By Yvette Valencia

“How do I attract clients to my law firm?” Attorneys ask themselves – and others – that question all the time. The answer can be pretty lengthy. Here, we’ll discuss how to get clients as an attorney by using the content of your blog. The following three steps can help you establish authority to reach out to potential clients and then influence them to take action.

Achieve a Position of Authority

Blogs that develop a following do so because the author has established a position of authority or celebrity status. As an attorney, “celebrity” is probably not the niche you want. Acting as an authoritative source will serve you better.

Establishing authority begins with dispensing information. Spread your knowledge and expertise freely; don't make people hunt or pay for content. One way to establish yourself as an authority is to write an eBook about your legal area of expertise and offer it as a free download.

If you're not the book-writing type, develop a robust FAQ section on your website to answer the most common (and not so common) questions potential clients might have. If you have an AVVO profile (and you should) spread your knowledge by contributing to its Q&A section or posting articles to its legal library.

Learn What Your Clients Want and Deliver On It

The first steps of successful content conversion are to learn what your clients want and then give it to them. Sometimes a client will walk into your office knowing she is going to hire you to represent her. Others might know they have a legal issue but might not know if they should hire a lawyer.

It’s the same with your blog or article library. Some readers will be looking for general information about a legal topic. After reading your content, they may realize they should contact you for legal consultation. Others will come right to your website looking to set up a consultation with you.

Address both readers. Write general content about legal topics for readers not yet looking to hire you. And write content geared towards\ readers who know they need to hire a lawyer. But how do you know which topics to address?

Your own experience addressing clients’ concerns could help. Brainstorm some topics and questions you address a lot. Keyword research can also be valuable for learning what potential clients are searching for on the Internet. Tools like SEMRush can tell you how popular certain keywords are or tell you what keywords are associated with your site and competitor sites.

Make sure you have Google Analytics activated on your site as well; the queries tool can give you a lot of insight on what search queries bring the most users to your website.

Once you have some topic ideas generated, build up your blog with quality posts on those topics. Make sure you're using blogging best practices.

• Keep entries between 400 and 600 words
• Use diverse keywords and synonyms
• End with a strong call to action

Influence Readers to Take Action

A strong call to action is a statement near the end of a blog post that tells your reader exactly the action step needed to solve his or her problem. Your call to action might encourage the reader to contact your law firm. A less direct approach is to invite the reader to learn more by reading other posts on your blog or downloading your eBook.

If coming up with all this content seems daunting, don't fret! We Do Web Content specializes in online marketing for lawyers and other professionals. We produce top quality, unique legal content for law firms across the nation. Just fill out our contact form and we'll reach out to you to discuss a custom content plan to draw readers to your website and convert them into clients. You can also call us at 888-521-3880.

By Yvette Valencia

Comments on your web content are a sign you're doing something right! Whether they're good or bad, receiving comments on your blog is an indicator that people are finding, reading and being influenced by your posts. Because your readers are taking the time to comment on your content, you should return the favor by responding to their web comments.

Responding to Positive Comments Increases Client Dialogue

Everyone loves to get a personal thank you note after giving a gift. Consider comments gifts from your readers and your response a thank you note.

Even if somebody writes something short like, “Great info!” take the time to acknowledge the comment, especially if you don’t get a lot of comments. A simple, “Thank you!” could suffice for these short comments. If you get hundreds of comments, you might choose to write a single note to all the readers who commented thanking them for their kind words if you don’t have time to respond to each one.

When you get longer comments that go in depth about your content, take a bit more time to respond. If you get dozens of these longer comments, you might have to pick and choose which you respond to. But showing commenters that you read and respond to their thoughts will help promote a dialogue between the readers and your site. This, in turn, may foster a stronger relationship with your potential clients.

Responding to Negative Web Comments

While words will never hurt you, you should discourage outright harassment on your site, especially if it attacks your law firm or the clients your law firm serves. Sometimes negative comments come from clients using your blog as a public sounding board for issues with their cases. In these situations, it's best to add a public follow-up comment briefly addressing their concerns while mentioning that you will be contacting them privately to discuss their issue further.

In other cases, you'll get general harassment from non-clients just out to bother you. Always remember to keep calm and civil when responding to these negative comments. You don't want to create the impression that a few negative comments from strangers can ruffle your feathers. Address their comment with respect. If the commenter took issue with something you wrote, calmly explain your reasoning.

The last thing you want to do when responding to negative web comments is encourage hecklers. Responding with animosity will only make the matter worse.

