Vertical SEO Archives Vertical SEO

Nov 7 2022

Developing Value Proposition For Travel Websites Through Content via @sejournal, @TaylorDanRW

The travel and tourism industry has undergone extreme changes over the years, and your business should be aware of how to adapt to these changes.

With the rise of Google searches in the last few years, SEO is essential when working in tourism, especially when posting content online.

Using SEO to your advantage can help boost your Google search rankings.

These rankings are crucial for your tourism business, as most Google users don’t look past the first search page.

Google’s helpful content update is now entirely focused on ensuring the content suggested, and ranking is based on content created for humans.

The content update is excellent news.

If you focus on the content quality and its benefits to the readers, you are more than likely to land yourself a cozy spot on the first page of results for a Google search.

Enable Experience Forecasting Through Content

Experience forecasting is about using engaging content to help users forecast what their personal experience of the trip would be – and it begins with understanding the customer journey correctly.

Different content formats, such as an article, guide, or list of things to remember, can make your content more engaging and appealing to the eye.

Ensure you include need-to-know information such as the weather, sights users will see, and any other essential details the reader needs.

Be aware: It’s your tours and activities that people are looking to book, so ensure you provide a long, well-written description of the tour and what people will experience to give the reader an idea of what they can expect.

Since you are focusing on your SEO, ensure you take the time to describe the experience and include relevant keywords.

You can also use keyword research to help you identify what your target audience is looking for and write content specifically focused on topics that users are interested in reading.

Leverage User Reviews & User-Generated Content To Create More Helpful Tour Package Pages

User-generated content (UGC) can influence other users’ decisions in many ways. Users influencing others means your customers can be advocates, as word of mouth can influence a future buyer’s journey to purchase.

Personalized reviews from users who have experienced your tour package can help entice your reader and encourage user engagement.

Allow your users to share a review and provide a first-hand experience of your tour.

However, ensure this is a monitored space, and maintain control over the posted UGC if this is a forum/comment-based option.

If you are unsure about using a forum/comment-based option, there are other ways to encourage other UGC below:

Surveys: When a customer has experienced your product or brand, contact them with a follow-up survey to get some ratings and feedback. Use this information to improve the customer journey for other users. Surveys are also helpful for your brand, as you may learn you need to make improvements.
Membership: Offer users the option to be a member and pay monthly for membership. Incentivize them with benefits such as free entry and member-only exclusives. Encouraging users to sign up can also boost your conversion rate.
Reviews: Ask your customers to leave a review after their tour package experience. Reviews can be done on your website, Google Business Profile page, Tripadvisor, or Facebook. Ensure to follow up on any feedback that isn’t positive, and publicly thank users for giving excellent feedback.
Social media: This tool can attract audiences from other platforms and show off how great your tour is. Tagging your social media pages and sharing the location can also build on experience forecasting.

The content for your package pages should be about your customer’s experience, not just selling the products.

Ensure you think about your target audience and what type of content they would like to consume and share.

For example, it’s a good idea to share an infographic that shows the most talked-about destination for 2022 or other travel predictions, such as a list of World Heritage sites or other travel-related facts and figures.

Demonstrate Your Expertise Through Niche Content

If you are an expert in safari tours, ensure you create niche guides specific to the trips, animals, and weather so your users can get the most information from you.

Niche guides are beneficial to users looking to enhance their own experience.

Imagine what you talk about with your customers when they are on tour, and write about those experiences, combining the content with your keyword search to help boost your content and make it enjoyable for the reader.

Ensure you connect with people in a similar niche or area to your business.

Connecting like this is called link building, and organically requesting they add a link to their site about your tour can also bring in customers.

Networking with your industry’s influencers is another excellent way to boost sales and conversion rates.

Also, include local vendors and partners you want to promote as part of your business.

Writing like this emphasizes to users that you know what you are talking about and are very knowledgeable about your destination.

Create Experience-Enhancing Content

Instead of trying to sell the tour directly, base your content around the surrounding areas.

Content discussing the local towns, places to eat, and spots to visit provides much more value to your audience.

Exploring the location in your content as much as you can, informs people of the potential experience they could have and allows them to imagine themselves there.

This kind of valuable content is essentially product information that has been expanded and enriched.

When working on travel SEO, instead of focusing your content on pricing, dates, and times, try to include content based on the local towns, villages, and great food. This will set the scene for the user’s imagination and build excitement.

Describe in detail the places you can travel to, methods of transport, and the best ways to get around (e.g., trains versus buses). Food is also a popular topic for travelers, so explore the best places to eat, offer an overview of the menu offered, and include a range of dishes to entice many readers.

To ensure the best success, always write with your customers in mind. Writing with your customers in mind differentiates you from your larger competition and the extensive tour and activity resellers.

When writing those posts about your destination or experience, ensure you use internal linking and create a solid connection between your blog post and tour activities.

