

Content marketing is not:

• Hard sell advertising copy (a list of reasons to hire your firm)
• Keyword-stuffed batches of text intended for search engines (algorithms and bots are never going to hire you, so why should you ever write content for them?)
• Legal jargon (no non-lawyer understands it or wants to read it)
• A scheme for quickly generating client leads (content marketing is a long-term strategy, not a quick fix)
• A hobby you can work on in your spare time (effective content marketing takes time, planning, and hard work)

Successful content marketing requires a fully-developed and well-organized strategy. It requires seamless execution of your plans, with professional-quality writing that speaks to your audience in a voice that is at once authoritative and human.

Anything less, and your content marketing efforts are almost guaranteed to fall flat.

Why Content Marketing Works for Law Firms

Content marketing is a valuable strategy in many industries, but it's particularly useful - if also challenging - in the legal industry.

Why? Because it's an industry that so many laypeople don't understand. There's far more need for information and education in the legal industry than in your average consumer product or professional service.

Sure, there's a market for content about the best diet plans or photography tips, but these are largely throwaway reads. For people in need of an attorney, there's a much more intense need for knowledge.

If you've been hurt in a car accident, for example, then you need to know how the claims process works and how to get your car fixed. If you've been arrested for a DUI, you're anxious to understand what the penalties are.

Firms that can create and promote this type of valuable content - and do it well - are on their way to capturing the kind of client leads that make a law firm more profitable.

Why Legal Content Fails

Creating both effective sales content and successful content marketing campaigns for law firms may seem deceptively simple. It's why so many lawyers make the mistake of trying to handle this task on their own. After all, as an attorney, you write all the time. Why shouldn't you write your own content?

Lawyers are experts at writing legal documents. What they aren't experts at is writing marketing content - crafting the tone of voice that makes your firm seem at once knowledgeable and human and reassuring, breaking down aspects of the law and legal process into simple and understandable language.

When legal content isn't working, it's often for one of the following reasons:

Too much legalese.

One of the biggest mistakes attorneys make when they try to handle content marketing themselves is creating content that reads like an affidavit or a complaint filed in court.

Legal content writing means writing content for laypeople about the legal industry - not writing a legal document. Attorneys are taught one way of writing for legal purposes, but outside of the practice of law, this style of writing can come across as dry, boring, and unable to hold a reader's interest - much less persuade them to hire you.

How do the professionals do it? All of NextLevel's content for law firms is specially crafted by experienced copywriters. We use our extensive background in legal marketing to create content that is legally accurate but also engaging and accessible to an audience of non-lawyers - your prospective clients.

Too much focus on yourself.

It's your law firm and your website, so talking about yourself might seem like a given. It's certainly the norm on many attorney websites, which brag up awards and experience without offering much in the way of connection.

Yet, as the best sales representatives know, you don't impress clients by talking about your product or service. Instead, you win them over by talking about them: their fears, their wants, their needs, and what you can do for them to answer those needs and solve their problems.

NextLevel prides itself on thinking outside the box of attorney clichés and thoughtfully developing content that will emphasize and resonate with its readers. Online searchers have thousands of attorneys to choose from, all at their fingertips.

You don't want to blend into the collage of faceless attorneys, all talking up the awards that - let's face it - don't mean much to non-lawyers.

Instead, you want searchers to stop browsing - to say to themselves, "This lawyer really gets it."

Not valuable enough.

Value is in the eye of the beholder, but the reality is that too many lawyers have misguided ideas about what readers want to see in a law firm's content.

You may think that simply telling site visitors that they need a lawyer is valuable information. After all, since you're an authority in the field, you know that having an attorney will solve their problems. Unfortunately, non-lawyers don't see it that way.

To your potential clients, your recommendation to simply hire a lawyer to handle everything can sound more like advertising than real assistance. No one likes to be sold to. Content that comes across as overly salesy doesn't feel very valuable - even if it's good, accurate advice.

