The Law Hub: A New Content Strategy, Plan and Platform for Law Firms
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The law hub is a new content strategy, plan and platform for law firms. It's about generating content that actually helps people. Let's review how to set a strategy, produce a plan, and use technology to help your firm market online.
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The Law Hub: A New Content Strategy, Plan and Platform for Law Firms
- 1. The Law Hub A New Content Strategy, Plan and Platform for Law Firms.
- 2. Peter Founder & General Guru Me and my Team. Robin Sales & Account Manager Alex Internet Marketing Director Jillian Creative Director Sally Content Director Scott Technical Director Gui Project Manager Andrew Web Director
- 3. paperstreet.com Website, Blog and Content? • Who has a website? • Who has a blog? • Who regularly blogs or writes?
- 4. paperstreet.com Why Market via Content? paperstreet.com 1.Traffic 2.Clients 3.Industry Experts
- 5. How Long Does it Take? •It takes awhile. •Don’t expect instant results. •Regularly produce educational materials.
- 6. paperstreet.com Three Parts to a Content • Content Strategy • Publishing Plan • Technology
- 7. paperstreet.com Before you Start • Audience • Topics to Cover • Communicate
- 8. paperstreet.com Organize your Content • Find all Existing Content. • Create a Publishing Plan.
- 9. paperstreet.com Tactics for Content • Easier Ideas – Blog Posts and Whitepapers – Webinars and Videos – Practice Area Content – Tools, Calculators – Newsletters • More In-Depth Content – Case Studies – How-To – Data Sheets – Product / Feature Descriptions • Basic Information – Testimonials – Reviews – Sales Process that is Trustworthy, Transparent and Easy • Long Term Information – Support and Help Documents – Same-Hour Response Time – Email Newsletters – Offers and Improvements
- 10. paperstreet.com Your Team • Content Champion • Writers • Technology
- 11. paperstreet.com How to Create Content • Your Team • Everyone Participates • Make it a Game • Notes / Files / Pin Board
- 12. paperstreet.com Other Ways to Gain Content • Competitors. • Don’t Hit Enter. • Brainstorming sessions.
- 13. • You should write in the inverted pyramid. • Answer questions up-front and then detail out responses in full. • Create headlines, subheads, charts, graphics, bullet points to keep things interesting. Readers Skim
- 14. paperstreet.com Publishing Plan • Setup a plan to publish. • Quality over Quantity • Mostly In-House, but accept Guest Authors too.
- 15. paperstreet.com The Law Hub • A New Content Strategy, Plan and Platform for Law Firms - – Educate & Inform – Industry Leader – The Portal about your Practice
- 16. paperstreet.com Areas of Concerns • High Bounce Rate • Short Lifespan • Low Engagement
- 17. paperstreet.com Strategy • “How To” Articles that are maintained Ex: How to file/respond to patent claims. • Studies on specific areas of law or changes in the law Ex: Timeline of changes to a specific law or case. • Resource Lists for a particular practice area Ex: In depth list of all product recalls. • Tools or Calculators for specific practice areas Ex: Child Support Calculator.
- 18. paperstreet.com Technology and Examples • Law Hub: https://www.rosen.com/ • Law Hub: http://www.drugwatch.com • Non Legal: https://www.codecademy.com/le arn/web • Distance Learning: https://www.khanacademy.org/ec onomics-finance- domain/macroeconomics
- 19. paperstreet.com Current Content What your content is now. • Home Page • About Pages • Attorney List • Practice Area List • Blog posts • Contact Page
- 20. paperstreet.com What is a Good Law Hub? Hint, it is not about You. • Your site should be about your core practice area. • Stop writing about me, me and me. • Focus on an industry or practice. • Dominate your area with all available information online. Become THE resource topic. • Stop focusing the website on “Me” content.
- 21. paperstreet.com The Problem with “Me” Content Does Not Solve the Users Issue.
- 22. paperstreet.com The Problem with the Traditional Firm Architecture • Focuses only on “Me”. • Menu is About, Attorneys and Contact.
- 23. It is so BORING The Problem with PracticeArea Content it makes us cry.
- 24. paperstreet.com The Problem with Blogging • Good content gets buried. • No Curation • Once a post is written, read, it is gone after a week or two. • Your best content should always be available. • Your best content should be easy to find.
- 25. paperstreet.com The Future of Law Firm Content • Fail or Succeed • Not just about you. • It is about resources the firm provides to the public. • Set yourself apart as an industry resource. • Firms that invest in publishing worthwhile information will succeed.
- 27. paperstreet.com Focus of the Website • Stop the “Me” content. • Focus the website on your blog content. • Minimize the buttons about the firm and about attorney bios. • Have contact information readily available on every single page. Also have a contact button in case people still want to click on that. • Turn your blog and practice areas into a Hub (see examples below).