Make sure you link to the places you will see on tour, and make your post interactive and easy to navigate, as then it is easy for users to explore their options.

After creating experience-enhancing content and including plenty of internal links and visuals, you can push your content further and include videos.

Only do this once you have written an engaging piece of content, as any additional forms of media will add to your user experience and solidify the final step in your customer journey.

Conclusion

As a tour operator, you want your business to do well, and keeping up with the constant changes within the SEO industry can be challenging. But when done correctly, it is absolutely worth it!

Following the points made in this guide will help boost your rankings, but don’t be put off using SEO if you don’t see instant results.

Getting results with SEO takes time; You need to have patience when reviewing your results and metrics, give it time, and keep checking back to see where your content is performing and where it may need tweaking.

More resources:

Featured Image: Prostock-studio/Shutterstock

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments

Nov 2 2022

How SEO Experts Predict & Fix Surprise Demand Shifts With Search Data via @sejournal, @seomonitor

Seasonality Trends + Vertical-Specific Data Helps You See Demand Shifts Faster

Apart from the regular seasonal events across times of the year or international holidays, well-known for the ecommerce sector, each vertical has its specifics — some not so obvious, especially when working with B2B stakeholders.

Showing know-how of those specifics with search data builds trust in your consulting abilities, making you a partner and not just the team executing the SEO actions.

That’s why it’s important to have a tool that makes seasonality tracking effective so you focus on the next strategic step.

In SEOmonitor, it’s achieved with automatic labels, making you aware when targeted keywords are approaching peak season or are out of season, thus enabling you to plan content ahead.

Yet, as Dobson’s story continues, it’s all a matter of how all key data points come together.

Step 2: Create SEO Keyword Categories & Easily See Which Sectors Are Fluctuating

To make the data work for you, the right level of granularity is also important.

When it comes to Dobson’s ecommmerce site, they segment their targeted keywords by the category structure, as it’s the easiest way to see how specific areas are doing. This is straightforward and efficient, as the business logic is built into the website’s information architecture.

Plus, being able to track specific priority categories and their section competitors means spotting gaps sooner, so faster decision-making.

That’s why Bulldog Digital Media leverages SEOmonitor’s rank tracker with daily ranking data for desktop and mobile as standard, together with a keyword grouping system that allows them to keep the category hierarchy.

“Because we have all the categories clearly sectioned, we are quickly able to see which areas are seeing sustained, increased or decreased demand using search data.”

How does that look?

“Let’s take the example of the Cocktail glasses category below. We noticed that visibility, on the whole, had seen improvement. Traffic from organic, however, had dropped significantly.

What we’re seeing, in fact, is that demand has dropped significantly, leaving us with a bittersweet win, as whilst we’ve improved our client’s rankings, the desired effects haven’t happened thanks to demand changes.”

How SEO Experts Predict & Fix Surprise Demand Shifts With Search Data

Image by SEOmonitor & Bulldog Digital Media, November 2022

Having a tool to bring all the critical data in one view, the team could pull this in meetings with the client to help inform them quickly about the shifts in the market, whilst giving answers as to why traffic wasn’t where they expected it to be.

Step 3: Leverage Tags, Annotations & Transparency To Quickly Discover What Happened & When

Dobson stresses the importance of constantly reviewing and communicating both internally and with the client.

“For B2B, where the hospitality sector was about to have a full summer season, we also could use trend data across all categories to see which product lines are in demand most, quickly pivoting strategy to concentrate on those hot areas to maximize visibility,” he explains.

It was a matter of being structured and transparent from the get-go.

Use Annotations For More Efficiency

To make the campaign management process more efficient, he advises using annotations.

“Within the client’s analytics, we had been adding annotations to key events, allowing us to easily match any quick patterns to events.”

Image by SEOmonitor & Bulldog Digital Media, November 2022

You should think of enhancing the annotation function in every tool in your SEO stack, as you:

Know exactly what happened and when.
Report on SEO performance versus external forces influencing the objective.
Explain the logic and the market to your clients, being proactive about any course correction needed.

Bonus Step For SEO Agencies: Constantly Manage Your Client’s Expectations

With every shift in demand and drop in traffic, Bulldog Digital Media kept the client in the loop.

“Whilst the client had concerns about falls in traffic, using the data and tools at our hands meant we could be proactive to provide valuable insights for their business. For instance, in 2020, one big growth area for the business was hot tub sales, mainly due to weather but also because people knew they’d be spending a lot more time at home. For Spring of 2021, we wanted to monitor closely if we would anticipate a similar uplift, and if not, quickly align traffic and data trends to see if we missed out elsewhere.”

Having this level of agility and transparency, the SEO team could be trusted to direct the business in the right context.

But that also means you have to be honest and report every step of the way. Even when drops occur and the SEO campaign seems to be faltering.