Never Turn Your Back on a Comment

Even spam comments deserve your attention. If your site is receiving too many spam comments (nonsensical words or ads for unrelated sites), talk to your webmaster about anti-spam measures. Fixing spam can be as easy as adding the Akismet plugin for WordPress-based sites or adding a Captcha or other human vs. robot check mechanism. Letting spam get out of control will hide relevant comments and can hinder discussion or engagement with your readers.

Remember that you can't get quality comments unless you have quality content. Let We Do Web Content fill your blog and website with quality, engaging content that will inspire your readers to talk about and share your posts. Just fill out our contact form or call us at 888-521-3880 to inquire about all the services we offer to help grow your web traffic and boost your Internet presence.

By Yvette Valencia

If you’re hoping to increase website traffic and generate more leads, don’t hire a wizard.

What does that mean? Anyone who tells you that you can dramatically increase your web leads and boost your site traffic in less than three to six months has to either be a wizard or involved in black hat SEO.

The truth is, content success takes time and continuous effort. Great websites with thousands of hits per day didn’t get that way overnight. They gained their popularity through years of publishing great content.

The Secret to Increase Traffic to a Website

The secret is: there is no secret. There’s no magic formula, no tricks, and no amount of money you can pay to get solid leads and genuine increases in web traffic. There are still black hat SEO marketers who use unscrupulous techniques like link schemes and shady link networks to generate quick web traffic.

While it’s a quick trick to temporarily boost your traffic, what you’re paying for ultimately is a short-lived reign at the top followed by the risk of de-ranking by Google and a low chance of generating good leads.

The plain and simple truth is that truly successful websites and blogs generate leads and increase web traffic through quality content. Just like any publication, gaining traction on the Internet takes time. You have to find your niche and build a fan base, milestones that take time to reach. Spend that time crafting and curating a library of quality content designed to attract and capture potential leads.

Now, how do you set up your content marketing strategy for success?

The Content Saturation Index

Marcus Sheridan of The Sales Lion hit the nail on the head when he coined the term “Content Saturation Index” or CSI. The estimated time it takes a website to gain traffic and leads through a content marketing strategy depends on the content market you are entering.

In the legal content industry, you can break down the types of content into three levels.

• Broad content that talks about the fundamentals of the industry (what a personal injury attorney does, the benefits of hiring a lawyer).

• Narrow content that deals with the specifics of a type of law (how injury attorneys get paid, the differences between drug trafficking charges and drug possession charges).

• Niche content that talks about information specific to your practice and geographic area (DUI laws in Pennsylvania, Texas divorce laws).

The speed of the success of your content marketing depends on the type of content you’re writing.

Content in the broad category is everywhere; it’s the most highly saturated category of content on the Internet. If you’re writing only at the broad level, increasing your traffic and generating more leads may be almost impossible without paying for clicks and leads.

Writing more in the narrow and niche levels gives your website a better chance to stand out from the crowd and rank faster for the key terms most closely associated with your practice. When you focus on saturating these less competitive levels with your quality content, you’re setting yourself up for a faster – but not overnight – track to content success.

Saturate Your Content

At We Do Web Content, our experienced team of writers, content managers, and editors know how to craft a content plan to safely and honestly improve your Internet presence. To get started, give us a call or fill out our contact form to speak with our sales manager about all of the services we offer to help grow your business through Internet and SEO marketing. Call 888-521-3880.

How to Use Your Legal Blog Content to Convert Readers into Clients

By Yvette Valencia

Convert readers into new clients for your law firm by understanding what topics will draw their interest. Whether you’re a lawyer flying solo with your own single-employee law firm or a partner of a multi-attorney firm with several staff members, getting to know your customers is key to content conversion.

The first step is to pay attention to interactions between your business and your existing clients. It’s here where you can do a little investigative reporting to uncover the hot topics that really grab clients’ attention.

Ask Your Employees about Their Day-to-Day Customer Interactions

When you run a medium to large law firm, you may not find yourself meeting directly with clients as often as your legal assistants, paralegals and case representatives. However, that doesn’t mean that you should be in the dark about what’s on your clients' minds.

Make it a part of your weekly or monthly routine to meet with the staff members who have the most direct interaction with your clients and pick their brains for the latest hot topics. For example, family law attorneys in a state where the ban on gay marriage was overturned recently may see a surge in same-sex couples seeking help in preparing prenuptial agreements. Personal injury law firms in states with harsh winters may notice more slip and fall cases at shopping malls during the winter shopping months.