- 28. paperstreet.com Blog • Curated Content. • Name a Publisher. • Organize the Content. • Find Evergreen Content.
- 29. paperstreet.com Design a New Layout • Categories • Outline • Recent • Noteworthy • Education Timeline (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced). • Related Posts • Blog to Book • Images
- 30. paperstreet.com Publishing Plan • Yearly • Quarterly • Monthly • Weekly/Daily
- 32. 8 Time Winner 3 Time Winner Gold Winners 1st Place Winner 11 Time Winner 8 Time Winner
Editor's Notes
- 1. Traffic - Increase site traffic through search rankings and referrals 2. Clients - Convert visitors into clients through proving your value and worth. 3. Industry Expert - Set yourself apart as an industry expert (leads to other intangibles like speaking engagements, notoriety, and overall staying abreast of the law.
- 1. Content Strategy – You need evergreen content. Evergreen content is content that can be reused and does not expire. Your strategy should be to focus on your key practice area and become the resource on the topic. Evergreen content examples can be: a. “How To” Articles that are maintained (Ex: How to file/respond to patent claims) b. Studies on specific areas of law or changes in the law (Ex: Timeline of changes to a specific law or case history). c. Resource Lists for a particular practice area (Ex: In depth list of all product recalls) d. Tools or Calculators for specific practice areas (Ex: Child Support Calculator) e. Graphs and Timelines of Events 2. Publishing Plan – You need a set plan for a year, quarter, monthly and weekly articles. You need at least one yearly research project, four quarterly pieces to bolster your central topic, monthly articles that are planned out and weekly posts as needed. 3. Technology – You need not just a blog. You need a Law Hub. A blog is simply a running list of ideas, whereas a Law Hub guides the user into relevant articles and education materials. The key difference is a blog is often a running list of articles versus a curated and related lists of articles.
- 1. Audience – Who do you want to target? Issues and Topics to Cover – What do you want to write about? Distributing your Assets Wills Trusts Irrevocable Trusts Revocable Trusts Special Needs Trusts Durable Power of Attorney Health Care Surrogate Probate Unlicensed Practice of Law Guardianship Living Will Medicare Medicaid Elder Abuse/Exploitation 3. Communicate – How does your audience want to receive the information? Blog, Forum, LinkedIn, FB, Twitter, Email, Newsletters, Direct Contact . . . Print?
- You need to organize all existing content and set a plan. Create a yearly, quarter and monthly plan for all articles that you will produce, edit and publish.
- 1. Early Stage a. Blog Posts b. Webinars c. Practice Area Content d. Tools, Calculators e. White Papers f. Videos g. Newsletters 2. Decision Stage a. Case Studies b. How-To c. Demo Videos d. Data Sheets e. Product / Feature Descriptions 3. Conversion Stage a. Testimonials b. Reviews c. Sales Process that is Trustworthy, Transparent and Easy 4. Retention a. Support and Help Documents b. Same-Hour Response Time c. Email Newsletters d. Offers and Improvements
- 1. Content Champion (aka your Publisher) – This person will set the tone, topics and schedule for the team. They need to beg, borrow, and plead with the team to produce content. This person can also edit all of the copy too (but you may need an editor too) 2. Writers – This is your core team. You need everyone involved. Get everyone excited and see the benefits (more clients, better success for the firm, more salary for them, etc.) Try not to make this a requirement of their job, instead make a game of this and offer incentives (carrot vs. the stick). 3. Technology – You need a good CMS that can easily post content. You also need to be on social to syndicate all your content.
- Your team should create content. We personally have a weekly team meeting called our “Cool” meeting. It is called that because everything we send in to review is well…cool. The key is that everyone should participate. Your team is constantly reading articles, writing and they should simply send a quick email to a set email account that collects all ideas. The team can discuss, assign who will write and come up with a master plan. Other firms and teams have stored local files where they drop in ideas or use online pin boards, notes, Google Docs. Whatever works for your business is fine. Just make sure you have one central location to collect ideas and have regular meetings to evaluate their potential.
- 1. Competitors. Review competitors sites and see what is working for them (and ranking high). 2. Brainstorming sessions. Once you have a killer idea, conduct a brainstorming sessions whereby every comes up with topics for articles on the subject. 3. Google Trends. You can use Google trends to see what is popular and evaluate ideas. 4. Don’t Hit Enter. Use Google autosuggest to see topic ideas. Simply type in a few words and Google will simply suggest searches that are really great topics to write on.