“Feedback was positive from the client, who was able to associate what was happening quickly, but also able to relay internally to help the client be agile with the next steps and align expectations quickly.”

There are many levels that need to align for an SEO campaign to remain on track, so constant reports, over-communication, and fast interventions are key to making sure each side is doing its part.

For some clients, Bulldog Digital Media even includes read-only access in their SEO tool to help them with internal reporting and alignment.

SEOmonitor Can Help You Easily Detect & Fix Demand Shifts In SEO

With shifts in demand happening in faster loops, especially when working with eCommerce stakeholders, it’s not enough to look at search volumes in themselves.

Using year-over-year search trends, keeping a close eye on seasonality, and understanding how the market changes help with making the right decisions and constantly adapting SEO efforts.

Of course, as Bulldog Digital Media explained, it’s also a matter of knowing the client’s business, its strengths, and what the competition looks like for every product or service category.

And having the right level of granularity to know when it’s a problem of performance and when it’s a market problem.

Keeping all of the above in mind, at SEOmonitor, we developed a rank tracker that helps SEO professionals scale. You get:

Daily ranks for desktop and mobile included in the same price.
Tracking of all competitors, so you only have to choose the ones you’re interested in.
Three levels of keyword grouping to easily manage complex campaigns.
Unlimited users, so you can invite both your team and your clients to the platform.

These are just a few of the features that support clients’ focus on their business growth.

Join us in our journey of building more transparency and trust in and for the SEO industry.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments

Oct 10 2022

Industry News Doesn’t Have To Be Boring: 5 Lessons For Niche Content

In the grand spectrum of exciting industries, real estate portals are somewhere in the middle between packaging materials and lion-taming.

While most people enjoy browsing properties on them, it would be fair to say that not everyone gets a kick out of reading about their financial results or who their new head of marketing is.

The stories I write about real estate portal companies for OnlineMarketplaces.com are certainly esoteric then, or at least they would be considered niche – there is a limited but high-value audience for this stuff.

Just because the subject matter isn’t for everyone doesn’t mean the writing needs to be.

And just because you already have a loyal readership doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be trying to expand the audience you get from search engines.

These are a few lessons I’ve learned to make things more interesting in two and a half years of creating content for a niche industry.

Expertise Comes From Data, Not Big Words

Image by author, September 2022

The squinting was worth it for all the lovely data.

I know or have interacted personally with a high percentage of my audience at one time or another, so why would my tone be impersonal and stiff when writing for them?

Too often, I come across industry press that reads like an undergraduate’s dissertation.

On the other hand, I am writing about an industry where some companies are described as “500-pound gorillas” and where a market downturn can lead me to use the word “trillion” next to the word “dollars.”

The numbers and quotes your content needs will be out there somewhere.

Your readership and the search engines will appreciate you taking the time to dig around the internet to find and present them without the needlessly big words.

At the start of this year, I spent two hours at the end of every day finding the financial and operational metrics for all publicly traded real estate portal companies worldwide for the last four years.

Incredibly tedious work, no doubt, but it’s a unique set of data that allowed me to show expertise as someone who is still relatively new to a high-value industry.

SEO benefits of combining “need to know, hard to find” data with a less formal tone:

It allows you to show expertise, especially if you are new to the niche.
Addressing your readers informally can help build community and repeat engagement, especially if combined with a personalized newsletter.
Collecting stats is the first step toward building graphs and visuals.

Avoid Numbers In A Paragraph. It’s All About Visuals

If you’ve taken the time to get the “need to know, hard to find” data, don’t waste it by just writing numbers in a paragraph.

When I had to read industry news in a previous job, I ignored numbers in a paragraph.

One of the biggest (and, on reflection, most apparent) lessons from my last two-and-a-half years of telling people about property portal performance is: Neither does anyone else.

It’s not just the subconscious, lizard-brain stuff about humans preferring to look at images than text – graphs help readers contextualize numbers instantly and boost engagement rate.

Image from OnlineMarketplaces.com, September 2022 If you can’t be bothered making a graphic, maybe the numbers aren’t worth including.

We found that our articles with at least one graph have a 34% better session duration than those that are just plain text.

It might take longer and mean learning to use Photoshop, but using data in some good quality images with proper alt attribution will go a long way with search engines. It can be the difference between the #2 blue link and the featured snippet.

SEO benefits of taking the time to build graphs and visual resources:

Users will stay on your page if they have some eye candy.
If you give them relevant titles and Alt attribution, Google will index your graphs and images, and you’ll see a traffic boost from Google Image search.

Word of warning here. We used a plugin that rendered all our graphs using Javascript. That meant Google wasn’t indexing them as images, and they were slowing our pages down.

There are a lot of plugins out there that make nice-looking graphs. You might want to use one to build graphs in the back end and then use a screenshot image on the front end.

