How to Create an SEO-driven Blogging Strategy

Think of blogs as your firm’s digital backbone and an extension of your firm’s online personality. 

Blogging has evolved from a personal pastime to an increasingly professional strategy. Although blogs originally started with individuals sharing insights into their lives, they have become a key part of a business’ growth strategy. 

Here are just some of the benefits keeping a legal blog on your site can bring you: 

• Drive traffic (and converting traffic into quality leads).
• Strengthen your social media strategy. 
• Impact long-term success.
• Link you and other platforms.
• Give you a space to voice opinions/ideas/news. 

 

Our favorite benefit is that strategically planned out blog posts and topics can also help your site rank higher on the SERP. How? 

Think about it, if you’re maintaining your blog updated, your firm’s site is constantly receiving additional content. This informs search engines like Google that your firm’s website is active and that it has valuable and relevant information that answers users’ questions. 

Your blog has to cater first to readers and then to the search engines in order for it to rank. Because of this, the first step is making sure the content is relevant to your audience. The second step is optimizing your content with some SEO best practices. Stay with us as we unfold SEO practices you can incorporate in your firm’s blog section.

 

Write for humans first

One of the biggest challenges in SEO for blogs is making sure the content ranks with search engines and appeals to the users. If you find yourself at a crossroads, the best practice here is to write for humans first. 

With that said, your firm’s blog strategy should have the following purposes in mind: 

1. Inform the reader of your firm’s services and solve a problem. 
2. Offer appealing information for the reader (answer questions, give them new relevant information, current legal matters they should know about, etc.)
3. Drive new traffic.

 

You can then go in-depth into what the purpose of the blog will be:

• Will the purpose be to educate? Inform? 
• Why do your clients need this blog section?
• What are you trying to enhance with your blog posts?
• What actions do you expect the reader to take? 
• How will the readers benefit from the information you post?

 

These are questions you should ask yourself beforehand. They will give your firm’s blog section a direction when coming up with topic ideas. 

Additionally, it is imperative to think of the user intent: 

1. Navigational intent – The user is looking for a specific page. 
2. Informational intent – The user is looking for information. 
3. Transactional intent – User wants to purchase your service. 

 

This background information can help you speak directly to your prospects by addressing their needs and capturing their attention in their search journey.

 

Research the keywords

Keywords can give you a jumpstart with your content writing. 

You can plan content around keywords that are relevant in the legal industry. An example of a tool you can use to find out what keywords are trending is Google’s keyword planner. No matter which platform you pick, keyword research is a must.

After finding the right keywords, you can get additional information such as word difficulty, ranking, cost-per-click, bidding price, and overall volume. Your firm can also find the “SEO difficulty,” also known as keyword competition. It will help discover how your keyword(s) rank on Google’s organic search results page. 

Your firm can also implement long-tail keywords. These are long specific keywords. They are easier to rank and highly targeted.

Once you find a set of keywords to use, you can add keywords in the following blog sections: 

• Blog post headline. 
• Blog post headings. 
• Introduction and body of the post. 
• Conclusion of the blog post (helps re-emphasize).

 

Create a structure that works

There are many best practices when it comes to the structure of your blog post. But, the following are the basic foundations to improve rankings:

1. Headline – Headline tips your firm can follow include mixing the keywords and writing several headline options to test out. The title should be in H1 tag and a character length between 20-70. 
2. Paragraphs – Keep the paragraphs short and simple. You can cut them out into smaller sections or add lists, bullet points. Furthermore, add bold, Italic, and/or underline to emphasize specific points. 
3. Link building – Linking to high-authority sites gives search engines like Google the signal that you’ve done the research and provide quality and new information. 
4. ContentLength – According to research, “For SEO, the ideal blog post length should be 2,100-2,400. But there isn’t a “best” approach to this. Google does not consider word count in its ranking factors.
5. Meta Title – The meta title needs to describe your page using 56-62 characters. It is important to keep keywords you want to rank for at the beginning of the title.
6. Meta description – This description should be 150 – 156 characters and usually appears like the following image in Google: 

Everybody loves quality (Even Google)

One of Google’s top-ranking factors is content quality. 

You can also learn how to compile a “power page” to grow your firm. Your firm’s content production should be top-notch. To ensure this, you need to offer relevant, new insights and solutions. 

There are several reasons you need to keep your content up-to-date, but an indispensable reason is to increase your firm’s number of pages in Google’s index. This improves your firm’s website and strengthens your firm’s domain. 

Besides quality, your blog should also remain consistent. Search engines feed off fresh content. By pushing quality content, you are signaling Google’s search engine that your content is helping the user. 

As for how often you should post, there is no correct formula for this. But, as a rule of thumb, you should “maintain quantity without sacrificing quality.” Therefore, experiment posting, i.e., once a week or once a month, and see what works specifically for your firm. 

 

Blogs can be your firm’s digital backbone

Blogs allow you to build and also control your firm’s voice online. They give you the personal space to share information, updates, and just about any information you want to share with your audience. 

Aside from all other digital marketing efforts, having a blog section helps you build authority online. But, a successful blog isn’t static. It requires constant updates, content creation, and SEO optimization to rank and stay relevant. 

While we know blogging isn’t part of your job description, it can be your weapon to laser target your market online. 

If you are curious to know how blogs can help establish your firm as an authority online, our team of experts is on call and ready to help you. 

 

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