10 Smart Law Firm Blog Ideas You Should Try

Credibility is the key to legal marketing success. If you cannot get your audience to believe in you as a trusted expert in your field of law, they won't ever become clients. But, other than unconvincingly proclaiming your own greatness, how can you subtly tell potential clients working with you will benefit them?

The answer is simple: content marketing. The strategy costs less but generates higher revenue than more traditional promotion precisely because it allows your law firm to position yourself as a credible source of legal information and advice.

And yet, not all content marketing is successful by default. Simply starting a blog to push the same types of messages you would in a banner or print ad will not help you successfully engage your audience and drive client conversions. Instead, credibility-focused topics like the 10 below can help you optimize content marketing for your law firm.

10 Law Firm Blog Topic Ideas

1) When Do You Need a Lawyer? A Checklist

For many individuals, the choice to involve a lawyer in a personal issue comes down to a few factors, ranging from financial to an inability to dissolve a conflict on their own. It doesn't always make sense to work with a law firm, but as you know, it can be beneficial in unexpected situations.

Your job in this type of article is not necessarily to convince your audience that hiring a lawyer is always best. Instead, consider the various pros and cons honestly. Then, turn the information into a checklist that helps your clients decide whether they should engage with you. A checklist-type post is also ideally suited for a visual like an infographic, which tends to improve the success of your content.

2) Asked and Answered: FAQs From Our Current Clients

Naturally, as you work with clients, a number of recurring questions will pop up — from the fees you charge to the general procedure in your field of law. Chances are potential clients have the same types of questions, so why not be proactive in answering them?

FAQ-type posts work well in a variety of industries, but are especially effective for law firms. You can use them to either go in-depth on a particularly popular question, or answer a group of related questions in everyday terms.

3) A Lawyer's Analysis of [Recent Court Decision]

Court cases are constantly in the news, both locally and nationally. They're also your opportunity to showcase your expertise in the field with an explanation of what they actually mean. In any post analyzing a recent court decision, make sure to stay away from jargon and focus on explaining succinctly and clearly the impact of the court decision.

4) How [Law X] Could Impact Your Life

Of course, analysis of a legal situation is not confined to recent decisions. Existing regulations and laws, such as OSHA for businesses and the Affordable Care Act for individuals, continue to attract both interest and discussion from anyone potentially affected by them.

For lawyers, this spotlight is an invaluable opportunity to showcase their expertise. In a blog, whitepaper, or podcast, you can explain exactly how an existing law can actually impact potential clients' lives. It's also an opportunity

5) 5 Steps to Finding the Right Attorney For Your Needs

This type of posts combines two hugely effective types of content marketing: numbered lists and tutorials. List articles tend to outperform other types of content because they allow our brains to skim and compartmentalize the information quickly. At the same time, tutorials show your goodwill in helping your audience succeed by giving valuable advice for free.

This specific topic allows you to educate your audience about making an informed decision when choosing a lawyer. The implicit goal, of course, can be to highlight your own firm. But ultimately, the text should focus on impartial advice on checking the firm's credibility and testimonials, along with making sure that its expertise matches your needs.

6) Meet our Team: The People Behind the Legalese

Much of legal marketing struggles with a personalization problem. Put simply, it's difficult to highlight your personality when your expertise consists of jargon most of your audience won't ever understand. Content marketing is your opportunity to put faces to the words.

Of course, you can use this topic to highlight the lawyers in your firm. But you should also consider focusing on the researchers, legal assistants, and other professionals behind the curtain to humanize your operation. You can even turn it into a blog series to fill out your content calendar and enhance your SEO for a given keyword.

7) What's That About? [Current Topic]

Every now and then, a legal topic hits the popular discussion so hard, everyone starts talking about it.

Your goal in this type of topic is not to take sides. Rather, it's to help your audience understand the actual law behind the topic and its arguments. What does it mean when the Circuit Courts puts in place a CRO? What will the legal process be going forward?

8) What Does a Lawyer Cost?

When your audience engages with you, the topic of fees will come up sooner or later. As mentioned above, it's one of the core decision factors in working with a lawyer.

Rather than waiting for your audience to ask, get in front of the issue with content that highlights not just how much it costs to work with you, but also why you charge what you do. Once your audience understands the reasoning, they'll be more likely to consider the fees worth the investment.

9) How to Find Out Whether Your Lawyer Will Actually Help You

For better or worse, pop culture has formed a less-than-flattering image of some lawyers as 'ambulance chasers' that only look out for easy cases to make a quick buck. That reputation hurts others in the profession, who actually do have their clients' best interests at heart.

How do you make sure your audience thinks of you as part of the second category rather than the first? One step is to help them check the credibility of any lawyer they work with. Give potential clients tips on the types of questions to ask and research to do before committing to working with any law firm.

10) Legally Blonde, and the Beauty of Law in Movies

Are you sick of the constant and often inaccurate portrayal of the legal profession in movies and TV shows? You shouldn't be. For you, these shows are an invaluable opportunity to connect a rather abstract field of expertise to your audience's tangible interests and understanding.

So why not perform a witty analysis of lawyers in pop culture? You can take this type of content in any direction you want. Dissect fictional court cases, compare pop culture characters to each of your employees, or simply make a best-of list similar to the Telegraph's efforts. Your goal here is to create a connection between films and shows your audience already watches and your law firm.

Turning Topic Ideas into a Content Marketing Strategy

Of course, simply writing great articles on your blog is not enough for lasting, sustainable success. Ideally, you should wrap your blogging and content marketing efforts into an overarching strategy that takes a systematic approach to approach your audience and generate clients for your legal practice.

Blog posts are opportunities to fill your social media content calendar. Some of the topics you cover may be detailed and valuable enough to function as gated long-form content, encouraging visitor sign ups and lead generation. And some of the content can even be used to nurture existing leads who are on the fence about actually becoming clients.

In other words, finding the right topics to write about is only the first step to content marketing success. To learn more about the next steps, and for help in turning topic ideas into a successful content marketing strategy, contact us.