Content Marketing Strategies for Insurance Brokers

Content marketing is the driving force that elevates your brand and wins new customers; but what is classed as content?

Content could be anything designed to drive traffic, sales, signups or calls. It’s blogs, videos and social media posts all rolled into one. With 87% of B2B marketers using content to generate leads successfully, content must form the heart of any performance-driven insurance marketing strategy.

How you deploy content is what matters. Let’s dive into how insurance brokers can leverage content marketing.

Is content marketing important for insurance brokers?

Content is vital for everybody. Whilst a shop might focus on product demos and a charity might focus on human interest stories, insurance brokers focus on education. Insurance is confusing, and most people searching for policies are looking for answers.

Your content must provide these answers to:

Elevate your SEO
Drive leads
Increase customer engagement
Boost sales

But it’s not just about information. Content is a tunnel into your brand, and that’s the challenge. According to one study, 42% of UK marketing leaders said deploying brand as a strategy was their biggest challenge.

How content production differs for insurance brokers

Insurance is a booming industry in the UK, illustrating the need for quality insurers and brokers to serve this market. In fact, the insurance industry grew by 9.9% in 2023 alone, but standing out means producing content that also serves this market.

We’ve identified five pillars that separate insurance brokers from other industries:

Educational Focus – Insurance is often complex, meaning taking an educational focus is the key to engaging with this audience. Informative guides and simple videos can clear the confusion and help to win business.
Trust Building – Concentrate on content that builds trust through providing testimonials, case studies and content that provides answers in an authoritative tone. Display your expertise.
Personalisation – Most brokers serve different market segments. Whether that’s a young person searching for their first car insurance policy or a middle-aged couple looking to save money when they renew, brokers must tailor their content accordingly.
Visual Content – Simplify information through infographics and short, snappy videos. Take complex concepts and make them so comprehensible that anyone can understand them.
Emotional Appeal – Insurance isn’t the most exciting topic, so generating interest can be challenging. Overcome this issue by building real-life stories to create that connection and empathy with potential clients.

What can content marketing do for your online presence?

Content marketing doesn’t improve your online presence. It is your online presence. Without content, you only have a generic website and a brand name. Nobody will respond to a barrage of sales content.

Instead, content is there to:

Improve your ranking in Google SERPs
Segregate your brand from other brokerages
Enhance your authority as a broker.
Encourage your target audience that you are the best value broker for them
Promote your brand and then encourage others to tell their friends and family

Content will spell the difference between success and failure. It’s impossible to underpin how vital it is.

Plan your Content Marketing Strategy Contact Us

Key considerations when creating content for your insurance agency

Building content doesn’t mean putting out the same generic content everyone has already done. Instead, it must be “purpose-driven.” In essence, every piece of content must have the following in mind:

What?
Who?
Why?

What?

What content are you creating? As part of your content strategy, split it into different categories, such as blogs, newsletters, videos, infographics and social media posts. You can also split them into platform-specific sub-categories. This enables you to cover all the bases.

Who?

Who are you targeting with that content? Insurance brokers should have their ideal customer personas built before doing anything. However, the chances are you have multiple personas that you’re targeting with different products or messages.

Define who that piece of content is targeting.

Why?

Why are you creating this content? You can look at this from two perspectives:

What do you want the customer to get out of it?
What action do you want to happen?

So, if you’re writing a blog on “How to get the lowest life insurance quote?” what you want the customer to get out of it is obvious. However, the action you want to push may be to call you, use your quoting engine, or sign up for your newsletter for further tips.

What matters is that each piece of content has a dual purpose for you to measure its success against.

How to provide valuable insurance-focused content

Producing content that resonates is a process. Countless types of insurance-focused content exist, including:

Insurance explainers
Quote calculators
Infographics
eBooks
Client testimonials
Videos

But if content isn’t produced with a purpose, its effect will be minimal. Let’s go into the process of creating insurance content.

Graphic of a person catching their audience

Focusing on your specific audience means knowing who your audience is and transitioning into what they need. Avoid spending too much time on what features your insurance products have and more on the questions and concerns your audience might have.

Insurance is unique in that industry language is a barrier. Industry jargon creates confusion and causes people to switch off. Remember, you’re selling to ordinary people, not others in your industry.

Explain terms clearly and avoid using terms that can’t be simplified, whether written or visual.

Insurance is a notoriously dry business. Generic content will switch off any readers/watchers immediately.

