Almost 90% of lawyers know that a website for lawyers is not enough; it needs to be developed, promoted in search engines through marketing, and also do blogging for lawyers.
When you are just starting out in practice, you have to do a lot on your own; professional articles are no exception. So that you can make tasty articles for your blog, and then delegate this process without any problems to a writer or an outsourcing company, we wrote what a cool legal article should consist of and how to write it.
The blog helps to solve two main tasks on the site.
- Firstly, it serves as your personal media outlet where you post your expert articles and share your professional views on various issues.
- Secondly, a blog is a platform for posting SEO articles for search engines, with the help of which your site is promoted in search.
The same 90% of lawyers and attorneys are constantly concerned with the question: “How to write legal articles for your blog?” They receive requests of the following content: “We are actively filling our site with expert and legal blog topics, there is a flow of visitors to the site, but the blog is practically not read, they just open the site, get to the blog, and almost immediately close it.”
Are you familiar with this situation?
Oddly enough, the problem is obvious: legal texts are written too complicatedly. And the reader does not want to delve into complex terms and boring articles of law. And as a result, they may simply leave the legal blog.
What mistakes do lawyers make in their articles?
There are no universal solutions and templates that will work for everyone in any case. But it is possible to highlight universal mistakes that lawyers and content managers of law firms make when filling the blog of a legal website. By getting rid of them, you will significantly increase the quality of articles, and as a result, the depth of viewing of your blog.
1. Complex legal language
You are a qualified lawyer who is well-versed in your specialization. And you, of course, want to show this to your potential and existing clients, so you write articles in a purely scientific legal language, interweaving a lot of professional terms. But the articles are not read.
Why?
Your audience is not lawyers. Readers simply cannot understand what the article is about, and do not want to understand it. References to articles of law mean nothing to them; the terms are unfamiliar.
How to fix this?
Make it a rule that your main task is not just to write an article on a current legal topic, but to provide the reader with a high-quality translation “from legal language to human language.” You can also do an initial research of how your competitors are writing their legal blog topics.
2. Dry theory
You wrote the article according to plan: you gave a comprehensive definition of the term, described all aspects covered by a specific area of law, provided links to laws, and also described the judicial practice on the problem. But the text did not interest the reader
Why?
Despite the abundance of information, the reader does not see a personal approach in such a text. Even if you have shoveled a mountain of material to create the most useful informational text, but have not added interesting reinforcement examples, it will make people bored.
How to fix?
People love facts. Add specific examples, numbers, charts, and diagrams to your text. Statistics inspire confidence! Your virtual assistant for lawyers can help you with this task.
Let’s give an example of what should and shouldn’t be done:
Good: “In 2014, for every thousand marriages, there were about 800 divorces; in 2015, the number dropped to 735. This encouraging statistic shows that the number of couples filing for divorce is gradually decreasing.”
Bad: “Every year, the number of couples filing for divorce is gradually decreasing.”
3. Little useful information
A long “sheet” of text containing a lot of “water” will not be interesting to the reader. There is no need to try to cover almost all existing areas of law in one article.
Choose specific questions and answer them. And remember that the content of the article must fully correspond to the topic stated in the title.
Example: A reader sees an article on a website called “What to do if you paid too little for your motor insurance.” This is his problem, and he hopes that he has finally found a solution. He starts skimming the text:
- Definition of MTPL;
- A list of situations in which the insurance company may refuse to pay.
- A number of reasons why a lawyer’s help is needed in such a situation.
- Conclusion.
The visitor will immediately close the page without even trying to read the entire article. Why? He has not seen a real answer to his question, and other information does not interest him at the moment.
How to fix this? Your article plan should clearly answer the question posed in the title. Offer the reader a clear step-by-step plan of action, and what to do next – contact a specialist for help or solve the problem himself – he will decide for himself. Remember, there is a direct relationship: the more useful information you provide, the higher your expertise in the eyes of a potential client, and the more likely it is that they will contact you.
4. The title of the article is not catchy
It is a mistake to think that if your article is purely informational, then it does not matter what the title is. “The reader goes for information, not for a sensation,” you will say. And you will be wrong!
Even the most inconspicuous material in terms of content, which the user reads only to obtain theoretical information on his problem, must first be of interest to him in some way.
