3 lawyers share their own experiences using content to drive web leads

Top three lawyer tips:

Beth Marie of Cuzzone Goulston & Storrs

Own a specific legal topic and be known for that as opposed to trying to always cover everything, write content around it and then repurpose that content into a variety of formats such as ebooks, infographics, video, podcasts and blog posts etc. Repurposing makes it so you don’t have to do something original every time.

Cynthia E. MacCausland, Esq

Publish content on local and national Bar Associations! Journals and reviews in both print and online all need content. Become a member first and then contact the editor. Be direct and offer for an opportunity to write for them. Become an expert in one or two specific practice areas that you always write on and you will be more likely to get writing and speaking engagements. If you are engaging and not boring and do this enough, you will become the story and instead of having to write, journalists will interview and write about you.

David White of White, Breakstone and Gluck

Showcase your expertise by developing content that is not a sales pitch and that is helpful.

Sources of law firm content include the following:

• Recent legal decisions
• Changes in the law
• Annual events (tax deadlines etc.)
• Impending events
• Recap a legal situation that happened to a movie star
• Your charitable deeds

Spread your content on all channels such as your website, blog, public relations, email newsletters, social media, radio, and TV but vary in a bit so it’s not duplicate content on each channel.

David mentioned an interesting angle on doing PR and having timely content on your blog. He developed content around the Papadopoulos vs. target case in 2010 even though it was not his own. By injecting his content into the story and engaging in the situation, he was interviewed four times on TV. So make sure that your blog somehow connects at times to current events.

E-books are another favorite of David White and he used an example of an e-book called “10 mistakes that can destroy your California accident case”. E-books provide a top of the funnel call to action for the 85% of the web population that is not ready to hire you just yet but might like a doggie bag from your website.

David also is a fan of email newsletters to spread content for his law firm. He says to get business cards from all the lawyers you connect with and their permission to send them emails with brief but helpful content from your area of expertise. He uses constant contact to send to 1000+ lawyers regularly and mentioned that if you have two complaints “per 1000 sends” and you do that a couple months in a row, constant contact will make you shrink your list. Other email programs such as vertical response are not as strict.

Finally David spoke about Google Panda and Penguin and here’s a quick recap of how they relate to your content.

Google Panda Update 1, was Feb. 24, 2011 and below is a video where I interviewed search engine optimization super guru Eric Enge and was able to get my content on Wordtracker.com, the site of one of the most famous keyword research tools.

Basically Panda is about having quality content. After years of websites publishing loads of content just to jack up the size of their sites, Panda was able to crack down on poor quality.

Google Penguin (started on April 24 of 2012) on the other hand is largely about making sure that the people that link to you are topically related and of high quality. In order to get high-quality links you need high-quality content, as no one in their right mind is going to link to a ten page lawyer site is basically just a sales pitch.

Google Penguin 4 just launched and you can check out my other blog at McDougall Interactive for fresh details.

Considering that thousands of other law firms are obsessing over content, don’t you think it’s time you created an editorial calendar and some goals around what and when you will publish?