Why Law Firms Need to Blog

There’s a lot of noise on the internet about social media, particularly the way in which it relates to the business world. There are a lot of people telling you what you need to do, but not too many telling you why you need to do it.

As I-COM specialises in online marketing for law firms, we thought we’d dip into our pot of expert knowledge in order to explain exactly why blogging is beneficial for law firms.

Does Your Website have Personality?

Law is a crowded marketplace online. There are thousands of firms competing to rank well in search engines for relevant search terms, and there’s often little to distinguish one from the other.

Put yourself in the shoes of the potential client – the vast majority of the time when browsing the internet in search of legal services they’ll be confronted with static sites packed with legal jargon, populated with dry content and stock images of banana skins and precariously positioned ladders.

But what if there was an easy way to give your site a little personality?

This is where a blog comes in. Make sure your latest posts are displayed in pride of place on your homepage, link to each employee’s most recent post from their people page, and you’re showing potential clients that you are accessible, approachable and knowledgeable – which brings me to my next point.

Demonstrate Your Expertise

A blog is the perfect place to showcase your firm’s expertise, demonstrating you are at the forefront of a particular area of law.

If you specialise in personal injury, shout about recent case wins showing people the kind of money they could be claiming; if you specialise in corporate law, post on recent amendments or explain the ins and outs of corporate restructuring in plain English, demonstrating that you’re generous with your knowledge and at the same time building trust with potential clients.

Rank for Competitive Search Terms

It’s all well and good having personality and demonstrating your knowledge, but it’s not going to be much use if your website is buried deep in the search results for your desired search terms.

Blogs are a great way to attract inbound links to your site, particularly if you’re using other forms of social media such as Twitter and Facebook to distribute your content. Links are an essential element of a successful SEO (search engine optimisation) campaign – the more natural, relevant links your site can attract, the better your search engine rankings.

Blogs are also an excuse to regularly upload fresh, engaging content to your website, ready for indexation by search engines. This increases the number of pages via which your site can be found, and has the potential to attract visitors to your site for the kind of niche (yet relevant) search terms you never would have thought of otherwise.

Who is doing it well?

Shropshire and Herefordshire-based law firm Lanyon Bowdler has bags of personality thanks to its blog, which the firm uses to, amongst other things, showcase its work with charities and the local community.

Manchester full-service law firm JMW Solicitors demonstrates its cutting-edge legal knowledge via its blog, for example this post on intellectual property, which assesses how much responsibility a website operator may have for the actions of its users.

Need a Blog?

If you are ready to speak to someone about having a blog added to your law firm’s website, contact the team at I-COM on 0161 402 3170 or e-mail us and we will be in touch.