Your employees can keep you abreast of what kind of cases or situations are most commonly brought to your office so you can tailor your legal blog content to really get in-depth about those topics. Ask your employees to keep track of the most commonly asked questions they hear on a regular basis – these questions are excellent for bulking up your FAQ section.

Solo Attorneys: Analyze Your Customer Interactions for Content Opportunities

Attorneys with solo practices can use the same techniques to develop ideas for new blog posts. Because you are working directly with your clients, the rapport you build with them can be used to test different blog ideas. For example, if you have a good working relationship with a car accident client, see if he or she would be willing to do a short interview with you to get some information from the client’s perspective on the injury claims process.

Your client’s answers to the following questions can help you generate blogs explaining the kind of information they learned or wish they had known prior to their accident.

• How much did you know about the injury claims process before your accident?
• What was the most shocking thing you learned about the injury claims process?
• What did you wish you had known about injury claims before your accident?
• What advice would you give to someone who has just been in an accident?
• What do you think is the biggest myth about the injury claims process?

These article ideas will fulfill a necessary role of your legal blog: It will help you write entries that answer common client questions and alleviate fears and misconceptions about their legal rights and their case. During your questioning, keep your ears open for repeated terms – these can become your keywords for your blogs.

We Do Web Content Writes the Legal Content Your Potential Clients Want

The writing team at We Do Web Content knows how to think like a potential client and write to their needs and interests to help transform readers into customers. To get started, give us a call or fill out our contact form to speak with our sales manager about all of the services we offer to help grow your business through Internet and SEO marketing: 888-521-3880.

New Google Ranking Factors: 10 of the Latest Quality Guidelines You Must Heed

By Yvette Valencia

Google’s recently leaked Quality Rating Guidelines Version 5.0 may be one of the most important 160-page documents you'll ever read. Of course, not every website manager has the time to digest all of the rating parameters that have come and gone, so we've broken it down into this                                                                                              handy list of the latest Google ranking factors.

E-A-T: Expertise-Authority-Trust - Google wants your content to establish that your website is an experienced source of information on your topic; your writers are an authority on the subject they write about; and your website can be trusted to provide the information or service that it advertises or supports.
Establish authority early - You don't need a Ph.D. to be an expert on something. Google takes people with firsthand knowledge of something like living with Crohn's disease as a type of expertise. Just make sure you have a clear "about the author" section to explain why the writer is an expert on the topic.
Watch your use of on-page ads - Google gives lower-quality ratings to pages that have too many ads, place ads in the middle of the main content, or use ad services with malware or deceptive banners.
Use a clean design - Don't design your site to maximize ad space; design your site with user enjoyment and convenience in mind.
Be transparent - Google wants to know who's running the site and how users can contact you if they have any questions or concerns. Make sure that you have a clear way for customers to contact you for support or concerns.
Don't associate with sites that have a bad reputation - Google looks at the company you keep, and if you have outbound links that go to dead sites, known dangerous sites, or any form of malware or spam, your site's quality rating will suffer.
Add supplementary content when appropriate - Including high-quality supplementary content to support your text, such as instructional videos and pictures is another factor that Google uses to determine your authority and trust.
Fraudulent behavior and bad reputation are automatic poor ratings - Google's rating team has been instructed to give an automatic poor quality rating to any sites that engage in fraudulent behavior or have a bad reputation among users.
Do not auto-generate pages - There are programs out there that can auto-generate blog posts based on search trends and other data. These posts are almost always gibberish, and Google's rating team has been instructed to rate these pages with the lowest rating.
Include an "About Us" and "Contact Info" page - Older versions of the quality guidelines have only required these pages for sites dedicated to health, finance, or well-being, but now they are a requirement for all pages to obtain a favorable quality rating.

Google's Quality Rating Guidelines are a Lot to Digest – We Can Help

Those are a lot of guidelines and factors to take into consideration, and if you're feeling overwhelmed, don't worry. We Do Web Content, Inc. is here to help your business impress Google's quality rating team with total compliance with their guidelines.

Give us a call or fill out our contact form to speak with our content team and learn how our company can help yours exceed expectations when it comes to website quality. Call us at 888-521-3880.

References:

http://www.thesempost.com/google-rewrites-quality-rating-guide-seos-need-know/

http://www.mboresourcecenter.com/googles-new-quality-rating-guide-revealed/