Using Content Outlines to Create Effective Blog Content Quickly

Time is money, and money is a scarce resource these days. Some law firms have scaled down their content marketing budgets to the point that employees of the law firm, or even the lawyers themselves, are writing blog posts for the law firm’s website. Those who are hiring content marketing firms cannot afford to fail to provide clear instructions to the writers and risk getting content that is not what they want. In these tough economic times, law firms cannot afford not to update their blogs regularly, since an active blog is a reliable way to boost and maintain your law firm website’s search engine optimization (SEO) rankings. Whether you are writing the blog posts yourself, an employee of your law firm is writing them, or you are outsourcing them, the legal blog content will turn out better if you organize your thoughts in a content outline before the writer drafts them.

The Elements of a Content Outline

Whether the piece of content you want is a 500-word blog post or a 2,500-word white paper, you need an outline to help the writer stay focused, even if that writer is you. The outline should say what the content is about and what impression you want the content to make on the reader and on Google’s search result ranking bots. At minimum, your content outline should include the following:

• The title of the post

• The target keyword

• The target user intent (usually informational for law firm blog posts, but sometimes promotional for guest posts or transactional for landing pages)

• Subheadings to be included in the post

• What to include in the call-to-action paragraph (for example, your phone number or email address or an offer for a free consultation)

• Target word count

A seasoned content writer can look at your content outline and immediately think of things to write that will be interesting to the target audience. For example, if the writer sees that the post is about content outlines, one writer might think to start with the proverb “time is money.” Another might start with an anecdote about the Pomodoro method of time management, and a third would start with an anecdote about writing outlines in high school or law school. This is the beauty of writing a content outline and then handing it to a writer. You do not have to think of an engaging introduction or a catchy call to action slogan. Likewise, the writer does not have to try to guess whether you want a blog post about content outlines, user intent, or the ideal length for law firm blog posts. All of this makes it easier for the writer to deliver acceptable content on time. Therefore, law firm plus content outline plus writer is a winning formula, even when everyone is pressed for time and strapped for cash.

Law Blog Writers Creates Outlines, Content, and More

Whether or not you have already drafted content outlines for the content you want, the professional legal content writers at Law Blog Writers can deliver engaging, readable content for your law firm website with a fast turnaround.

FAT Is the Missing Ingredient in On-Page SEO

Sam the Cooking Guy, whose cookbooks and YouTube videos improved so many people’s kitchen skills during the pandemic, is fond of saying that “fat is flavor.” He is talking, of course, about the lipids that occur naturally in avocados, olive oil, steak, and Sam’s personal favorite, butter, making the proteins and carbohydrates they accompany in the dish taste so much better, but the friendly Canadian amateur chef’s favorite maxim could apply just as well to search engine optimization (SEO). As every lawyer looking to put every extra penny toward paying off law school loans knows, web content has no nutritional value, but there is a different kind of FAT that you can add judiciously to your legal blog content to make it suit your readers’ tastes; in this case, FAT stands for form, angle, and type.

EAT to Live, but FAT to Prosper

Conventional wisdom in the content marketing world emphasizes the importance of EAT, which stands for expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. For law firm websites, EAT is one of the easier hallmarks of SEO desirability to achieve; it is easy for Google’s bots to verify that you are a real lawyer employed by a real law firm. This, by itself, is not enough to attract visitors to your law firm’s website; you also need blog content that answers your audience’s questions and addresses their concerns. Keyword research is just the beginning when it comes to find out what your target audience would like to see on your site, you should also think about FAT:

· Format encompasses the general outline of a blog post or content video. Examples include listicles, myths versus facts, frequently asked questions, and how to guides.

· Angle includes the appeal you want to make to your readers’ values or pain points. This can include a focus on cost effectiveness or reaching a solution peacefully, to name just two possible angles you can use in law firm blog posts.

· Type is an even broader category than format. Examples of content types include blog posts, videos, email newsletters, and podcasts.

Just as you would not eat a plain stick of butter for dinner (or, at least, you would not do it more than once), FAT is not all you need to make your content succeed. Your content should also be idiomatic, succinct, and engaging. Likewise, off-page factors help, too, such as how frequently you update your website and the number of backlinks. Every law firm needs a varied and well-balanced content marketing strategy, including keyword research, backlinks, and perhaps even paid search engine ads, but it is the FAT of your law firm’s blog that will keep visitors coming back to your site and turn some of them into clients.

Lean on Law Blog Writers for Content With Just the Right FAT

The professional legal content writers at Law Blog Writers will create custom written blog posts and legal marketing content of other formats to keep your website on the first page of Google search results.

Focus on User Intent to Enhance Your Law Firm Website’s Rankings

You can buy custom written content for your law firm’s website cheaply, but do not expect the least expensive content to do much to boost your site’s SEO rankings. It is true that regularly adding content to your site, such as by posting one or more new blog posts per month, will send the message to Google that your site is active, but Google will quickly figure it out if you are just adding filler to your site without adding truly valuable content; it will know that the content is of low quality if the average visitor’s time on page is brief and if your content has a poor conversion rate, meaning that very few people click the call to action at the end of your blog posts. It is better to invest more time and money in well researched legal blog content that responds to your audience’s needs.

The Four Types of User Intent

According to Corey Patterson of Search Engine Land, people enter search queries into Google for four different reasons. Almost every Google search is motivated by one of the following types of user intent:

· Informational – The user is trying to answer a question, such as “How much money can I get in a car accident lawsuit?”

· Navigational – The user is looking for a specific website, such as “Bloggins Injury Law Council Bluffs.”

· Commercial – The user is doing preliminary research with the intention of eventually making a purchase. Searches such as “car accident lawyer Council Bluffs” fall into this category.

· Transactional – The user intends to make a purchase during the current browsing session. Searches such as “pizza delivery near me” definitely fall into this category; searches such as “boys baby shark swim trunks” are sometimes commercial and sometimes transactional.

Law Firm Blog Posts Are Informational, With a Commercial Call to Action at the End

The best law firm blog posts assume an informational user intent. They answer common questions about your practice area and your state’s laws. Sometimes they provide a lawyer’s prospective on high profile cases related to your practice area, such as criminal cases, society page divorces, and major settlements paid in personal injury or employment discrimination cases. If your blog posts simply talked up what a great lawyer you are, they would simply be puff pieces and would not do a good job of convincing readers that you know your stuff.

There is a place to make a commercial pitch in your blog posts, and that is the call-to-action (CTA) paragraph at the end, which should link to an online contact form. Just a few sentences of commercial content in your CTA will suffice; the rest of the post should be informative, to respond to an informational user intent.

Law Blog Writers Understands User Intent

The professional legal content writers at Law Blog Writers will provide informative blog content that will answer your readers’ questions and persuade them to choose you if they need to hire a lawyer.