Opinions Make For Lively Content And Can Lead To Links

Good creators read a lot, and they replicate what engages them.

I try to read a lot outside of my industry and have a board where I keep any niche content I particularly enjoy. Most of the articles on that board take a side and advocate for something.

Invariably, a writer’s subtle expression of their opinion makes for more engaging copy.

My boss, for example, has a lot of opinions about our niche.

I recorded one of our conversations and put it on YouTube – it generated a lot of feedback and led to a counter-argument interview with another industry notable.

If your opinion is contrived, aimed at selling something, and not sustained throughout your work, you might as well not bother.

I have another board named “How not to write.”

Five out of the first ten entries have been put in there to express the incredibly bland opinion that “PropTech is the future of the property industry” – an opinion that is probably aimed at selling something.

Maybe you want to see more equality in your niche. Perhaps you want to see faster adoption of technology, or, like some people in my niche, you are strongly anti-monopoly.

Whatever your position, express it consistently, carefully, and preferably with some humor, and you’ll have people asking you to repeat it on their blog, podcast, or social media.

SEO benefits of lacing your niche content with some subtle opinions:

When expressed consistently and appropriately, opinions can lead to content collaboration opportunities.
Opinions make your content lively, build community, and increase engagement.

Pro tip: The trick here is to know the time and place for a sprinkling of opinion. Don’t let your opinions define your publication!

Keep Detailed Records Of Your Output, Analyze It, Adjust It, and Repeat

The data I’ve collected from our site over the last two-and-a-half years shows that when it comes to the types of news articles we cover, there is an almost inverse relationship between Google traffic and how much companies want you to write them up.

Stories about M&A do well, as do any stories about redundancies or controversy. Stories based on straight-laced company press releases about a new product or partnership do poorly.

Image by author, September 2022

Not all news is created equal. Word count, category, day of the week, number of visuals, companies mentioned, where you shared it, who amplified – it’s all data you should be recording and analyzing.

I might get a few groans from freelancers I work with when I ask them to fill in all the information, but that data tells me what works and what doesn’t.

SEO benefits of keeping detailed records of your content output:

GA (Google Analytics) is great, but there’s plenty it can’t tell you.
The more data you have on your content, the quicker you can create a feedback loop that tells you exactly what Google sees your site as an authority on.

Longer, More In-depth Content Is Worth The Effort

Over 90% of content receives zero traffic from Google. That is to say, for most people, a tiny percentage of their content does a huge portion of the heavy lifting.

The stats bear out! Almost 75% of our pageviews over the last two-and-a-half years have come from the top 25 articles, meaning that I initially wasted a lot of time writing up news stories that very few people read.

Image by author, September 2022

The lesson here is that if you cover a niche industry, you are automatically well within the top 1% of people who most care about this stuff. If you, as a one-percenter, find something boring, it is almost certainly boring and not worth your time writing up.

Two years ago, I was grateful when PR people came to me with press releases, which meant I didn’t have to search for news. I’m now much pickier about what I will and won’t bother spending time writing up.

Go and do some research on something interesting instead.

Spend time making something the best resource on the internet rather than being the first to press about something very few people will care about.

SEO benefits of leaning into industry-specific long-form content:

Longer form content is more likely to be considered ‘helpful’ by Google.
Fewer short articles mean less content you have to maintain and an optimized crawl budget.
Longer form content lends itself to being updated periodically – a great, low-effort tactic.

Have fun creating great content for that niche of yours!

More resources:

Featured Image: pikselstock/Shutterstock

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments

Oct 10 2022

12 Tactics For Law Firm Content Marketing Success via @sejournal, @xandervalencia

Content marketing is a smart and effective way for law firms to reach more users and potential clients through their online content.

The benefits of law firm content marketing go far beyond social media likes and website traffic. In fact, content marketing can take on many different forms across various platforms, bringing in a wide range of benefits for law firms.

Here’s how to use content marketing to increase web traffic, convert more leads, and win over more law firm clients online.

Benefits Of Content Marketing For Law Firms

Some of the top benefits of content marketing for law firms include:

Driving organic website visits through SEO content.
Reaching more users on social media.
Increasing website and blog authority.
Generating backlinks from other websites.
Growing an email list to run effective campaigns.
Reaching more clients through video and webinar content.
Acquiring leads via lead magnets and downloadables.
Attracting local clients through localized content.

The benefits don’t stop there. By experimenting with different mediums, content marketing strategies, lead magnets, and more, you can use content marketing to bring a range of benefits to your firm.

How Law Firm Content Marketing Works

Many marketers oversimplify the content marketing process as “Create, Publish, Share,” which leaves many business owners wondering why their awesome content generates nothing but crickets.

The truth is, effective content marketing is all about creating the right content for the right audience at the right time.