What is valuable? Talk about their rights. Talk about the consequences of not hiring a lawyer. Answer common questions. Tell readers all the things you wished clients knew before they showed up in a courtroom or gave a statement to an insurance adjuster.

Whatever you do, avoid the temptation to tell them to just hire an attorney. If they're looking at your website or your content published elsewhere, chances are they already have an inkling that they might need a lawyer. Even your self-promoting content shouldn't feel pushy or salesy. Simply put, your content is a chance to prove to your potential clients that you deserve their business. It's always more effective to show someone why they should hire you, by sharing meaningful information they can trust, than to tell them that you're the best.

This is far easier said than done, especially for overworked and overstressed attorneys. That's where we come in. When NextLevel creates your law firm's content, you can feel confident that we have our fingers on the pulse of the legal marketing industry. Through years of meticulous research and innovative brainstorming, we've developed an in-depth understanding of what today's searchers are looking for in law firm content.

Not enough connection.

There's a reason why it's so crucial for attorneys' faces to make an appearance on law firms' websites. Seeing the face of the person who will be representing you creates a human connection that something impersonal, like a logo or an image of a generic office building, just doesn't accomplish. Most lawyers realize this - but they don't realize that the more you develop that connection, the more likely potential leads are to choose you.

Your content is an ideal place for you to forge that connection, especially if you embrace the strategy of talking about the reader rather than yourself. You don't have to spill your deepest secrets, but you do need to make it clear that the worries that are keeping them up at night matter, and that you can offer the solution.

Many attorneys struggle with creating this connection through mere words. As great as you are at connecting with clients in person, you're used to writing in legal terms and specifics, not necessarily this touchy-feely stuff. It's hard to strike the balance between professional and approachable when it comes to writing legal content - but NextLevel has been doing it successfully for years.

Not enough content.

There's a reason lengthy articles and webpages do so well in search engine results pages. When that content is all quality, and no fluff, it offers users a thorough and valuable answer to their questions - and sometimes, to the questions they didn't even know they had.

Yet too many law firms still have only the minimum when it comes to website content: an About page that tells visitors where they went to law school, a page listing their practice areas, a contact form, maybe a half-hearted attempt at content marketing that never really got off the ground.

This may be because you're trying to create all of your content yourself but just don't have time, or because you tried outsourcing it to an inexperienced company or freelancer for next to nothing. At the time, it seemed that some content was better than no content. In today's market, though, it's clear that minimal website content is losing you business.

What NextLevel Can Do for Your Law Firm's Content Marketing

Let NextLevel's expertise solve all of your content problems. We have years of experience creating law firm content that works.

What sets our legal content writing services apart? We don't just scribble down the first words that come to mind and slap them up on the Internet for everyone to see.

Instead, we put together a multifaceted approach to make sure your content is the very best, from strategy to implementation. For every attorney we work with, we develop a unique strategy and personalized content that proves that you are an authority in the field.

Just like you, we never stop working toward developing greater expertise in our field.

A Multifaceted Approach

Your online content serves more than one purpose. Shouldn't your legal content writing service take every one of those functions into account?

NextLevel's multifaceted approach allows us to create content that covers all of your bases. We educate your prospective clients and win them over through copy that shows them why you're the right fit for their case.

Our Strategically Crafted Content Plans

Do you, or your current legal content writing service, have a plan, or are you just "winging it?" Trial and error is an expensive way to build a content strategy. It clutters up your online presence, creates inconsistencies in your brand voice, and wastes money on projects that will never get you results.

Here's a hint: if you ask your content creator what your strategy is and all they can show you is a calendar, they don't have a real strategy that's good enough for your firm. They're wasting your money and your time.

To truly take your content to the next level, you need an evidence-based plan for long-term success. Developing that plan for you is our first step in creating winning law firm content. Our research into your firm's unique market - taking into account practice area, geographic area, and more - allows us to create unbeatable strategies that will get you results.

You'd never go into the courtroom without a strategy, even if all of the evidence was on your side. So why would you trust your content to anyone who doesn't have a solid strategy backing it up?

