Then someone creates a content calendar, fills it with topics, assigns deadlines, and starts publishing. Six months later, the website has 25 new articles.
And almost nobody is reading them.
The problem isn’t necessarily the writing. It isn’t even necessarily the SEO.
The problem is that nobody stopped to ask a very basic question:
Did anyone actually want these articles?
Your content calendar is not a marketing strategy. It’s a list of dates.
Start with questions, not keywords
Obviously, keyword research has its place. But if you’re trying to attract people searching for a particular legal service, you need to understand what they’re searching for and how they phrase their questions.
However, there’s a danger in letting keyword research become the entire content strategy. That’s how you end up with articles that technically target search queries but don’t have much to say.
Instead of starting with:
“What keyword should we write about this month?”
Start with:
“What are our prospective clients actually asking?”
Those questions are everywhere.
In the intake calls, emails, consultations. All the questions clients ask attorneys repeatedly, because they don’t know the answer.
They’re in conversations with referral sources and the questions your receptionist or intake staff answers over and over.
They’re in Google searches, too, but Google isn’t the only place you can find them.
And some of the best content ideas aren’t particularly clever, they’re simply useful.
Not every question needs a blog post
Here’s another mistake: assuming every question deserves an article. It doesn’t.
Sometimes the best place for an answer is a practice-area page. As an FAQ, a downloadable resource, or a short explanation incorporated into an existing service page.
And sometimes the answer is so simple that turning it into a 1,500-word article would be ridiculous.
The goal isn’t to produce the maximum possible amount of content, but to make it easier for the right people to find useful information. And of course, to understand what your firm can do for them.
That’s a different objective.
Try the “Would a client actually ask this?” test
Before adding a topic to the editorial calendar, ask:
Would an actual prospective client ask this question?
Not:
- “Could someone search for this phrase?”
- “Does this have decent search volume?”
- “Can we put our target keyword in the title?”
Ask whether a real person who needs legal help would genuinely want to know the answer. If the answer is yes, keep going.
Then ask a few more questions:
- Does this person need to know this now?
- Can we provide an answer that is genuinely useful?
- Does the topic relate naturally to what the firm does?
- Can the firm offer something more valuable than the first five results in Google?
That last question matters.
Because if the proposed article is essentially a rewrite of information already available everywhere, why should anyone read yours?
Your attorneys already have a content database
One of the biggest missed opportunities in legal marketing is the knowledge sitting inside the firm.
Attorneys spend their days answering questions and explaining complicated concepts to clients. They correct misconceptions and repeatedly hear the same concerns.
They encounter unusual situations, and know which parts of a particular legal process confuse people.
That is content.
And it’s considerably more valuable than asking a writer to come up with 12 vaguely relevant blog topics for the year.
A good content writer doesn’t need to invent expertise. The writer’s job is to extract, organize, clarify, and present the firm’s expertise in a way that is useful to the intended audience.
That’s where the good stuff is.
Your intake team may know more than your keyword tool
Here’s an exercise worth trying. Ask the people who handle new inquiries:
What are people asking us all the time?
Don’t ask for marketing terminology or which keywords they think the website should target. Just ask what prospective clients want to know.
You may get answers such as:
- “How long does this usually take?”
- “Can I still file if…?”
- “What happens if…?”
- “Do I have to go to court?”
- “What does this letter mean?”
- “Can I change my mind?”
- “What happens after I file?”
- “How much information do I need to bring?”
- “Is this too late?”
- “What happens if the other side doesn’t cooperate?”
Those questions can lead to much better content than a generic list of keywords.
And they can reveal something else: what prospective clients are worried about.
That’s valuable information for the entire marketing strategy. Not just the blog.
SEO still matters. It just shouldn’t drive the car.
None of this means you should ignore SEO. Please don’t. Search intent, keyword targeting, internal linking, technical SEO, structured content, and all the other pieces still matter.
But SEO should help you make useful content discoverable. It shouldn’t be the reason the content exists in the first place.
Think of it this way:
The client’s question is the starting point. SEO helps you get the answer in front of the client.
When those two things work together, everybody wins. The prospective client gets useful information and the firm demonstrates actual knowledge.
And the search engine gets a page that better satisfies the person’s intent. That’s considerably more useful than publishing another article because the calendar says it’s Tuesday.
Before you publish, ask one more question
Before approving the next blog post, put yourself in the reader’s position. Imagine you’re the person who needs the information. (Ask me how I know this.)
- Would you click this?
- Would you keep reading?
- Would you come away knowing something you didn’t know before?
- Would you trust the firm a little more because of what you just read?
And most importantly:
- Would you be glad you found it?
If the answer is no, go back to the drawing board. You don’t need another blog post, you need a better reason to publish one.
Because the objective isn’t to make a law firm’s website look busy.
It’s to make the firm’s expertise useful, findable, and memorable to the people who really need it.
Need help creating content that actually gives prospective clients a reason to pay attention?
I write SEO-driven blogs, website copy, and other content for attorneys, law firms, and legal service providers—turning complicated subjects into clear, useful content that speaks to the people you’re trying to reach.
If your content needs a strategy as well as someone who can write it, let’s talk. Contact SEO For Law today to discuss your firm or company’s content marketing.
