Writing Legal Blogs People Want to Read

So, you’ve decided to write blogs to help your clients navigate your area of law, to generate business or build your personal brand. Great! But how do you make the law interesting to everyday people with no legal background?

Writing legal blogs that people want to read sounds complicated, but with some ingenuity, creative thinking, and a few rounds of edits, you can easily develop an interesting blog that can help market your business and bolster your reputation. In fact,content marketing generates three times as many leads as traditional outbound marketing but costs 62% less (Source: CMI) - so it’s important that you learn how to capitalize on your writing skills.

Step one: Choose a topic that won’t put your audience to sleep.

You chose to go through multiple years of law school and the complex reading that went with it – your audience didn’t. That means that your blog post needs to make the law engaging – the best way to accomplish this is through emotion.

Emotion is what makes things interesting – and emotion is exactly what your topic needs to spark. Whether it’s joy, anger, sadness, injustice, or thought-provoking, emotion is the driver that will set your blog post apart from others.

In order to find a topic that evokes emotion, we suggest you begin by asking yourself the following questions when developing a topic:

• What irritates you or your clients?
• What are the most common questions you get asked? What confuses your clients?
• What new trends are emerging in your area?
• Is there anything related to law in general that you want people to know? What is new and interesting, or stagnant and upsetting, that people should know?

A little hint: the answers to these questions are great blog topics.

Step two: You’re smart, but Google is smarter – so do your research.

Even if you believe you are an expert on a particular topic, it is essential you do your research to learn the best way to position your blog. Look out for the following in your research to start developing better blogs:

1. Keywords: Researching the trending keywords that you could rank for will help guide the creation of your headlines and content. If you don’t already have a marketing company like Cubicle Fugitive with access to best-in-market tools to help you with this research, you can do some basic research with Free tools like MOZ.
2. In the media: What are others saying on the topic? Knowing what others have and are saying is critical to differentiating your content and ensuring that you didn’t miss a big idea everyone else has included. A great resource to find out what’s trending and get you started is Google Trends.
3. The facts: Like any good legal strategy, blog writing also requires a thorough knowledge of the facts of your topic. Research is essential to back up your findings, explain your points, and understand the greater context of your given topic.

Step 3: Channel your inner author.

Now is the part we have all been waiting for – the writing. But before you dive in and put your pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), there are several things you need to consider to make sure your blog doesn’t fall flat.

Who is your audience?

If you are writing to other lawyers, your tone and word choice will likely differ from writing to construction workers at retirement age. Knowing who your audience is, the tone they use, and how they want to be approached is the key to writing a blog that will make an impact.

Don’t seek to impress – seek to be clear.

We get it; you want to sound impressive in your writing – but there is a time and place for that, and blog writing is not it. The best blogs are clear. They avoid jargon that you need ten years of schooling to understand and instead opt for plain, direct language that gets to the point.

You don’t get extra points for talking in circles or using a word people need a thesaurus to understand – instead, you lose your audience’s focus, so keep it clear and relatable.

Get creative.

Just because you need to write in simple terms doesn’t mean you need to be dull. Using creative headlines, clever ideas, and a snappy tone will make your audience excited about the writing and come back for more.

With that in mind – write. Then edit. And write some more until you have a winning draft that your favourite author would be proud of.

If you still aren’t sure where to start, check out our Ten Tips on Creating a Great Legal Blog.

Step 4: Post-it (not the sticky notes, on the web).

The time has come to launch your blog to the powers that be. But this includes more than copying and pasting the text and hitting publish (you can do this, but no one, and I mean no one, would recommend it).

Consider these three key things to help your blog get noticed:

• Add engaging elements: Find a photo that represents your blog, tag yourself to the post, add in expertise areas, link older blogs, and make sure headings are clear, bolded and identified - all of these elements make your blog engaging and are essential to its success.
• Optimize for SEO: Add Meta titles and descriptions to the webpage and ensure your keywords have made it to your final draft – google will reward you for it.
• Publish and review: It’s time to hit publish – but don’t just leave it at that. Go and review the post: reread it, ensure all links work, photos appear correctly, and everything looks how you intended. You’d be surprised at the little mistakes this step will catch.

Step Five: Promote your blog like a rockstar.

So, your blog is signed and sealed, but at this stage, it isn’t quite delivered. That’s where promotion comes in. Getting your blog in front of your audience is essential to its success.

We recommend you consider the following tactics to promote your blog:

• Social Media: Promote your blog on your personal account, firm account, and your brothers and mother’s accounts – the more your post is shared, the better. Make sure your posts are engaging, too. Tease your audience about the article and draw people in.
• Emailers: Send your article out in a newsletter to current and potential clients. Blogs are excellent resources that your clients may want to access, so putting them right in their inbox is a great way to grab their attention.
• Pitch it (to the media): If your topic is something new and fresh, a great idea is to develop a press release and pitch your thoughts to the media. Just make sure your topic is well vetted, relevant to your media list, and provides a fresh perspective on your given topic.
• Sponsored Posts: Certain publications will allow you to buy and place sponsored posts in relevant trade magazines, websites, and forums. Identifying these opportunities and sharing your article on these platforms is an excellent way to generate more buzz around your blog and firm.

Still not sure if content generation is right for your firm? Keep reading or check out a recent Cubicle Fugitive blog, which makes a case for law firms to generate fresh content.

Need help? Contact Cubicle Fugitive.

Okay, you’ve reached the end of the article and decided blog writing may not be your forte – that’s okay because it’s ours! Cubicle Fugitive Inc. is a full-service brand, web design, and digital marketing agency that specializes in building strategies that effectively convey brand recognition and client loyalty.

We have a passionate team of professionals with decades of experience in brand strategy, copywriting design, marketing, advertising, website design and development, and SEO. We have the internal capacity to devise the strategy, draft any and all brand and marketing collateral, and develop a sophisticated design for all promotional materials. To learn more about our copywriting and communications services, contact a member of our team.