From website copy to blog posts, the amount of content produced for your law firm website is substantial. The good news is that this substantial amount provides you with the opportunity to produce some really incredible AND converting content.
One of the most damaging things that we see law firms doing with their content is filling it with legalese. So, step one to producing fantastic content for your law firm website? Stop using legalese. Even the dictionary defines legalese as “the language used by lawyers that is difficult for most people to understand”. Trust us, your clients will appreciate that you know all that legal jargon but not when it’s on your website. Your website it not a legal brief. Your website is where you attract and help prospective clients. The content needs to be conversational. It needs to be engaging! Thankfully for you, there are options out there to make this happen.
- Option one: Hiring a copywriter, especially one with experience in law firm website copy, does a couple of really good things for you. First, it results in great content (these people are getting paid for a reason). Second, it takes the stress and time that you could put into writing and places it on someone else’s capable shoulders. This is HUGE because it allows you to spend more time doing what you do best, i.e. being a lawyer.
- Option two: Read it out loud. Reading your content out loud is a fail-safe, great way to gage the understandability of your words but option two is about implementing whatever method you can to check your content. Try checking your content with a non-lawyer or paralegal friend. Check it with someone who would fit your ideal target audience! After doing one or more of these, check your content with an online readability test. In the end, all that really matters is that you check your content.
By now you’ve should have caught on to the fact that great content for your law firm website is all about the audience, in your case, prospective clients. Which is why, in addition to not blowing straight over their heads with legalese, you need to answer their questions.
If someone is checking out your website it’s probably because they’re hoping you’ll address their legal needs in one way or another. Of course, start by answering all the basics: who you are, what you do, where you’re located, how they contact you, etc. But then after that, you need to delve deeper! Why you? You know why your clients are lucky to have you, but do they? In addition, to answering all these questions, you need to provide your prospective clients with enough content to find their specific questions or address their specific worries. An effective way to do this is to dive into your practice areas. The way we see it is as long as you’re not shoving it down their throats, too much information is never a bad thing.
With that said, the final thing you’ll want to do to create incredible AND converting content is to tell your readers what to do next. Trust me when I say that having a clear call to action will do wonders for your website. The best part is, it’s not a hard thing to implement. All you need to do is decide what you want your prospective clients (hopefully soon to be just clients) to do and then tell them to do it! Of course there is some skill and finesse involved, i.e. keep it simple, make it noticeable, and use action language (click, call, subscribe, etc.) but it can be done. Hint, hint: Have a call to action in more than just one spot. You want to make sure, that even six pages deep into your site, your prospective client doesn’t have to click back six times to find that nifty “schedule an appointment now” button. Instead, just let them schedule that appointment there and NOW!
You’ve probably surmised that a lot of hard work goes into getting your law firm website to the place you want it be and to the place it needs to be. However, there’s also something to be said about hard work, “nothing worth having comes easy”.
Basically what we’re saying here is if you put effort into your law firm website content, the reward will be worth it. Give it a try. We dare you!
