Surely blogging is just another thing that will take up your already stretched time? Maybe but there are very good reasons why lawyers, accountants and patent and trade mark attorneys need a blog. In this blog we’ll give you what we think are the top 6 reasons …
First things first though.
As a solicitor, an accountant or a patent or trade mark attorney you know an awful lot. You have a veritable treasure trove of advice in your head, information your clients can use to improve their commercial or personal position or sidestep obstacles that could potentially trip them up at some point.
And that’s all fine while you’re engaged in a live matter with a client. You’ll be talking regularly which means you have the perfect opportunity to impart the right piece of information at the right time.
But what happens between matters? And more pointedly, what happens if the person who could benefit from a particular piece of advice isn’t a client at all?
This is where a blog is invaluable. This is why lawyers, accountants and attorneys need a blog.
A blog allows you to pinpoint a specific issue and tell the reader what to do in those circumstances. And, once it’s written, you can push it out via email, e-marketing, and social media to alert people to its existence before you put your feet up and allow Google to work its magic and find you a whole new audience.
But if the benefits to your online profile alone don’t persuade you just how productive starting a blog could be for your practice, here those top 6 reasons why lawyers, accountants and patent and trade mark attorneys need a blog I promised.
1. A blog will boost your search engine rankings
Feeding regular content into your website shows Google your website is both a going concern and a source of useful info. And, if your feed is more regular and more relevant than your competitors’, you’ll soon create a competitive advantage over them, especially within local or sector-based searches.
2. A blog will boost your credibility
Nowadays almost everyone qualifies what they’ve heard online. If you have been positioned as an expert in tax, retail or biochemistry the visitors to your site will want to see you not only understand but have an opinion on the latest trends and issues.
I also think prospective clients want to see the person they could well be about to ask for advice also has an opinion and the confidence to put that opinion out into the world.
3. A blog will strengthen your key relationships
The fact you are willing to share clear, practical and valuable tips via your blog will be appreciated. And who knows, if your timing is good (and you include an easy response mechanism) some clients may suddenly realise they need more help in that area which means you might get some new work.
A new blog also gives you the perfect excuse to email the link to the professional contacts your piece is relevant to which could lead to a referral or at least an invitation to catch up. And if they were to forward it to one or two or their clients, you might get a new lead or four.
4. A blog will mark yourself out from your competitors
Although blogging has been around for years, many professional service firms still don’t blog regularly enough.
If your blog is constantly updated and you are sticking to the golden rules (keep it short, stick to one topic, offer tips the reader can use to help them/their business), you’ll build up a following and that following will make sure you stay ahead of your competitors in your clients, contacts and targets’ eyes.
Tone of voice is also an important factor here. A lot of the firms who are producing regular content are still wedded to highly technical, jargon strangled and – dare I say it – pretty dry pieces. If you can be more conversational, more down to earth and more easy to understand, you will instantly become a much more attractive option than your competitors (and that goes for the prospective clients that find you via the search engines as much as it does for your existing clients).
5. You’ll have a wealth of content you can re-purpose for all sorts of other marketing initiatives
A back catalogue of good, practical content can be repackaged for your e-newsletter, for seminars or presentations. You can also beef it up for PR pieces or as ideas you can take to the editors of the trade press to start a conversation about the possibility of writing for these titles at some point in the near future.
6. Your blog will make you a better solicitor/accountant/attorney
For some professionals having an opportunity to think about the latest developments in their practice area or chosen markets is a great opportunity to get their thoughts in order and down on paper which can make it easier to convey the same information to clients in person or by email.
And for more junior fee earners, being tasked with coming up with content can be a real-world training exercise. It’s useful for them to match the theory to the practical application which again will make them better advisers in the long-run.
And they are the 6 unshakeable reasons why lawyers, accountants and IP attorneys need a blog.
If you would like to discuss how you can improve your content marketing strategy please get in touch. Or, if the time to get a blog up and running really isn’t available, why not ask us to take over your content production for you?