At a high level, the law firm content marketing process goes as follows:

Research. Conduct research to understand your target audience, how they search, what they are struggling with, and what topics they are interested in.
Create. Create compelling content like blog articles, webpages, landing pages, ebooks, videos, webinars, podcasts, and more to drive traffic and generate leads.
Promote. Distribute your content across channels such as your website, social media platforms, or your email list.
Convert. Add calls-to-action (CTAs) to your content to entice users to contact you, fill out a form, or otherwise convert into a new lead.
Measure. Analyze and measure the results of your content marketing efforts using analytics tools. Determine the ROI from your campaigns and optimize your content over time.

Law Firm Content Marketing Tactics

Now that we’ve covered the basics, it’s time to dig into the tactics that will bring your strategy together.

These are the 12 content marketing strategies you can use to generate more traffic and leads for your law firm.

1. Research Your Target Market

Google forms to create market research surveys.

Screenshot from Google Forms, June 2021

If your answer to the question “Who is your target audience?” is “Anyone with a legal issue,” then you don’t know your target audience very well at all.

Instead, you have a very vague idea of who you serve and why they’re looking to work with a law firm like yours.

Knowing your target audience from the inside out is key to creating content that resonates with them. Without audience research, you’re likely to create content that misses the mark completely.

Whether you decide to ask your audience these questions directly or create an official market research survey (we recommend Google Forms), here are a few questions you’ll want to be answered to better understand your audience:

What is the most important legal issue you are facing at the moment?
What resources have you looked into to help you solve this issue?
What issues did you have with these resources?
What is your #1 goal in overcoming your legal issue?
What characteristics are you looking for in a law firm/lawyer?
What methods have you used to find law firms/lawyers?
What legal topics are you interested in learning more about?

Your audience’s answers to these questions will help you determine what topics to cover, what CTAs to use, and what keywords to target in your content.

Audience research informs your entire content strategy, so you don’t want to skip this step.

2. Conduct SEO Keyword Research

Screenshot from Semrush, June 2021

While market research gives you a glance into what your audience is struggling with and what they are looking for, keyword research tells you exactly what terms they use to find law firms like yours on Google.

Keyword research tools like Semrush or Ahrefs serve to provide valuable data around the keywords your audience is using, the competition level of these keywords, and how often they are being searched.

You can use these tools to find related keywords, research your competitors, find backlink opportunities, and more.

It’s best to use law firm SEO tools to find localized keywords that match your service area and the specific legal services you offer.

Make a list of keywords you might want to target on your site, and then determine whether they are a good match for webpages, blog articles, or other content assets.

3. Scope Out The Competition

Checking organic search positions of competitors.

Screenshot from Semrush, June 2021

This tactic involves spying on your competitors’ content strategies to inform your own content efforts.

Remember, though, that your competitors may have different target audiences; the insights gained from your market research should be at the front of your mind.

Here are a few ways to spy on your competitors’ content:

Use SEO tools. Use SEO tools to search your competitor’s domain and see what keywords they are ranking for. Then you can add these keywords to your own content plan to build out new webpages and blog articles.
Check out their blog. Scan through your competitor’s blog for interesting article topic ideas. You don’t want to copy your competitors directly, but you can write spinoff articles or gather ideas for what keywords to target.
Review their webpages. Do your competitors have webpages that your site is missing? If the topics make sense for your site, it might be time to build out some new services or landing pages.
Take note of their lead magnets. Are your competitors using lead magnets to gather email addresses, etc.? Get inspired and develop your own lead magnet ideas to generate more leads for your firm.

There’s a lot to be learned by seeing what your competitors are doing with their content.

Don’t copy what your competitors are doing exactly, but use their strategies as inspiration for your own content. Your goal is to go above and beyond what your competitors are already doing.

4. Align Content With Your Brand Narrative

Your brand narrative consists of your company’s values, mission statement, brand story, approach to client support, and other characteristics that make your law firm unique.

All of your content should be aligned with your brand narrative to cultivate brand authority and trust.

Your law firm can create a brand narrative as an internal document that your team can refer to whenever someone creates a new piece of content.

In this document, be sure to answer:

Who is our target audience?
What services do we provide?
What makes us stand out from our competitors?
What is our approach to working with clients?
What is our brand story/foundation?
What is our company mission statement?
What are our values?
What are the benefits (for clients) of working with us?
What is our brand voice and tone?
What is the goal (or goals) of our content?

As you might see, your answers to these questions will help ensure that your content aligns with your company’s values and works to speak to the unique needs of your target audience.

That way, existing and potential clients will come to trust your brand and know that they’ll always get the same signature experience when working with you.

5. Build Out Your Content Funnel

A content funnel consists of Top of Funnel, Middle of Funnel, and Bottom of Funnel content that moves users from the Awareness Stage to the Consideration Stage to the Decision Stage (respectively) of their buyer’s journey.

