3 Outdated SEO Strategies to Avoid

Having someone who is already an employee of your law firm is the least expensive option for getting started with content marketing, but there is no guarantee that lawyers, paralegals, or other law firm employees have up to date knowledge about how to get your website and online presence to make the biggest impression on prospective clients and on Google. You or one of your colleagues might have even taken a class on search engine optimization (SEO) at some point. While this is the cheapest option, it is not the most effective. Google’s algorithms change all the time, and SEO strategies must also adapt to those changes. You might be putting your content marketing efforts into strategies that are useless, or even counterproductive, in 2022. No matter how smart Google’s search engine bots get, they always appreciate law firm websites with regularly updated legal blog content.

Focusing Too Much on Metadata

Yes, you should include your main keyword in the meta title of the web page, but beyond that, you should focus your efforts on the content that visitors to the site will see. The old adage that content is king is as true in 2022 as it was in 2005. Putting on a show for the bots that read metadata is a waste of effort. Instead, you should concentrate on writing readable content that addresses visitors’ questions directly and is interesting enough to make them want to read all the way to the end. Google’s algorithms shift to reflect what human readers find valuable, not the other way around.

Focusing Too Much on Keyword Density

There are plenty of free keyword research tools available, but no matter how many usable keywords you find, using each keyword once on each page where you want it to appear is plenty. Keyword stuffing is one of the oldest SEO strategies, and it was one of the first ones that Google started to penalize. Even if you assign the composition of your blog content to natural language processing bots, the bots will know better than do overdo it with keywords.

Limiting Your Content Marketing Strategy to SEO

No matter how good you are at SEO, it is not the whole picture. Google searches are still the most common way that prospective clients find the law firms that they eventually hire. The new trend that “SEO is dead” does not apply to law firm marketing. Google is no longer the only means of online communication, though, and even law firms should diversify their content marketing strategy. It helps for law firms to have a presence on at least one social media platform.

Do It Yourself SEO Is So Last Decade

The easiest way to make sure that the new content on your website is based on up-to-date SEO practices is to hire professional content writers. The professional legal content writers at Law Blog Writers can produce original, custom-written blog content that provides value for your prospective clients and ranks highly on Google search results pages.

The Twilight of SEO?

Ever since millennials allegedly slew the dinner napkin, it seems like more and more of the things we have become accustomed to are going extinct. Yahoo Answers kicked the bucket not too long ago, and if you follow the news, you could get the impression that fiat currencies, or even planet Earth itself, could be next. For as long as your law firm has had a website, you have been hearing that content is king, but long-reigning monarchs are the exception to the rule. As Google’s algorithms get smarter, web content gets dumber, and natural language processing bots become more proficient in sophistry, search engine optimization (SEO) professionals have been saying that SEO is going the way of the dodo, but does this mean that you should no longer invest resources in making your law firm’s website rank first on Google search results, or is it just the usual gloom and doom that everyone has been saying these days? The safest bet for now is to continue updating the legal blog content on your website frequently.

Beyond Search Engines

Get a grip, doomsayers. It isn’t so much that SEO is going extinct, it is just that search engines no longer have a monopoly on how customers engage with businesses online. 15 years ago, everyone who needed to make a business transaction of any sort searched Google, but now Google is just one of many vehicles for finding needed products or services. Besides search engines, there are ecommerce apps like GrubHub for food delivery Amazon for virtually everything, plus an array of social media platforms from Facebook to Tik Tok.

When it comes to searching for law firms, people rely on Google more than they do when they want to buy cardigan sweaters or chicken wings. It can’t hurt to diversify your content marketing strategy, though. You should continue to monitor your site’s SEO performance and regularly update it with new content, but it is also a good idea to maintain a social media account or two.

Your Competitors Still Care About Ranking on Google, Even If You Don’t

Even if you have decided that Google searches are so last decade, the other law firms in your city have not. Remember that the goal of content marketing is to attract the business of the greatest possible share of your target audience, not the whole Internet. There are only so many couples in Naperville who get divorced each year, and only so many lawyers who can represent them. You want to make sure that those clients contact you and not your competitors. At least some of those prospective clients, especially the older ones, will be searching for lawyers on Google. If you need motivation to optimize your website, think of all the clients your competitors will not be getting if you do.

Keeping Up Your Strong SEO Position in Uncertain Times

The professional legal content writers at Law Blog Writers can help you keep your law firm’s blog updated with custom-written posts while also branching out into other aspects of content marketing strategy.

Call-to-Action Text and Your Law Firm’s Content Marketing Strategy

Imagine that you write an informative blog post and post it on your law firm’s website. Your post, which is several thousand words long, describes the six types of alimony recognized by Florida law and the situations in which the courts award each type. After reading your post, the reader knows which kind of alimony the courts will likely award in their divorce case, feels confident that getting divorced will not cause them financial ruin, and goes back to Google to search for a divorce lawyer. What’s wrong with this picture? Since you have invested all the time in writing this informative blog post, shouldn’t the reader contact you? If your blog post does not have a call-to-action (CTA), you risk situations like the one just described. If your blog posts do not currently have CTAs, you should add them as soon as possible, but your work on the blog thus far has not been in vain. Updating your blog is good for SEO rankings; time on page is also an SEO criterion, so you are promoting your law firm if you post long form content and visitors read it all the way to the end. The most effective legal blog content, however, almost always contains a CTA.

Every Call-to-Action Begins With a Verb

A call-to-action (CTA) is a brief phrase of text contained in a clickable link or a clickable button. It should instruct the reader what they can do by clicking the link or the button. For example, a CTA might enable readers to subscribe to a newsletter, fill out an online contact form, or add an item to an online shopping cart. Therefore, the call-to-action phrase should begin with a verb, and it should be as specific as possible about what the reader will do by clicking it. These are some examples of CTA phrases that law firms might use:

· Contact Bloggins & Associates

· Download our guide to car accident insurance claims

· Subscribe to our newsletter

· Schedule a free consultation

Where Should You Place the Call-to-Action for Best Results?

Where you should place the CTA depends on the type of content. In a blog post, it should be at the end, and a paragraph that describes how the reader can benefit from clicking a CTA. In a marketing email, it can be almost anywhere, since readers are used to clicking links in emails. On a landing page, it could be at the top or on the bottom. In social media content, the ideal CTA location depends on the layout that the social media app uses. It could even be in the form of a pop-up or slide-in button.

Increase Your Site’s Conversion Rate With Effective CTAs

Updating the blog on your law firm’s website is great, but adding a CTA at the end of each post to increase your conversion rate is even better. The professional legal content writers at Law Blog Writers will deliver custom-written blog posts that hold readers’ attention from title to CTA.