Why You Should Publish Good News on Your Law Firm Blog

In an era where our phones bombard us with alerts, it is hard even to check the time on your phone, or to grab your phone with the intention of calling your mother and telling her you are thinking of her, without getting bombarded with bad news. Every time you open your computer to do some work, you end up inadvertently finding out that the new COVID-19 infections in your state are increasing even more quickly and that you will again have to revise your childcare plans for the fall.

Sometimes you have to go looking for good news on the Internet just to get the bad news out of your mind so that you can focus on your work. Your prospective clients are probably experiencing the same thing, and your law firm’s blog just might be the solution. One of the functions of your blog, and in fact a very effective law firm marketing tactic, is to give prospective clients and casual readers alike a glimpse of the world beyond their general Weltschmerz and beyond the problem that led them to your blog in the first place.

Encouragement, Not Advertising

According to Dr. Larry Richard, a lawyer and psychologist, lawyers should seek out good news in order to reduce their stress levels and to avoid burnout. He wrote this in a blog post less than a month after the COVID-19 pandemic quarantine began, and lawyers and their prospective clients are even more stressed than they were back in April. What does this have to do with your blog, though? The last thing you need is a little voice in your head telling you “you should be blogging more” to go along with the ones guilt tripping you about the fact that you are not exercising, decluttering, appreciating the opportunity to spend time with your children, and supporting local small businesses as much as you should.

The target audience of your law firm’s blog needs good news just as much as you do. Your blog is the ideal venue to share encouraging news or even your own encouraging interpretation of the law. You would not have become a lawyer unless you had some optimism that the law could solve problems. Here are some examples of good news that you can share on your blog:

· A new law or policy that could benefit your target audience (such as a tax credit for small business owners or for the parents of minor children, if you practice small business law or family law)

· A study that shows promise for a new treatment for a common work injury or occupational disease, if you are a workers’ compensation lawyer

· A case summary highlighting how a certain law protects a certain right of your prospective clients

· A study with encouraging findings about the long-term outcomes of people who have been in a similar situation to your clients, such as people who had to change careers after a work injury

In other words, the purpose of your blog is not just to tell clients that you are great; it is to tell them that the world is not as bad as they think it is.

Good News for Lawyers Who Are Too Busy to Blog

The best news of all is that you do not have to write all of this encouraging content by yourself. Contact Law Blog Writers about producing upbeat legal blog content to help get your target audience and your law firm through the pandemic.

Lawyers Discuss Law Firm Marketing Strategies That Work for Them

Small law firms need to make every penny of their marketing budgets count. You are wise to research digital marketing firms that work exclusively with law firms. These law firm marketing companies offer a variety of services, but which serves are the ones that will help your law firm the most? Just reading the lists of services on marketing companies’ websites might leave you with the feeling that there are too many choices. Joe Galotti interviewed lawyers from various practice areas about the marketing strategies that have made the biggest difference for them.

Video Content on YouTube

Gerry is a medical malpractice lawyer in New York state. Several years ago, he made a video about his law firm and posted it on YouTube to see whether it would really generate leads. He got so many calls in response to the first video that he decided to post more.

Law Firm Podcasts

Jay, a criminal defense lawyer in Connecticut, says that his podcasts have brought an influx of new clients. He adds that it is important to add new episodes of your podcast regularly; too many lawyers abandon their podcast projects after just a few episodes.

A Bio That Makes You Sound Like a Real Professional

Jeremy is an attorney in Alabama; his practice areas include construction law and transportation law. He finds that a lawyer’s bio on his or her law firm’s website makes all the difference. According to Jeremy, your bio should contain many details about you, mostly about your studies and the kinds of cases you have worked on. Your bio should show what makes you unique and make clients feel like they know you, while keeping a professional tone.

A Presence on the Right Social Media Platforms

Amy, a marketing professional from Minnesota, says that law firms should not spread themselves too thin trying to keep up an active presence on all the social media platforms. Instead, you should choose one or two platforms that are most popular with your prospective clients. For example, if you work on employment discrimination cases, you should choose LinkedIn; people who are unhappy at their jobs because they are being treated unfairly are likely to be active on professional networking sites. If you are a family law attorney, choose Facebook or Instagram; divorced parents of minor children are likely to be on those sites connecting with friends and family or looking for ideas about how to entertain their children on a shoestring budget.

Nothing Beats a Great Blog

No matter your practice area, a blog is one of the most tried and true ways to make your law firm visible to prospective clients. The mere existence of a regularly updated blog boosts or SEO rankings, and shareable posts help you attract new clients by building your reputation. Hiring professional writers to create blog content is a wise decision.

Contact Law Blog Writers about adding blogging as a component of your digital marketing strategy.

Use Your Blog to Dispel Common Misconceptions About the Law

A popular clickbait tactic is to claim to debunk some commonly held belief. How else would one explain those advertisements in which a “gut doctor” (please, they prefer to be called gastroenterologists) encourages readers to avoid a certain vegetable other than that it flies in the face of the nearly universal belief that eating vegetables is good for one’s health?

Even in the pre-clickbait and pre-podcast days, the Freakonomics franchise was in the business was in the business of making readers question what they thought they knew about economics. People love to find out secret or hard-to-find information, if only because being the first to know it makes them feel smart, but promising to clear up misconceptions is an especially effective click-seeking technique when the misunderstanding at hand could be stopping the reader from gaining some advantage. Debunking myths about laws related to your practice area can yield eminently clickable and shareable blog posts for your law firm’s website, especially because so many important legal concepts are poorly understood by everyone except lawyers.

Your Legal Blog vs. Conventional Wisdom

You can tell what people frequently misunderstand about the law by analyzing Google search trends with analytics software. It is worthwhile to see which queries people enter with regard to your practice area, especially with yes-and-no questions. Queries like “will my ex take half,” “is pain and suffering 3 times the medical bills,” and “do you have to serve 80% of your sentence before parole” are blog post gold. Here are some more ideas to get you started:

· Marijuana Decriminalization – Marijuana laws vary greatly among states. If your city issues citations instead of misdemeanor charges for simple possession, say so. Likewise, write a post about what you can and can’t do with a medical cannabis card.

· Equitable Distribution- In divorce law, division of property is often a fraught subject. Start by informing your readers that “equitable” means “fair,” not “equal.”

· Dram Shop Liability- Different states have different, and often misunderstood, laws about when a bar can be sued for premises liability if someone caused a DUI crash after drinking at the bar.

· Do Not Blow- Refusing a breathalyzer test doesn’t automatically make you innocent or guilty. Explain the legal consequences in your state for refusing a breathalyzer test or other field sobriety test.

· General Damages Multiplier- How courts decide how much money to award for pain and suffering is a mystery to everyone except personal injury lawyers.

· Statute of Limitations- Even in the same state, the statute of limitations varies widely from one kind of legal action to another, as does the start date from which the statute of limitations clock starts counting down.

Contact Legal Content Writers

If writing listicles doesn’t seem like the best way to use your time and legal expertise, leave the task to professional legal content writers. You can count on Law Blog Writers to create blog content that will dispel myths about the law and make prospective clients want to find out more from you.