Top of Funnel

Top-of-Funnel content is informative content that addresses a topic at a high level. This includes your blog articles and guides that serve to draw in a wider audience that has broad questions about a particular legal topic.

Middle of Funnel

Middle-of-Funnel content speaks to users who are already “problem aware” and searching for a solution. They are likely comparing different law firm options, so they will want to see case studies, testimonials, in-depth guides, and service pages.

Bottom of Funnel

Bottom-of-Funnel content is the content that ultimately converts passive website visitors into new clients. This can include your service or landing pages, Contact Us page, or sales letter. These pages will include compelling CTAs to entice users to contact you.

Do you have content that aligns with every stage of the buyer’s journey? If not, potential leads might be falling through the cracks. Build out a content funnel to meet users at every stage.

6. Experiment With Content Types

Legal content marketing doesn’t have to mean strictly writing blog articles. In fact, it’s best to experiment with different content types to keep users engaged and see what works best with your audience.

Here are some content types to use in your content marketing:

Blog posts.
Interviews.
Webpages.
Landing pages.
Ebooks.
Videos.
Webinars.
Podcasts.
Infographics.
Courses.
Resource guides.
Email campaigns.
Presentations.
Graphic designs.
Whitepapers.
Case studies.
Downloadables/PDFs.
Newsletters.
Flyers and posters.
Paid ads.
Pinterest graphics.
Live video.

7. Create A Blogging Schedule

Publishing high-quality content is more important than churning out tons of blog posts per month, but it’s still recommended that you establish a blogging schedule so you’re able to stay consistent.

You can use project management tools like Asana to schedule your post assignments or simply use something like Google Calendar or Google Sheets to organize your topics.

Set a reminder for yourself for every step of the content marketing process: Research, Create, Promote, Convert, and Measure.

If you can only get out one article per month and a few social media posts per week, start there. Over time, you will get better at repurposing your content and scheduling your posts so you can reach even more users regularly.

8. Contribute Guest Posts And Interviews

Guest posting is a great way to attract authority-boosting backlinks to your website, which in turn can help you rank higher in the Google search results.

One way to land guest posting opportunities is to reach out to websites directly, asking if they accept guest articles. Most will do so for free, and many will allow you to link back to your site.

You can also land interviews and guest post spots through networking online or at in-person events. It never hurts to bump elbows with other industry professionals who might be willing to post about you on their websites.

Just be sure to only work with reputable websites with decent domain authority. Buying links or posting on spammy sites rarely improves your site’s authority in the eyes of Google.

9. Build Out Linkable Content Assets

Another way to attract links is to build out content assets. These are pieces of content that provide something unique and/or highly valuable, so other site owners are itching to link to them.

Some of the most effective content assets include:

Ebooks.
Exclusive interviews.
Courses.
Webinars.
Infographics.
Free tools/calculators.
Resource libraries.
Videos.
In-depth guides.

You can attract links to these assets organically or by reaching out to publishers directly, asking them to check out your content and consider referencing it on their own websites.

10. Optimize Key (Service) Landing Pages

Landing pages, as we discussed earlier, most often serve as bottom-of-the-funnel content that converts visitors into leads. With this in mind, your landing pages should be optimized to the nines.

If you plan on driving organic traffic to your landing pages, then keyword research and on-page SEO are necessary. Make sure you are targeting searchable keywords and optimizing your page with SEO in mind.

Regarding conversions, your landing page copy should appeal to your target audience, hit on the perks of working with your firm, and include compelling CTAs to entice users to contact you.

Plus, a user-friendly design is essential to make your page easy to navigate and interact with.

11. Establish A Distribution And Promotion Strategy

You’ve created and published your content. Now what?

Every effective content marketing plan needs a distribution strategy as well. This covers where, how, and how often you plan on sharing your content.

Content sharing tools like Buffer help you automate some of this process by sharing your content to various social media channels. You might also have to make manual efforts to repurpose your content and share it with other platforms.

Here are a few places to share your content:

Blog.
Email list.
Facebook.
LinkedIn.
Instagram.
Twitter.
Pinterest.
Reddit.
YouTube.
Third-party sites.
Social blogs (like Medium.com).

12. Measure Content Marketing Results

It’s painful to say it, but a recent case study that over 40% of law firms do not track their leads at all. Don’t let your firm fall under this statistic.

Posting your content is one thing, but you will need an effective means for measuring the results of your content to see if your efforts are working.

After all, the goal of your content is not just to generate views but to land a solid ROI on your marketing efforts.

Google Analytics can track website traffic, the source of your traffic, your website bounce rate, goal completions, and more to see how your web content is performing.

At the same time, most social media platforms have their own tools for measuring clicks, likes, engagement, and more.

In measuring the results of your legal content marketing, you should look at:

Website page views.
Goal completions.
Website bounce rate.
Social media shares.
Social media clicks.
Email open rates.
Email clicks.
Downloads.
New subscribers.
Form fills.
Phone calls.