Imagine that a person asked Google a question and saw two links in the search results:
- How to calculate mortgage interest
- How to get a mortgage loan at a minimum of 12%?
Who will he go to? Obviously, the choice will fall on the second link, because it transparently promises benefits. Your readers are also looking for clear answers to their questions, and with benefits too.
So, we have looked at the main mistakes of a legal blog that sharply reduce the number of views, and, as a result, the overall conversion rate also falls.
Fixing this is actually simple:
- Come up with an interesting title.
- Make sure that the text is written in accessible language.
- Add interesting facts;
- Support the article with examples from personal experience.
What do your potential customers want to read? What articles do they need? Let’s look at the basic requirements for a legal blog article.
4 Steps to a Good Legal Blog Article
In our work, we daily analyze the web behavior on legal sites and explain the behavior of users when they choose a lawyer and read their articles in the blog. In practice, we can highlight four main points that need to be paid attention to when writing an article for a blog.
1. Current issues
Remember that you are creating a blog specifically for your readers. And you should write about what will be interesting to them.
Before choosing a topic for an article, analyze:
- What are the pressing issues that exist today in my area of specialization?
- What questions do I get asked most often?
- What do they discuss on legal forums?
- And statistics know the answer to this question better – use the tool and estimate how many people are requesting the topic you want to cover.
Then, having compiled a list, choose the most interesting (“hot” topics invariably attract attention) or the most frequently requested (taking into account the “desires” of search engines means increasing the chance of high lines in search results) and start writing.
2. Living language
Living language is colloquial speech. These are all the words and phrases that are used for communication in everyday life, and not in strict lines of documents. Add comparisons and metaphors, abstract and concrete examples to texts, and enrich articles with literary, not scientific language.
But the most important thing is to write simply!
- “vehicle” – “car”;
- “RTA” – “accident”;
- “residential real estate” – “housing, apartment, house”, etc.
And don’t think that you won’t be accused of simplifying the material or being unprofessional. On the contrary, readers will be grateful that, finally, among the streams of complex terms on other sites, they found a place where they can write “for people”.
If you write using neural networks, be sure to check the text carefully, because the same GPT chat can invent terms worse than any lawyer and rearrange facts.
3. Information, not advertising
There are too many sales on the Internet. They sell goods, services, and consultations. And users are very tired of it.
Do not add “sales phrases” to all law blog content, do not offer your services with or without reason, do not use evaluative comparisons (“I am the best”), as all this contradicts the portrait of a professional lawyer and lawyer ethics. A much more effective method would be to confirm your qualifications with diplomas and certificates, as well as reviews from real clients.
If you write competent and interesting texts, they will prove your knowledge and qualifications. Potential clients will contact you themselves.
4. Uniqueness
Reading what has already been written in a dozen or even a hundred sources is of no interest to anyone. Moreover, some attentive and caring readers will probably also accuse you of rewriting someone else’s material, or leave you comments like “GPT writes better”. If you use neural networks, let them be your help, and not your main copywriter.
What to do? Look for new topics and new approaches to current issues, even if they have already been discussed many times. Always check and finish the text behind neural networks, so as not to get into trouble.
- Where can I get unique material?
- Give an example from personal practice.
- Share your point of view on a specific issue.
- Tell the reader what approaches to work you use.
You need to know: Unique content is important not only for the reader, but also for search engines. Smart mechanisms will immediately notice that your site contains stolen articles, no matter how rude it may sound. This will lead to the loss of already achieved positions in the search engine results or even getting into the “black list”.
So, how do you write legal blog articles that get read?
The correct answer is very simple: write simply and clearly. Look at your texts critically: if a 10-year-old child can understand the content, then any of your readers will understand it.
But don’t exaggerate under any circumstances, don’t turn “simple” into “primitive”!
- Chew on the terms in more detail.
- Ask the reader a question or add dialogue;
- Emphasize attention with subheadings and information blocks;
- Emphasize the importance of the problem to ordinary people, not lawyers.
- Indicate what questions you are asked most often.
- Give examples from practice.
And don’t be afraid to add a healthy dose of humor to your articles; this will immediately “humanize” the dry legal text!