Personalized Content to Set Your Law Firm Apart

If the content on your law firm's website sounds just like every other lawyers', it's a problem.

Not only is duplicate content undesirable from an SEO perspective, but it's highly unlikely to be effective at converting visitors into clients. There's nothing compelling about the same words searchers have come across over and over again on every law firm site they have visited - even if you consider those words your selling points.

Some legal content writing services insert your law firm's name and location into their template, move a few words around, and call it a day. No one is fooled by their minimal efforts - not search engines and certainly not human readers.

At NextLevel, we know you can't craft extraordinary content by following an ordinary formula. Our content is uniquely personalized to your law firm. You're not just like everyone else in the industry - you're better. And we're going to tell people why.

Showcasing Your Expertise by Educating Readers

Long before prospective clients pick up the phone to call you, they need other questions answered. Why should they choose you? Why should they like you? Why should they trust you?

The most effective way to establish trust is through publishing that educational content your ideal clients find so valuable. Through the educational content our experienced legal marketing copywriters create for you, we'll prove that you're the authority in your area of law - and show leads why they shouldn't settle for anything less than your expertise.

Law Firm Content FAQs

Why Do Law Firms Need a Content Strategy?

Without a clear, results-focused plan, any content creation done for you can bring you only limited benefits. Only well-thought-out and perfectly executed content is likely to bring you results. On the off-chance that an off-the-cuff piece of content does bring you a short-term boost, you can't count on it for long-term success. Statistically speaking, you're going to spend your time and money on far more failures than successes, because you're counting on pure luck to make your return on investment worthwhile.

Having a content strategy means that every piece of content created for your law firm serves a purpose. It all works toward a long-term goal, and success is measurable. Without a strategy, you could waste time developing numerous pieces of content that all serve the same purpose, while overlooking major opportunities. With our carefully developed strategy, you'll have the assets you need to catch prospective clients at every point in the lead generation process, from the ones who are just considering that they may need an attorney to the ones making their final decision about which lawyer they want to represent them.

As the saying goes, if you're failing to plan, you might as well plan to fail.

When Should Law Firms Worry About Content?

There's no way to overstate the importance of your law firm's online presence and reputation in today's market. Any law firm that aspires to gain clients through any online channel needs to make content a priority.

If you've never yet gotten a lead from the Internet, you're clearly missing out on cases you want. We can develop a strategy that begins with the content work your site needs most urgently for both short-term and long-term gains and go from there.

Even if you have a respectable web presence already, you want to take full advantage of all that digital attorney marketing has to offer. We've got the expertise needed to develop advanced content strategies that will take your online lead generation from adequate to impressive.

Where Do You Post Content Marketing?

Content can take several forms, from blog posts to video, infographics to apps, downloadable e-books and whitepapers to podcasts available for streaming. It's no surprise, then, that where you can publish your content depends in part on the format. There's also been a great deal of debate amongst content marketing experts over the years about where you should publish your most valuable content assets, as well as how you should promote them.

One piece of often-cited advice about content marketing is to put your most valuable content assets on channels that you own, especially your law firm's website, as opposed to sites owned by other parties. That's why creating exceptional content for our clients' websites is a top priority for NextLevel's copywriters.

If you're eager to do more with content marketing, we'll gladly use our experience to develop a custom plan that covers all of your on-site and off-site content creation and promotion. The sky's the limit.

Is Content Marketing Worth It?

No matter how you look at it, content matters for law firms that want to have any sort of an online presence.

• If you're interested in search engine optimization (SEO), the quality and magnitude of your content plays a crucial role in your rankings.
• If you want to build a massive social media following, you'll need content to share.
• If you want to build backlinks to your website, creating link-worthy content is the key.
• If you want online searches to become a dependable source of leads for your law firm, you need superior content, period.

Yet only content created by real legal marketing specialists and copywriters is truly worth your investment. You don't need amateurs - you need experts with years of experience in the industry, a record of success, and the references to prove it.

NextLevel is the only legal content writing service your firm needs to succeed. Let's talk!