Arizona is home to more than 15,000 practicing attorneys, according to the American Bar Association (ABA). Most of those attorneys, or the law firms that employ them, have a web presence of some kind, as recommended by the ABA’s TECHREPORT. However, many are not incorporating updated, optimized blogs into their Arizona attorney marketing strategy. Those firms and attorneys are missing a valuable opportunity to maximize return on investment in their online presence.
How to Create Arizona Attorney Marketing Blogs That Work
Arizona attorney blogs can be an effective addition to your Arizona law firm marketing plan. But simply drafting and posting content to your site might not attract and keep the attention of Internet searchers—your potential clients—or the search engines they use to find relevant legal information and services.
To truly generate traffic and real client leads, Arizona law firm blogs must be useful to potential clients, legally accurate (but easy to read), and ethically sound under the ABA and State Bar of Arizona Rules of Professional Conduct.
Your content must also be readable by and appealing to search engines, which requires a working knowledge of search engine optimization (SEO) on the part of someone involved in the process of blog writing, content creation, and website administration.
Useful, Legally Accurate Content for Arizona Attorney Blogs
There are numerous content-creation services available to businesses eager to boost online performance. But legal content is different from the standard fare. Attorneys spend years attaining the level of education required to practice law, then many hours per year maintaining and enriching that knowledge. Arizona law firm blogs should attract potential clients, but they can also provide a platform to establish attorneys as thought leaders.
If you hire a generic content creator to draft your Arizona law firm blogs, it is possible you’ll spend more time than you want editing the content for nuance and legal accuracy. Likewise, if you contract with a general digital marketing company for your Arizona law firm marketing needs, you might find the approach and content lack breadth, depth, and legal sophistication.
Legal expertise alone, however, does not guarantee quality content. Large, recognized providers of legal marketing services have been accused of using formulaic, generic content and SEO strategies that lack longevity when the relationship with the provider is severed.
How can attorneys and law firms develop websites with content that is legally accurate, original, and useful to potential clients in their practice areas? By partnering with a digital marketing firm that specializes in legal content, prioritizes results and client relationships, and is led by experienced, licensed attorneys.
Ethical Concerns in Arizona Attorney Marketing
Some attorneys and law firms are hesitant to begin blogging due to ethical concerns, and rightfully so. The ethical expectations placed upon attorneys in the physical world also apply in the digital one, yet the Internet offers additional opportunities to run afoul of appropriate conduct.
States typically formulate rules governing attorney conduct on the basis of the recommendations of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct (MPRC) and advisory opinions, like ABA Formal Opinion 480. However, states interpret the MPRC differently, so understanding the specific ethical requirements of your jurisdiction is important.
Arizona has a place in the history of ethics in attorney advertising. Lawyers were ethically barred from advertising their services until the Supreme Court of the United States ruled, in Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, that the prohibition of attorney advertising was unconstitutional.
Still, ethical restrictions and considerations apply, and it is imperative that Arizona attorney blogs comply with the regulations set forth. A knowledgeable Arizona lawyer marketing firm can help you create online legal content that respects the ethical standards of the legal profession.
Arizona Law Firm SEO Helps Your Content “Get Found” Online
Perhaps you had some extra time (ha!) and created well-crafted legal blogs that ethically address the potential legal issues of your target audience. You posted those blogs to your (expensive) website and sat back to await the flow of new traffic in Google Analytics. But the results in traffic flow and converted leads just didn’t meet expectations and justify the investment of time and money.
What Went Wrong? Is Legal Blogging Just Overrated?
The likely explanation? Search engines didn’t like your content. More aptly, the content was not written in a way that appealed to a search engine—that easily defines (in search engine language) what the blog is about, and establishes your site’s authority on the matter in question.
SEO specialists know how to talk to search engines. That’s important, because no matter how amazing your content might be, you’ve wasted valuable time if potential clients never find it.
TOPDOG Legal Marketing: Lawyer-Driven Arizona Attorney Marketing Services
TOPDOG Legal Marketing is an Arizona lawyer marketing firm based in the greater Phoenix area. We serve clients nationwide in various practice areas—from small shops to large commercial defense firms. Whether you need a full Arizona law firm marketing plan, some optimized blogs, or something in between, TOPDOG can scale our services to meet your needs.
CEO Krista Duncan Black is an attorney who has been licensed in Arizona for more than 20 years. She leads the TOPDOG team in creating jurisdiction-specific content that is legally accurate, ethically sound under the Arizona and ABA rules of conduct, and properly optimized for search engines.
TOPDOG is active in the Arizona legal community. We proudly sponsor organizations like the Arizona Paralegal Association and the Maricopa County Bar Association’s Paralegal Division. Our team understands how writing about topics of local interest can be combined with Arizona law firm SEO to place your services in front of the people who need them.
Contact TOPDOG today to discuss the possibilities for your Arizona attorney marketing plan: (480) 744-7331. We’ll help you “get found” online.
