Plenty of lawyers are openly sceptical about content. Usually the objection is some version of "we tried blogging and it did nothing", and usually they are right about what happened. A firm publishes twelve general articles a year written by somebody who has never run a matter, nobody reads them, and the conclusion is that content does not work for law.
What actually failed was the strategy, or rather its absence. Content that signs matters is narrow, attached to a named practitioner, written in the language clients use rather than the language the profession uses, and aimed at a specific moment in a specific person's decision. Content that does nothing is broad, anonymous, written for Google, and aimed at everyone.
This is the process we use with law firm clients, in the order we use it. It is slow, and done properly it becomes the marketing asset that keeps working after you stop paying for it, which is not true of anything else on the list.
Key Takeaways
- Content works when it answers the questions clients actually ask, in the words they use, not in the words the profession uses.
- A named practitioner attached to the content outperforms anonymous firm content, because the client is choosing a person, not a brand.
- Strategy before production. Deciding which practice area and which client you are writing for is what separates content that signs matters from content that fills a blog.
- Depth beats frequency. One genuinely best-in-market page will out-earn ten thin ones, and thin content now carries a cost rather than being merely neutral.
- Match the content to the stage of awareness. A person who does not yet know they have a legal problem and a person comparing three firms need completely different pages.
- Distribution is half the work. Content nobody sees converts nobody, and publishing is not distribution.
- Track content to signed matters, not to traffic, or you cannot tell which pieces are worth repeating.
- Audit before you commission anything new. In most firms the fastest gains are in pages that already exist.
What content marketing actually is for a law firm
Content marketing is the creation, distribution and promotion of useful material that brings your ideal clients into contact with your firm and turns some of them into enquiries. For a law firm the test is narrower than for most businesses: the content has to help someone with a legal problem understand their situation well enough to act, and it has to make one firm the obvious one to call.
The formats available are broader than most firms use.
| Format | Best used for | Effort | How long before it pays |
|---|---|---|---|
| Practice area guides | Ranking for the terms people search at the moment of need | High | 3 to 9 months |
| Question-led articles | Capturing the long tail of "can I", "how long", "how much" searches | Medium | 2 to 6 months |
| Video with a named lawyer | Trust and differentiation, and increasingly what AI assistants and social platforms surface | Medium | Immediate on social, slower on search |
| Case studies and matter outcomes | Late-stage proof for someone comparing firms | Low | Immediate, if they can find it |
| Lead magnets and checklists | Capturing people who are researching but not ready to call | Medium | Immediate |
| Email sequences | Converting the people who downloaded something and went quiet | Low once built | Weeks |
| Diagnostic quizzes and calculators | Self-qualification, and enquiries that arrive better informed | High | Immediate |
| Webinars and seminars | Commercial and estates work, where the buying cycle is long | High | Months |
Most firms only ever use the second row. The firms that pull ahead are usually the ones that added video with a real practitioner and something interactive, because both are harder for a competitor to copy than another article.
Why bother
A working content programme does several things at once, and that makes it hard to attribute and easy to cancel.
It brings people in at the point they are searching, which for consumer practice areas is the moment of need. It gives you something to rank with beyond your service pages. It builds the credibility that makes a person choose you over the four other firms in the results. It gives your paid campaigns somewhere to send people who are not ready to call yet. And it keeps working after the budget stops, which is the main argument for it over advertising.
There is also a defensive reason. Your competitors are publishing. If their site answers a client's question thoroughly and yours does not, the comparison is being made whether you participate or not.
Key Point
The single biggest difference between law firm content that works and law firm content that does not is whether a named lawyer is visibly behind it. Clients are choosing the person who will handle their matter. Anonymous firm content asks them to trust a logo.
Step one: decide who and what you are writing for
Four things need answering before anybody writes anything. Skipping this is why most law firm blogs read like they were written for no one in particular.
Getting specific about the client
Start from real matters rather than from a persona template. Look at the clients you have enjoyed acting for and would take more of. How did they find you? What did they ask in the first call? What did they say when they explained why they chose your firm?