- Setup a plan to publish. This should be a yearly plan, quarterly plan, monthly and even weekly. We typically have a yearly plan of an overall theme. That theme is then broken down into quarterly plans that are sub-themes. Then we can focus on specific content on a monthly basis and support that with weekly posts. Obviously breaking news, new ideas and other topics can mess up the schedule, but the goal is to have an overall plan. You can have your in-house team work on content, but also be open to guest authors. Make sure your content is about quality and not quantity.
- Your content needs to educate. It needs to inform users, set you apart, and provide information to potential clients. Once you are set out as an industry leader, people will seek you out long-term, either through referrals or search. It needs to be THE portal about your practice. You need a Law Hub of information. The current approach to law firm blogging and content strategy needs to be improved. Historically, law firm blogs have high bounce rates, short lifespan, and low engagement. Let’s discuss those three areas of concern and see how we can improve.
- 1. High Bounce Rate – Your bounce rate is the percentage of people who land on your site and leave the site without visiting another page. Blog content usually has a high bounce rate because articles are singular in focus, without related materials, which means users simply move on after reading one post. 2. Short Lifespan - The content is has a very short life expectancy, which also results in posts being consumed and forgotten. 3. Low Engagement - Finally, even if a user likes the original post, they may not find related content. Engagement is limited to one-time posts. Only a select few blogs build a consistent following.
- Your site should be about your core practice area. Stop writing about me, me and me. Yes, you need to have information about your firm and biographies, but do not make that the feature. Instead focus on how your firm services a particular industry or practice areas. Dominate your area with all available information online. Become THE resource topic. Have multiple, competing groups? Great, you can break your practice groups into various sections and have detailed information on each. But stop focusing the website on “Me” content. Instead focus on the client issues and how you can solve.
- “Me” content does not solve the user’s issue. Sure, they need background information about you, but you can weave that into the content. If they are really interested in you, they are going to Google you anyways and find detailed third-party reviews. Those are more important than content that is on your website
- The traditional architecture of a law firm website focuses on “me” content. The menu is focused on About, Attorneys, and Contact. The only areas that might have useful content are Practices and Blog. However, even the areas that have useful content have problems.
- It reads like a to do list or history of the practice. It does not inform the potential client of what you can be doing, what they should be doing, and setting you up as an industry leader.
- The problem with traditional blogging is that good content gets buried. Sure, it can be found via search, but the casual browser of your site is not going to find the best pieces that you wrote several years ago. Instead you need to curate your content. Once a post is written, read, it is gone after a week or two. We want to change this dynamic. Your best content should always be available. Your best content should be curated into topics, categories, sections, with a plan for each client to easily digest.
- The firms who simply put up a static website about their firm, practice, bios and a few blog posts will fail online from a content marketing standpoint. Content marketing is not just about you. It is about resources the firm provides, for free, to the public. You need to set yourself apart as an industry resource. Firms that invest in publishing worthwhile information will succeed. Here is checklist to dominate your practice area.
- a. Curated Content. Don’t just throw crap posts up each day and expect them to be read. b. Name a Publisher. Appoint an internal Publisher or hire a Publisher to review all your current content. This is the first step to simply organize all your content. Do you have 10 posts, 100, or 1,000 to review? c. Organize the Content. What are the most important articles you have written? Also can organize by most popular, most recent, related content, editor’s choice, and topic area. Find Evergreen Content. Are there articles from 2, 3 or 10 years ago that are still helpful and accurate? If so, great, you have evergreen content that can and should be promoted.
- i. Categories - Showcase your knowledge by categories. Don’t just list categories, but give examples of each article contained within. ii. Outline – Showcase a course outline of available topics and guide the user into the order they should be read. Again, this requires a curator, which takes more time, but can pay dividends as clients read more and more. iii. Recent – Yes, definitely have recent events, news, articles posted. You want to keep this fresh. iv. Noteworthy v. Education Timeline (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced). vi. Related Posts: Another idea is to list (or have the blog auto-list) related posts and content at the bottom of each article to encourage the use to read more. A robust hub can also relate each piece to a service, practice area, topic and/or industry sector. vii. Blog to Book: Create a table of contents/plan before writing and write posts on various topics (chapters/hubs) that can be later turned into an ebook. viii. Images: Images can help entice readers, encourage click-through and drive more traffic
- i. Yearly – Outline your key ideas for the year. What topics do you want to touch on quarterly, monthly and weekly? ii. Quarterly – We recommend four major topics for the year. You can revisit them each year, but plan for four big ideas. iii. Monthly – Now break down your quarterly topic into monthly segments. This monthly segment should have one major piece and a few supporting pieces that can be published weekly. iv. Weekly/Daily – Your weekly and daily posts should keep the blog fresh. Your main post of the month should draw in new visitors and convert them into followers. Use social media daily to keep everyone interested.