Anatomy of a Law Firm Blog Post

As a lawyer, you write for a living. You can effortlessly switch from non-technical language in emails to clients to dense prose laden with Latin terms in a formal complaint. Why, then, does it fill you with trepidation to write a blog? In most of the writing you do for your job, you have a mental image of the person who will be reading your text, for example, a client or a judge. Blogs, by nature, are out there on the Internet, where everyone can read them, from prospective clients to introverts looking to unwind between social interactions to professional haters.

Of course, the key to completing any piece of writing is to envision its structure as a template before you start writing. This is true of divorce petitions and Ph.D. dissertations, and it is true of blog posts. There is more than one way to structure an effective blog post for your law firm, but if you really have writer’s block, the kind of post that practically writes itself is the kind about a real-life case and the legal principles it illustrates.

The Law, an Example, and a Call to Action

Imagine that you are a personal injury lawyer writing a blog post about dram shop liability, the law that states that when a drunk driver injures someone in a car accident, the injured person can sue the bar that served alcohol to the drunk driver and then let him drive drunk. Your post should have the following parts:

· Title: In blog posts, start with a punchline that is eye-catching without crossing the line into clickbait. For example, “In [Your State], You Can Sue the Bar That Served Alcohol to the Drunk Driver Who Hit You.”

· Introduction: In the first paragraph, give examples of why your ideal reader (someone who lives in your jurisdiction and might need a personal injury lawyer) might want to sue a place of business. Explain that these scenarios are called “premises liability.”

· Law Lesson: Explain that dram shop liability is a type of premises liability. Cite and paraphrase your state’s statute on dram shop liability. You might explain the history of your state’s dram shop law, if you can find information on it.

· Example Case: Summarize a real dram shop liability case that was decided by a court in your state. Regardless of whether the plaintiff or the defendant won, explain the judge’s reasoning as it relates to your state’s dram shop liability law.

· Call to Action: Encourage the reader to contact you if they have been injured in a car accident. Extend this invitation to all people injured in preventable accidents, not only those injured in car accidents caused by drunk drivers.

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Still have writer’s block? Outsourcing your blog content is great, but don’t take a chance on a generic content marketing firm. You can count on Law Blog Writers to create interesting, informative blog content on topics that will resonate with your prospective clients.

Pillar Pages: An Indispensable Part of Your Law Firm’s Content Marketing Strategy

You know about the importance of long-tail keywords. You have heard about updating your blog regularly. You are even aware of the new trends in content-marketing, like writing snippet-friendly content and tailoring your keywords to voice searches. The latest buzzword in content marketing, though, is a new name for an old concept: the pillar page. As their name suggests, pillar pages are big, strong, and permanent. Investing in them as a foundation for your law firm’s website before you start paying for blog content and social media posts is as important as investing in a solidly built house before you start buying expensive furniture for it.

Pillar Pages: The Reference Works of the Internet

If you were going to spend the summer in a remote cabin with no TV or Internet and could only bring one book, what would it be? Many people answer this question with a beloved, eminently re-readable novel, like The Great Gatsby, The Hobbit, or To Kill a Mockingbird. It might be wiser, though, to choose a reference book, like an unabridged dictionary or the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. People might not say that reference books are their favorites, but their actions say otherwise; they continue to consult them, albeit mostly online these days.

Pillar pages are the reference works of the Internet. They are content pages on websites, and they very infrequently undergo updates; most of the sub pages on a website relate to the pillar page. On your law firm’s website, your pillar pages are the practice area pages; they should tell prospective what they need to know about personal injury lawsuits, criminal defense, or the divorce process, for example. The best pillar pages are the ones that your clients will visit multiple times before and after they hire you. Ideally, they will share the link to your pillar pages to other people they know who are looking for information about your practice area.

What Makes a Good Pillar Page?

Unlike blog posts, pillar pages do not have to be catchy; they do not necessarily need a “hook.” They should be clear, concise, and well organized, like an encyclopedia article from the days of paper encyclopedias. Although they will probably have more words than any other page on your site, the word count is not the goal. You should fact-check and proofread the pillar page thoroughly before you post it.

If you hire professional content writers to write a pillar page, it will cost you more to get a good pillar page than it will to get blog posts that add up to the length of a pillar page. If you aim to trim your content marketing budget, the pillar page is not the place to pinch pennies. You should only hire writers who are knowledgeable about your practice area and give them a deadline and a budget that allows room for several drafts.

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You can count on Law Blog Writers to create factually accurate, readable content for all parts of your law firm’s website, from pillar pages to blog posts.

Quarantined Teleworkers and Your Law Firm’s Blog: A Match Made in Interesting Times

As state and local authorities attempt to curb the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, many lawyers in all 50 states will work from home for the next few weeks. Meanwhile, people in many other professions will also be stuck at home, some with instructions to telecommute and something with nothing to do but worry. You are in the same boat as millions of other Americans in that, if only because you do not have to commute to work for the next few weeks, you can spend the time that used to be your commute doing things that you have been wanting to do but have not had time.

The COVID-19 Pandemic and Your Practice Area

If you have ever used an analytics tool to observe trends in search engine queries, it is obvious to you how the COVID-19 outbreak has affected trending search queries. After people Google coronavirus symptoms and check updates on the number of cases in their area, they starting searching for legal questions about how the coronavirus and the public health response to it will affect them personally. These are some common questions that family law attorneys can answer on their blogs:

· Should my ex pay for childcare when schools are closed?

· What happens to visitation if one parent is quarantined?

· How to increase child support if I get laid off

· Does the court base the value of your investments on the date the divorce was filed or finalized?

· Parenting time for grandparents on [your state] parenting plan

Likewise, if you are an employment lawyer, you can attract traffic to your blog by adding posts about workers’ protections from being laid off because of changes in business operations related to the COVID-19 outbreak. If your law firm deals with personal injury or workers’ compensation cases, you might respond to questions about the remedies available to workers if they get exposed to COVID-19 while performing essential duties of their jobs. The effect of the COVID-19 outbreak on employment and childcare is raising important questions at the legislative level, and you do not have all the answers. Now, more than ever, though, prospective clients have time to read your site and take action on legal problems that have been plaguing them since before the first COVID-19 case was confirmed in the United States. Now is the ideal time to show readers you are listening and can help them.

Help Writing Your Law Firm Blog

You might decide to devote the two-hour period that used to be your commute to getting in shape or decluttering your house instead of writing blog posts. You can count on Law Blog Writers to take readers’ minds off of their germophobia and existential dread and help them focus on solutions that you can help them achieve.