Blog / What lawyers should blog about to attract the right audience

There are many benefits to your law practice when you launch a legal blog, including increased awareness for your practice and reinforcement of your subject matter expertise within the legal community.

For lawyers who long to take a break from the more formal writing they produce on a regular basis, blogging is a wonderful opportunity to share a more personal, "business casual" perspective on legal topics, trends and events that interest and inspire you. Blogs are also a very effective strategy to attract new clients and peers.

For a small law firm that lacks the funds and resources to a marketing team, a blog is an inexpensive way to build a greater sphere of influence and establishing an online presence. But even large firms with ample marketing budgets and a dedicated PR team are blogging. Regardless of the size of your client base or your field of law, you want your blog to be widely read. This is far more likely to happen if you choose to write posts that address the kinds of question that potential clients ask.

Peer referrals withstanding, business professionals conduct online searches when they need legal information or a competent attorney. While there are many sophisticated methods used by search engine optimisation experts to predict, measure and track the popularity of legal topics, search terms and trending issues, your own experience will help you to decide what topics your target client audience wants to know about.

Make a List of Blog Topics

Start by making a list. Here are suggestions to get the creative juices flowing:

• What are common questions that potential clients ask during their initial consultation?

• What typical concerns and challenges do clients have that cause them to contact you for help?

• What are the specific niche areas in which your firm specializes? Be as specific as possible.

• What current events are having particular professional impact upon your clients?

• What legal and business subject areas are you passionate about?

You may already have an FAQ section on your website that addresses these topics, but a published blog post alerts the search engines that you have an entire page dedicated to answering a particular question. Timely, fresh content filled with the words and phrases that potential clients use in their online searches will attract search engines like bees to honey, increasing the likelihood that your blog post ranks favourably in search results.

Is Sharing Free Legal Knowledge a Good Idea?

As a practising attorney, you invested years of education and paid your dues, all to build a career and get paid for your legal expertise. It may be counterintuitive for you to accept that giving away what you know for free is wise. But we no longer live in an information economy where we pay for information. This is an information society where information is readily available for free just by going online. Fear not: although legal information itself can be obtained digitally without cost, the services of a knowledgeable professional still comes with a price. A person can research the law all they want, but they still need legal representation by a bar-certified lawyer.

By sharing your knowledge of your legal specialty for free on your blog, you establish credibility as a highly competent attorney with that online audience, in effect inviting prospective clients to seek out your services.