The secret to overcoming this is telling a story. Relate your content to real-life scenarios to turn the abstract into the multi-dimensional. Sharing stories provides security, peace of mind and sells all simultaneously.

SEO is one of the primary reasons why you’re creating content, and that’s what brings in the traffic. Keyword research is essential, but where most insurers miss the boat is search intent.

Align your content with why people are searching for those particular search terms. For example, if someone is searching for “cheap home insurance quotes in Manchester”, it doesn’t just tell you to target that keyword. It tells you why it’s a keyword worth targeting. Focus your content to answer the queries within.

Content marketing is a unique opportunity to turn a faceless insurance brand into a people-powered behemoth. Practice humanising your brand to make it stand out from the competition. Of course, tailor it to the platform.

For example, LinkedIn is great for building authority by reporting on industry insights. On the other hand, image-focused human interest content is the name of the game on Instagram and Facebook.

Above all, show your empathy by showing the humans behind the brand. Let them see your faces and hear your voice.

Graphic of a person with a wheelbarrow of data

Valuable content is often defined as content that works. If nobody reads a well-written blog, it may not be valuable content. Harness the power of data to tell you everything.

Countless analytics tools exist, including those built into many platforms. Focus on the data to learn about refining your strategy and what works best for your chosen audience.

At Tao Digital Marketing, we rely on data-driven insights to generate results for the UK’s insurance brokers. To learn more about how we can help you produce better content, speak to the team today.

What’s a Good CTR for Google Search Console?

How many people see your website and then click on it? Knowing this number is essential for determining whether people are interested in your business’s presentation.

Although more relevant to paid advertising, it’s still a ranking factor in organic traffic. This is why paying close attention to it on Google Search Console is vital. Let’s discuss what CTR is and what a good CTR looks like.

What is Click Through Rate (CTR)?

CTR is a marketing term that denotes the number of people who see a link divided by the number of people who click on it. Within an organic search context, it’s how many people see your website vs. how many people click on it.

Google monitors CTR closely because if you’re lower than average, it’s a sign that you’re not worth a higher ranking. Ultimately, CTRs tell Google whether their results serve a user’s search query.

Unfortunately, it’s one of the most demanding metrics to improve. However, succeeding in improving it can also be one of the most impactful. Within an SEO context, you’ll be surprised at what counts as “good.” According to one study, a 3% CTR is considered a decent performance.

Of course, your CTR will depend on various factors, including search volume, industry and where you appear in SERPs.

What is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console lets you track your website’s performance from an organic traffic point of view. Extract reports directly from the Console to gain a complete view of the consumer’s journey from performing a search to clicking on your website.

However, note that this isn’t the same data if you also run Google Ads. The Console only tracks your organic traffic, not paid.

Work with a Digital Marketing Agency Contact Us

What is considered a good Click Through Rate?

Everyone wants a good CTR to have a baseline against which to rank their website. Unfortunately, there’s no firm answer because it largely depends on where you rank.

According to a report from Smart Insights Digital Marketing, here’s what an average CTR looks like based on rank in 2024:

Position One – 39.8%
Position Two – 18.7%
Position Three – 10.2%

In other words, you must reach the top three search positions to acquire a double-digit CTR.

Positions nine and ten gain CTRs of under 2%, so if you have a CTR of anywhere from 2% to 30%, you technically have a good CTR. In short, due to the nature of search in 2024, reaching the first page of Google SERPs is no longer good enough.

Can you increase Click Through Rate?

CTR is among the most difficult metrics to improve. However, we know that the higher you rank, the higher your CTR. This is why brands shouldn’t get too hung up on CTR alone and instead concentrate on their overall SEO strategy.

But how do consumers decide to click a link in the first place?

Google – Google is the most trusted search engine on the planet, controlling 91% of the search market. Users intrinsically click the first link because they trust Google to provide them with the most relevant result.

Brand Recognition – Users are likelier to click on a link if they’ve heard of the brand before.

Reading – Titles and meta descriptions matter. Searchers may be implicitly encouraged to click on a site because the description is most relevant to their query.

These three factors all go back to implementing SEO best practices and rising up the rankings. If you can gradually build a sustainable SEO strategy that yields results, you’ll also see your CTR rise.

What is expected to change in CTR due to Google’s algorithm?

The March 2024 core update is Google’s most recent update, following its Helpful Content Update last year. It’s considered the most impactful change to the search landscape in years.