Go on to measure any metrics that are important to understanding the success (or failure) of your law firm’s marketing campaigns.

This is the only way to truly know whether your content is working to generate more traffic and leads for your firm.

Win More Clients With Content

Content in any form can be a powerful tool for increasing your law firm’s visibility online and winning over new clients. From blog articles to ebooks to video webinars, all law firms can use content to reach a wider audience across various platforms.

The above law firm marketing tactics serve to help you come up with an effective content strategy. This process starts with audience research, goes on to content creation, and ends with distribution and results.

Over time, your content will improve, and you’re likely to see an even greater ROI from your content marketing efforts.

More Resources:

Featured Image: Studio Romantic/Shutterstock

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Oct 7 2022

Why Content Marketing For Law Firms Doesn’t Have To Be Boring via @sejournal, @jasonhennessey

Content marking is essential to any business’s strategy to acquire new customers and build authority for the brand.

The hard part is that creating exciting and engaging content for fields in a more serious line of work can be challenging.

But, figuring out the best way to resonate and potentially inspire potential clients to reach out doesn’t need to be an arduous process.

Instead, you can take some simple steps to better your content marketing strategy.

It’s time for content marketers to reinvent the way they look at creating content for a ‘boring’ niche.

Rethinking Content Marketing For A ‘Boring’ Niche

Content marketing presents numerous opportunities to think outside the box and engage with a target audience.

While many aspects of digital marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) can be highly technical, web content provides a space to get creative and speak to your audience on a deeper level.

Unfortunately, this is a missed opportunity for many marketers who aim to focus on the technical gains of content marketing.

In other words, sometimes they miss the point: that content is meant to reach and resonate with your client’s audience.

The ultimate goal is to help your client make more money by creating content that brings people back to their website and entices them to contact the law firm.

The stereotype is that marketing for a “boring” niche often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Marketers expect “boring,” so they produce “boring.” This doesn’t serve your business or your clients well.

Now is the time for marketers and SEO pros to shift their perspectives on content marketing for legal firms and open their eyes to how creative content can help their clients.

Legal Content Marketing For Relational (And Technical) Gains

If you go into content marketing only thinking about the technical benefits, you only see one piece of the puzzle.

High-quality, creative, authentic, and conversion-friendly content opens the door to links and rankings and can serve your clients in many other (arguably, more important) ways.

Effective content marketing can:

Position your client as an authority in their niche.
Increase brand awareness.
Generate leads.
Drive traffic and circulation.
Encourage partnerships with other brands.
Secure speaking engagements and networking opportunities.
Drive free publicity.
Improve their social media presence.
Identify a new market.

Being mindful of these possibilities frames content marketing in a new, relatable way.

Moreover, it opens up opportunities that marketers may have been initially blind to in their strategy.

Moving Beyond The Usual KPIs

Content marketing isn’t solely about the algorithm. Instead, it’s about forming new relationships (professional, technical, or otherwise) with your clients.

That could mean creating content that:

Speaks directly to your client’s audience, increasing brand loyalty.
Secures them a spot at a prominent speaking event.
Opens up a new market for them in a typically crowded niche.

Focusing on KPIs will only get you so far. Instead, think outside the usual framework of content marketing, and you will tap into the creativity that shapes content built for relational and technical gains.

3 Ways To Get Creative With Your Legal Content Marketing

No more boring blog posts. There are many more creative ways to drive brand awareness, generate links, and land more opportunities for your legal clients.

Below are three innovative strategies for creating authentic and conversion-happy content for law firms.

1. Appeal To Each Step Of The Customer Journey

Know your audience. Rather than casting a wide net when creating content, the best route is to create pieces that relate to each step of the customer journey.

It’s crucial to research the demographics of the existing client base and followers among their online platforms and listings.

Breaking down the demographics, looking at reviews, and finding the content that was performing highly can give insight into how you address clients at each step of the customer journey.

The customer journey consists of several stages: the Discovery, Nurture, Purchase, and Retention phases. And the approach you use in your content will differ for each phase.

Ideally, you’ll be creating content that resonates with your client’s audience every step of the way.

Discovery Phase

Otherwise known as the “information gathering” phase, potential customers in this phase notice what grabs their attention and are actively looking for more information.

This can be an opportunity to create engaging, thought-provoking, or emotional content.

This content should meet the user’s intent and encourage them to take notice.

For example, if your client practices family law, you may want to create content like “3 Ways To Tell That Your Partner Is Considering A Divorce” or “To Adopt Or Not To Adopt: 3 Families Share Their Stories.”

These examples are eye-catching and niche-related but don’t overwhelm the reader with information too much information in the title.

In other words, it lets them know you understand their struggles and can speak their language.

