Many people ask why hire a legal content writer to draft blog posts or articles for your firm’s website.  Many firms typically assign this task to their support staff, associates, or even have partners/members and of counsel on a rotating schedule.  This is a flawed approach for many reasons.

First, support staff may not have the knowledge of or ability to present the law effectively in a short blog post.  Second, all of this positions have many other tasks to complete in a busy law firm and drafting substantial, accurate, and useful blog posts are the least important task in the day; this is particularly true for partners/members and of counsel.

Third and final, all of these positions are being paid more per hour than most legal content writers.  More importantly, each of these positions are billing more per hour than it would cost to hire a legal content writer.  For example, if you are billing an associate’s time at $200 per hour and it takes the associate an hour to draft a blog post that day, you just lost $200!  Moreover, if that associate’s salary equate to about $50 an hour, you had to pay out that $50 to the associate while losing $200 for billing a client making your net loss $250!  Here at NAB Legal Marketing, it costs between $15 to $40 per post which is significantly less money than you will pay if you use your own staff!

In addition, hiring a legal content writer goes further than just knowledge, time, and cost.  Other issues take into account the complexity of attorney websites and search engines while staying abreast to market changes.  Here are five other reasons why to hire a legal content writer:

1 – Search Engine Optimization

Legal content writers such as NAB Legal Marketing understand how to effectively use keywords in such a way that search engines will pick up the content in posts and your website to increase your overall page ranking.  This is done when search engines send out “spiders” which search websites for content.

2 – Attention-getting

Generally, most people do not think of legal content has particularly interesting to read in their spare time.  But that should not be the case!  While the post of legal blogs and articles is to help prospective clients get answers and to entice them to retain you as their lawyer, these posts should also interest other individuals who are searching the web and come across your website.  At the very least, your legal content should have catchy titles or blurbs which entice readers to click on the link.  Legal content writers have more experience drafting articles in this manner because of the shear volume of law firms and posts they are servicing.

3 – Writing for the layperson as opposed to the Judge or Opposing Counsel

Sometimes lawyers and law firms forget that the vast majority of individuals seeking information on the web are, well, not lawyers!  Sure, some attorneys will be viewing your legal website for information to possibly refer clients to you, but that is certainly the minority of cases.  Legal content writers are able to separate themselves from drafting legal documents or arguments in their writing, and truly break down articles in ways that laypersons are able to comprehend.  Moreover, legal content writers such as NAB Legal Marketing understand how to break down legally complicated issues, cases, laws, or terms in ways that not on a layperson can understand, but also search engines.

4 – Understanding Newsworthiness vs. Over-reported stories

Nothing can hurt your website ranking more than the same stories, information, and posts as other websites.  With the thousands of legal websites on the internet, if all of them are posting about a certain event that is happening and you join them, you will never be able to differentiate yourself.  For example, the oral arguments for the affordable care act were certainly newsworthy, however, because nearly every legal website has reported on the events that day, it became impossible for any one source to separate themselves from others.  In fact, some search engines like Google may issue a demerit to your webpage because of repetitive and unoriginal material.  Here at NAB Legal Marketing, we understand these differences and know when to effectively tap into these sources to stay ahead of the curve before the story shifts from newsworthy to over-reported.

5 – Multiple Layers of Review with Editing Experience

When legal content is generated in house through support staff, associates, partners/members, or of counsel, generally no one will second guess and may not even read the blog post before publishing it.  This is a major mistake, particularly if the lawyer’s name is attached to it.  Legal blog posts are meant to impress clients.  Hastily-put or error-ridden articles will not help your cause.  And while it really does not always matter that a practitioner does not have Law Review or similar journal experience, the level of editing is significantly more advanced if that experience is present.  Here at NAB Legal Marketing, articles go through multiple levels of editing and review before being sent to your firm or posted to your firm’s website.  Further, the final reviewer of NAB has experience as an executive editor on a flagship Law Review in addition to multiple publications in state bar journals and other law reviews.  It is this experience that separate NAB Legal Marketing from other legal content writers.

All of these reasons should show you the importance of hiring a legal content writer and how NAB Legal Marketing is different than other legal content writers.  But if you have any questions or would like to receive a FREE sample post, please do not hesitate to contact us at inquiries@NABLegalMarketing.com!