However, it’s also transformed what SEO means for brands. Adjusting accordingly is vital if you want more visitors to your website.

Let’s begin with the biggest threat to CTRs: Google’s pivot towards incorporating AI into its search experience.

AI has changed the world like never before, and Google has already entered its fray with the Search Generative Experience (SGE). The basic premise is that Google is integrating generative AI into its search engines to provide overviews of search queries.

What this means for businesses is that searchers can get straight answers to their questions without clicking on links at all. In other words, it removes an opportunity for brands to sell and could eventually see the death of traditional search.

But it’s not the only thing that could impact CTRs. We also must examine how Google ranks websites, as where you rank in SERPs is the most important factor in your CTR.

Google Ranking ‘Leak’

In May 2024, Google experienced one of the most profound leaks in its history, providing more insight into how Google Search (potentially) works than ever before. This leak has offered a lifeline for businesses looking to negotiate the new SEO landscape and increase their CTR rates.

In particular, the role of click data has put to bed something that Google had always denied – that user data from Chrome had no bearing on its rankings.

The leak revealed the potential that Google relies heavily on click data and user behaviour through the Chrome browser to rank sites. Unfortunately, this heavier-than-expected reliance could open the way for artificial CTR strategies, such as clickbait and browser manipulation.

What could this mean for the SEO community in the future? It could mean nothing, or it could mean Google scrambles to unveil new updates to prevent its algorithm from being exploited in light of the leak.

It’s important to note that the latest Google ‘leak’ was incredibly insightful, but is in no way an exact indicator of Google’s behaviours. Our advice? Take everything you see from Google with a pinch of salt, and work for your audience first, always.

How should businesses prepare for a changed SEO landscape?

We know very little about what could happen regarding the overall SEO landscape. However, what is clear is that SGE is causing huge fluctuations within rankings. This level of volatility hasn’t been seen in over a decade, making it challenging for businesses to adjust.

It’s why countless stories of businesses seeing their traffic wiped out overnight have appeared online. Although many have already declared the death of traditional SEO, this is far from the case.

SGE is designed to provide a mere overview, not to eliminate the need to click on websites completely. Much like the race to acquire Featured Snippets, brands seeking to improve their CTRs may alter their content accordingly to be that AI-generated overview.

In the meantime, the best defence against Google’s volatility is to team up with an agency to manage it. At Tao Digital Marketing, we steer our clients through the turbulence to enable them to rank higher and increase their CTRs. To learn more about how we can do the same for you, contact the team now.

Lead Generation for Law Firms: Our Tips

Winning a big client who decides to keep your law firm on retainer is the dream. Realistically, most of the UK’s 208,000 law firms must continually generate new business to thrive. Although many firms continue to rely on traditional marketing, the true rewards are online.

According to the latest stats, over a third of clients start their search online before examining any other channel. This is an opportunity, and lead generation is one of the most impactful ways to snag this group.

Want to know how to make lead generation work for you? Let’s dive into everything you need to know about lead generation in the legal trade.

What is lead generation for law firms?

Leads are anyone interested in using your law firm’s services. For example, if you specialise in helping your clients through messy divorces, anyone searching for a divorce lawyer would be a potential lead.

Leads can come from anywhere. They could be someone local Googling for a “business lawyer in Manchester” or someone asking about a “road traffic solicitor in Durham” in a local Facebook group.

Lead generation aims to acquire those leads and get them to choose you as their lawyer. In other words, it’s the business of attracting and selling to clients who can benefit from your services.

Work with a Digital Marketing Agency Contact Us

The benefits of lead generation for law firms

Lead generation is viewed as a priority for marketers in every sector. According to one figure, 53% of marketers sent 50% of their total budgets to lead generation, which shows how powerful it is.

So, what’s the benefit of doing this in the legal sector?

Grow your client base.
Increase your conversion rates.
Reduce your marketing costs.
Turn to precision targeting.
Gain a competitive edge.
Save time and resources.
Build brand awareness.

Finally, strong lead generation campaigns can establish yourself as the go-to legal authority in your niche. Whether you help clients with speeding fines or criminal law, lead generation positions you as the number one brand in your playground.

The lead generation process for law firms

Lead generation isn’t about throwing up a few ads and hoping for the best. In the past, this was marketing’s best-kept secret, but times have changed. Today, 61% of marketers claimed generating leads was now their biggest challenge.

