Websites can be an awesome and powerful marketing tool, but only if you know how to use them correctly to get clients into your law office. Legal content writing can be very different than the type of writing lawyers use on a daily basis, especially in terms of comprehension. After all, a good lawyer can explain affidavits, precedent and proceedings, but most clients hire a lawyer because they don’t understand them and, to be completely honest, don’t want to go to law school to learn what they mean. This article covers how to use common language and understanding to make your clients and prospects realize they need to set up an appointment sooner rather than later to deal with their legal concerns.
Give Them What They Want
Most people researching attorneys want to know a few basic things: can you help them, how much will it cost and how long will it take? You’ll want to set up your website with pages dealing with similar areas of law, such as wills and estate planning, prenuptial agreements, divorce and family law, contracts for land, homes and other legal transactions. On these pages, tell them about your success rates, the highest recovery rates you’ve negotiated or similar information to document your success in that particular field of law. If you are comfortable doing so, place a list of average prices or price ranges for various services. Discuss how long it can take to put together some basic documents, such as wills and contracts, and how long the court system is taking for divorces, custody suits and probate court.
Instilling a Sense of Urgency
How do you translate people visiting your website into increased business for your law office? By using some of the same techniques that email writers use to increase sales from their email marketing—the concept that the clock is ticking. The clock is ticking and little Johnny is still at his father’s place, being exposed to who knows what. It’s ticking and the cancer or heart disease or Alzheimers is getting worse. It’s ticking and you really don’t want to sign that contract without having a good idea of what exactly you’re signing on for. It’s ticking, and if you don’t get something done about it, the outside world will.
When discussing wills and estate planning, talk about how many cases go through probate and probably weren’t what the deceased actually wanted. When discussing family law, mention how many children have problems because their parents couldn’t come to an agreement on a clean cut divorce. If contracts are on the table, mention a few really bad ones you’ve seen, either personally or on the news, that have taken someone for everything they had. Having this information on the page turns a reader from the pattern of “I should do something about that someday, but I’ve got time on my side,” to “I need to do this right now before something terrible happens!”
Cathleen V is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments.