Then, this content can be circulated in ads, social media, or online forums to get it in front of the right people.

Nurture Phase

People in the Nurture phase have already interacted with your client’s brand in some way but may not be ready to make a purchase.

Perhaps it’s not the right time, the budget isn’t there, or they need more information.

This reveals more opportunities for engagement.

This is an excellent time to conduct market research to determine what your client’s audience struggles with most and what the deciding factors are in their buying process.

Often, you’ll have to contact these people via an email list or lead generation tool. You may choose to run a remarketing ad or an email campaign.

Create content that nurtures their feelings of relatability with the brand.

Addressing the fears around cost, trustworthiness, expertise, or other concerns you uncover in your research through the content you produce can have a lasting impact.

Purchase Phase

Your leads are ready to buy, so how do you get them there? It may take a bit of coaxing.

This is where marketers generally lay on the charm – and by charm, I mean a call to action. Think about the next step the potential customer should take.

For example, include internal links they can click on to navigate to your service or contact pages. It’s also crucial that your client is available to receive questions at this time since this can be the last step before they commit.

You should also provide more in-depth, brand-neutral information. Testimonials or case studies make people feel your client’s brand is the best fit for them.

You may want to circulate content that differentiates your client from their competitors. You can do this through strategic guest posting on:

Well-positioned blog posts on other sites.
Facebook groups.
Forums.
Other places where potential clients may be interacting with the brand.

Retention Phase

So, your legal client has closed a new client – now what?

In the legal field, it may seem like once a lawyer-and-client relationship ends, it’s all over.

However, there’s always a chance that this client may need help with legal issues in the future – or could refer a friend or relative their way.

These contacts should be available via an email list or CMS for follow-up contact. That way, they can send content that maintains brand awareness and loyalty to their clients.

One option is to send an email once the engagement has ended.

This can be to thank them for their business, ask for a review, and prompt them to follow your client on social media. Then, you can run a continuous email campaign of legal tips, events, promotions, and more.

2. Create Timely, Relatable Content

We’ve all seen the trending and “click bait” articles on social media.

As annoying as they may seem, there is a lesson to be learned that can be applied to content marketing.

Users like content that is engaging, inspires an emotional response, or is controversial.

They also like to stay up-to-date on what’s going on, and by creating timely, engaging content, you can accomplish this without creating clickbait. Here’s how:

Staying On Top Of The Trends

The best way to get content in front of the right eyes is by creating timely and relatable content.

Is there a current event that’s making its rounds on social media? Offer a lawyer’s perspective of the issue.

Celebrities going through a divorce? Outline the top 10 benefits of having a prenup.

By making timely content or responding to current trends, you can be confident about creating fast circulation and shareability.

Content with a human element will ensure that it will resonate with the audience and inspire them to engage.

The right content will get them to click, think, and share. Or give your client a call.

3. Sharing Applied vs. Passive Knowledge

The way users engage with content is constantly changing.

People are increasingly looking for content that entertains them, gets them thinking, or makes them feel warm and fuzzy.

The legal niche is especially guilty of creating passive content that informs its audience about a topic. While this can be good for SEO, it’s not particularly good for conversions.

Creating content based on applied knowledge is different. It usually:

Inspires.
Teaches.
Understands.
Helps.

For instance, a blog post titled “3 Things That Happen When You Get A DUI” serves to inform.

However, a better piece of content for inspiring users to convert may be “Got A DUI? Here’s What You Need To Know.”

This content may outline what the user should do for a DUI case, such as hiring an attorney or tips for overcoming the embarrassment of a DUI.

Pieces like this can help accomplish several goals at once. This can encourage potential clients to trust the law firm and see them as empathetic while informing them of the steps they need to take.

The Power Is In Their Hands

This kind of content is excellent for honing in on a particular audience rather than simply meeting the search queries of those looking for more information about DUIs.

There is also potential to incorporate interesting tools, charts, and infographics to increase engagement. Incorporating visually appealing graphics can help break up content and better engage the reader.

What’s important here is not to overwhelm readers with too much information at once. If you find a piece has too much info, feel free to break it into a series of posts.

When you offer practical knowledge, you give readers autonomy and put the freedom of choice in their hands.

In addition, they will trust you as the expert because you provide valuable information but won’t feel pressured by a hard sell.

Final Takeaways

Law firms have much to gain from content marketing, such as attracting new clients, getting more website traffic, and building themselves as an authority for legal advice in their communities.

By thinking about the customer journey and shifting to creating content that will resonate with their target audience, content marketers can turn around the way legal firms engage with clients.

Producing high-quality, well-researched, interesting content will help firms meet their goals and create valuable pieces to promote across multiple platforms.

When marketers shift to timely topics and content that people can relate to, they will see better results that will interest people and help their SEO presence.

More Resources:

Featured Image: Africa Studio/Shutterstock

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