Then work through the questions that actually change what you write.
| Question | Why it changes the content |
|---|---|
| What triggered them to start looking | Determines whether they arrive at the moment of crisis or after weeks of research |
| What words did they use to describe the problem | Almost never the legal term. "My ex won't let me see the kids" is not "parenting orders" |
| What did they believe that was wrong | Every myth you correct is an article, and usually a good one |
| What were they afraid of | Cost, time, being judged, the other side finding out. Content that names the fear outperforms content that ignores it |
| What decided it in your favour | Usually one of: they spoke to a person quickly, the person understood their situation, or the fee was explained clearly |
| What would have lost you the matter | The gap your competitors are filling |
If you act in both consumer and commercial matters, you will need two versions of this, because those clients behave nothing alike.
Matching content to the stage of awareness
This is the part that most firms miss, and it explains why a page can rank well and generate nothing. A person who does not yet know they have a legal problem and a person choosing between three firms need completely different pages, and a single article cannot serve both.
| Stage | Where the person is | What content works | What a conversion looks like |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unaware | Does not know there is a legal issue, or that anything can be done | Explainers, myth-correction, "is this normal" content, video | A download or a follow, rarely a call |
| Problem aware | Knows something is wrong, does not know the options or who helps | Question-led articles, process explainers, "what happens if" | A guide download or a newsletter signup |
| Solution aware | Understands the options, weighing whether to act | Comparison content, cost and timeline articles, worked examples | An enquiry, often tentative |
| Firm aware | Knows you exist, comparing you to others | Practice area pages, lawyer profiles, case outcomes, reviews | A call or a booked consultation |
| Most aware | Ready, just needs a reason to pick you | Fee transparency, availability, booking, response time | A signed matter |
Two practical consequences. First, if all your content sits at the last two rows, you are only ever competing for people already in market, which in consumer practice areas is a small and expensive pool. Second, if all your content sits at the first two rows, you will get traffic and no enquiries, and that is the complaint that makes firms cancel the programme.
The correction we usually make is to add the missing middle rather than more content: the cost, timeline and process content that takes someone from understanding their problem to being willing to call. We went through the enquiry side of that in online lead generation for law firms.
Step two: the five phases of the work
Once the strategy is settled, the production side is a loop rather than a project.
The imbalance worth naming: most firms spend roughly all of their effort in creation and almost none in distribution and optimisation. Reversing that ratio on an existing library usually produces more in three months than another year of new articles.
Step three: audit what you already have
Before commissioning anything new, find out what you are sitting on. In most firms we audit, there is a page that ranks on the edge of the top ten for something valuable and has not been touched in four years, and fixing it is worth more than the next six new articles.
A content audit is the analysis of everything you have published, to work out what to keep, improve, merge or retire.
What we collect
Every URL, with its meta title, H1, meta description, target keyword, publication and last-updated date, word count, author, the practice area it serves and the awareness stage it addresses. Plus the performance data: organic traffic, impressions, clicks, click-through rate, keywords ranked, best position, and conversions.
That last column is the one that is usually missing, and without it the audit becomes an SEO exercise rather than a business one.
How we read the data
The pattern in the numbers tells you what the fix is, and the fix is usually not "write it again".
| What the data shows | What it usually means | The action |
|---|---|---|
| Ranks for many keywords, none in the top ten | The page is relevant but not authoritative enough | Expand it into the definitive piece, or merge it with a related page |
| Ranks for many keywords, few of them relevant | It attracts traffic you do not want | Leave it alone, or repurpose it. High traffic is not success if it is the wrong traffic |
| High impressions, low click-through rate | The page ranks but the listing is not compelling | Rewrite title and meta description first. Cheapest win available |
| Good traffic, no enquiries | Wrong awareness stage, or no path to an enquiry on the page | Add the next step: a relevant guide, a booking link, a related practice area page |
| Several pages covering the same topic | You are competing with yourself | Consolidate into one strong page and redirect the others |
| Strong performer | You have found something that works | Work out why, and do it again in another practice area |
| No traffic, no links, no rankings, years old | It is diluting the site | Improve it or retire it. Thin content is not neutral |
Finding the gaps
The most productive gap analysis compares the keywords your site ranks for with the ones your competitors rank for. Terms where you do not appear at all, or appear far below them, are your shortlist, and the pages they rank with show you what format the search actually wants.
Two cautions. A gap is only worth filling if the term is one your ideal client would search, not merely one with volume. And ranking for a term you cannot service well is worse than not ranking for it, because the enquiries arrive and waste everyone's time. We made that argument about lead quality in should you qualify leads or take everyone who calls. The link-building side sits in link building strategies for law firms.
