Law Firm Link Building Using Creative Link Bait for Advanced SEO
Given that Google admits that content, links, and RankBrain are the three main ranking considerations, getting links is not optional. Here’s how to get links without giving in to black hat (unethical) tactics.
The great thing about high-quality link bait content is it builds links faster than waiting for them to happen naturally. You already know that driving relevant links from authoritative sites is an effective way to improve your SEO. In this section, we explore a number of different types of link bait content assets and explain how you can use these to boost your marketing arsenal.
Types of link bait
There are various different types of link bait. The ones most relevant to your law firm include:
- Research studies
- Original data
- Infographics
- Humorous or informative pages
This white paper from https://www.kmjdconsulting.com/white_papers shares 10 different knowledge strategies for law firms.
The document is over 57 pages, so you know it’s bound to have some sort of value.
This law firm infographic by Robert Half Legal http://businessoflawblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Trends-Shaping-the-Legal-Industry-large.jpg helps explain the four top trends that are transforming the legal profession.
The material in the infographic could have been written as a blog post, but it wouldn’t have that visual “wow” factor that the infographic does. What’s more, if you don’t have much time, consuming an infographic can be a much quicker task than reading through a blog post.
Benefits of link bait content
Link bait assets tend to build more links than blog posts or roundup posts simply because they go so much deeper than your average post. People enjoy the content and they consume more and more of it every day. However, too often content is produced that’s nothing more than a rewrite of another post on the web.
When you make the extra effort to create link bait content, what you’re really doing is making the extra effort to create impressive and relevant content for your law firm.
Your prospects and clients will love it.
Your peers will link to it.
Your business will grow.
How to plan
Before you plan your link bait content, ask yourself a few questions:
- Do we already have content we can repurpose?
- Do we know what topic we want to write about?
- Who is the target audience for this content?
8) Do we already have content we can repurpose?
You already know that your link bait content needs to be better and more informative than any of your other blog posts on your website. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t use your current content to help put together your link bait assets.
Suppose you have a number of different blog posts about the changes in divorce law. You could consolidate this information and create an infographic to describe the changes and what they mean.
Or you could consolidate this same information and create a white paper or report on how divorce law has changed over the years. Since you already have most of this information in your existing content (a series of blog posts on this topic), half the battle is already won.
The benefit of using your current content is that you already know what’s working. Look at your analytics to see which pieces of content are really resonating with your audience. When you find the content that gets the most attention, focus on tapping into this to create your link bait content, because you’ve already validated that people are interested in the topic.
If you go further and deeper into the topic, what do you think will happen? They’d love your content, of course. This is how you get links.
9) Do we know what topic we want to use?
If you’re unsure what topic to choose for your link bait asset, then you can use techniques such as pulling content from infographics, or researching your competitors to see what’s already ranking well and how you could improve it on it.
Research a number of topics relevant to your firm and decide on the type of asset you want to create.
This should give you a good idea of what sort of content works well and can act as an inspiration before you begin to create your own link bait asset.
Because of its complexity and length, link bait content often takes much longer to produce than, say, a short blog post. It’s important to be sure you’ve chosen a worthwhile topic before investing your time.
10) Who is the target audience for this content?
Lastly, it’s important to understand who the target audience is for your content.
The aim is to get as many relevant eyes on the content as possible. Yes, you might be able to get 500,000 views of your new link bait asset, but if only five of those viewers are people in your industry or potential clients, there’s no point in going for volume of views alone.
So, ask yourself the following questions:
- Who do we want to read this content?
- What benefit will they have if they do read it?
- Who is most likely to share it?
When you have answers to these questions, you’ll have a better idea of how to promote your content once it’s been published.
How to create link bait content
You can create link bait content in a number of ways. Your choice will depend entirely on what type of link bait content you want to produce and the resources available within your law firm.
Your two main options are to either:
- Outsource
- Create in-house
If you want to outsource, you can find freelance graphic designers and writers who can help your vision come to life. You might want to hire a digital marketing agency to handle all the moving parts, since such an agency should have expertise in creating content that gets correctly targeted views and relevant links.
If you opt to create your content in-house, decide who will handle the content and who will handle the design aspects, and set deadlines.
Remember, link bait content is supposed to be more in-depth or generally interesting than your usual content.
Using a free graphic design tool like Canva allows you to create the graphic elements of your assets using an easy drag-and-drop system. This way, even if you don’t have in-house designers, you can still create link bait assets for your law firm that are visually appealing. Just keep in mind, the better the quality and strategy, the more likely it will generate tangible interest.
How to promote
You’ve chosen your topic, you’ve created your assets, and now it’s time to promote them. After all, you want to use this content to generate new leads or acquire links for your firm.
There are a number of different places where you can promote your content, such as on social media, using ads, and hashtags on:
- Targeted Facebook groups
You can send email to your own mailing list.
You can do link outreach. Here’s how:
- Find likely linkers by using Ahrefs to see sites that link to similar content.
- Use Hunter.io to find the email addresses of these sites.
- Send an email like the one in the template below (adapted from Brian Dean of Backlinko).
“Hi [First Name],
I was looking for content on [Topic] today, when I came across on your article: [Article Title].
I especially enjoyed [Something specific from their article].
Also, I just published a new guide on [Your Topic]: [URL].
Since you are someone who writes about [Topic], I thought you’d enjoy it.
My guide may also make a nice addition to your page. Either way, keep up the great work with [Website]!
[Your Name]”
Notice how the template allows a degree of personalization without a whole lot of effort.
Takeaways
Link bait assets take time and effort to produce if you want to do them well, but once you get them right, it’s possible that you’ll have people all over the world linking back to your content.
From roundups of quotes from experts on your niche topic, to the types of content we shared in this guide, link bait can be very powerful in boosting the authority required for your other SEO efforts to kick into high gear. In turn, you’ll generate loads of new leads from potential clients. Give your law firm the best possible chance to position itself as an industry expert and start creating link bait assets.
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