Turning the audit into a plan
Six months is the right planning window. Long enough to produce something meaningful, short enough that you can change course if it is not working.
| Priority | Type of work | Typical share of the six months |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fix and expand existing pages that are close to ranking | About 40% |
| 2 | Consolidate duplicate or competing pages | About 10% |
| 3 | Build the missing middle-of-funnel content for your priority practice area | About 30% |
| 4 | New top-of-funnel content in formats you do not yet use | About 20% |
Most firms want to invert that and start at row four, because new content is more satisfying to commission than fixing old content. The returns run the other way.
How to measure it without fooling yourself
Traffic is the easiest thing to measure and the least useful. Rankings are the same. Both are inputs.
| Metric | What it actually tells you | How much weight to give it |
|---|---|---|
| Organic sessions | Whether anything is being found | Low. Directional only |
| Keyword rankings | Whether the SEO work is landing | Low. Inputs, not outcomes |
| Enquiries attributed to content | Whether the content is doing its job | High |
| Enquiries by practice area | Whether it is doing its job in the area you wanted to grow | High |
| Enquiry to signed matter rate, by content piece | Whether the content attracts the right people | Highest |
| Cost per signed matter from content | Whether the programme pays for itself | Highest |
The last two require you to record what happened to each enquiry, which is a habit rather than a tool. Without it you will be comparing content to paid advertising on completely different terms and paid will always look better, because it reports faster.
What to do when the content is not the problem
Some of the time a content programme is not failing because of the content.
If enquiries come in and nobody calls back the same day, no amount of publishing fixes it. If your intake asks the wrong questions, good enquiries are lost and bad ones are booked. If the consultation is where matters are lost, better traffic just means more of them are lost.
We see this regularly enough that it is worth checking before spending another dollar on content. The argument in full is in stop blaming your marketing agency, and the speed side is in the 60 second rule.
A checklist to run against your own site
Where most firms should start
If you have an existing library and it is not producing, audit before you commission. If you have nothing, do not start with a blog. Start with one practice area, the one you most want to grow, and build the full set for it: the practice area page, the three or four questions clients ask most, the cost and timeline content, and a video of the lawyer who handles that work explaining what actually happens. That is perhaps eight pieces, and it will outperform forty scattered articles.
Then measure it to signed matters for six months before deciding whether to widen it.
If you want us to run the audit, get in touch. It is an honest look at what you have, what is worth keeping, and whether content is the right place for your next dollar, which is not always the answer. For firms where the faster route is paid, we would say so, and the relevant reading is are Google Ads worth it for law firms.
Want us to implement these strategies for you?
Book a free strategy call and let's discuss how we can grow your business.
Book Your Free CallContinue reading
More on Law Firm Marketing
What Is the Best CRM for Law Firms? (The One That Tells You Which Ad Signed the Client)
Most CRM reviews for lawyers compare feature lists and US prices. For an Australian firm spending money on ads, a CRM has two jobs: get every enquiry to a person within minutes, and show which ad produced each signed client. How Clio Grow, LEAP CRM, Smokeball, Actionstep, RedView, Lawmatics, GoHighLevel, HubSpot and others compare feature by feature, with screenshots, why one system rarely does both marketing and case management, and what we use.
How Do Law Firms Get More Google Reviews? (Without Breaking the Rules)
Most of the advice that ranks for this question tells lawyers to ask friends, reward staff or only ask the happy clients, and all three break Google's policy or Australian consumer law. How many reviews an Australian law firm actually needs, when to ask by practice area, the SMS and in-person scripts, how to work through past clients, the Queensland injury rules, the replies that keep you inside confidentiality, and a 30-day review system.
What Should a Law Firm Client Intake Form Include? (And the Questions Costing You Clients)
Most intake form templates are US checklists with 20 fields and no thought about which questions belong on the form and which belong on the call. What an Australian law firm's enquiry form should ask, how many questions to use, the screening questions by practice area, what Meta won't let you ask, the conflict and deadline questions, the privacy and consent wording, and what the call record should capture.
How Do Law Firms Track Marketing ROI? (Why Your Dashboard Is Probably Wrong)
Cost per lead tells you almost nothing about whether a law firm's marketing makes money. How to follow every enquiry from the ad to the signed matter, the difference between ROI, ROAS and cost per signed client, how to value an injury matter that won't pay for two years, two real worked examples, why Google Ads dashboards overstate results, and how to send signed clients back to Google and Meta.