Most guides treat lead generation as an abstract concept. Let’s consider what it might look like for a solicitor in the field.

John is being sued for libel and needs legal advice. He discovered your firm through Google and signed up for a free consultation. This makes John a lead.
You already know John is interested, but he’s probably taking free consultations with several solicitors. During your call, you learn about his case, which is scheduled for next month.
Throughout your call, your rep found out he can afford you and lives in the same city. This makes him what’s known as a “qualified lead”, meaning John is worth pursuing.
Your firm will then “nurture” John as a lead. This could be through personalised offers, discounts, or something else. If successful, John will convert from a lead into a customer.

Successful lead generation relies on your marketing and sales team working in tandem to bring in leads and guide them down the sales funnel. The problem is your competitors are also doing the same thing.

How can you ensure that the leads generated are high-quality?

Not every lead is worth your time. Just because someone needs legal services doesn’t make them a good lead.

For example, if you’re based in Southampton and someone in Edinburgh has found you, that makes them a low-quality lead because most lawyers aren’t going to travel the length of the UK for a single client.

Here are some simple ways to ensure the leads you’ve generated are worth pursuing:

Add more fields to your lead generation forms. Not only does this provide more information, but it also scares away people who aren’t serious about hiring you.

Make your lead generation questions more thoughtful. Again, it’s all about separating the serious people from the window shoppers. The last thing you want is to waste your secretary’s time on free consultations that won’t lead anywhere.

How you target will determine lead quality every time. Aim for a smaller niche instead of focusing on vanity metrics like web traffic. Always avoid heading for volume because this will only cost you more.

Although providing more hurdles to jump through and reducing the number of people you target may seem counterintuitive, it’ll actually increase your success rates while reducing the drag on your resources.

Plus, you might even find a relatively sparse niche and gain a competitive edge!

Generating leads for multiple legal practice areas

Generating leads for multiple legal practice areas is often a point of contention among both marketers and solicitors. However, since law firms may address several areas of law, you’ll need separate lead-generation campaigns for each.

It all begins with your law firm’s website. Since you’ll drive 90% of your traffic here, you need individual landing pages for each practice area. Furthermore, this will likely mean running multiple paid marketing campaigns, including SEO, PPC and social media advertising.

SEO is especially pertinent because growing your brand’s visibility as a whole will support each practice area’s lead-generation campaign. This is where hiring an SEO agency that can build these foundations proves its value.

Ultimately, you must also consider resource allocation if operating in multiple practice areas. Does it make sense to allocate half of your resources to individual libel when most of your business comes from business libel? Of course not, so campaigns must be tailored to your firm.

Measuring the success of law firm lead generation

How do you know if your lead generation campaign has been successful?

Measuring any campaign’s success is critical to optimising future campaigns. Directly attributing new business to your lead generation efforts tells you whether you need to continue with what you’re doing or change.

Follow these tips to measure the success of your lead generation campaign.

Focus on the right metrics

Concentrating on core metrics provides actionable insights into what’s working. Here are the top metrics to use:

Conversion rate
Cost per lead
Revenue per client
Return on Investment (ROI)

Set up analytics and tracking

Analytics and tracking tools are essential to working out where your new business is coming from. Without certain tools, you’re entirely blind to your marketing efforts.

Basic tools like Google Analytics will tell you about the performance of your website and its landing pages and offer insights into how your visitors are behaving. In terms of lead generation, you also need conversion tracking tools. Several platforms have native tools, such as Google Ads Conversion Tracking and Facebook Ads Manager. However, all-in-one suites are also available.

Use a reliable Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system

CRMs are essential for tracking and managing your leads. Some of the benefits include:

Tracking interactions.
Centralising lead data from each channel.
Analysing lead behaviour.

Some of the most common CRMs law firms use include HubSpot and Salesforce. Some firms may prefer niche-specific CRMs, though.

Launch A/B testing

A/B testing is a technique for measuring lead generation ROI. It involves creating at least two variations of your landing pages, copy, campaigns and more. Each variation is tested against the other to see which performs best.

Constant A/B testing will tell you what works, but it relies on making incremental changes to see which alterations have the most impact. After all, the secret of lead generation is that you’ll never get the best possible results from your first campaign. It’s a long-term process.

How to generate leads for your law firm

There’s no getting around the fact that lead generation is time- and resource-intensive. Get it right, and you will see your leads increase exponentially. The transformative potential of mastering lead generation is undeniable but requires expertise.

Legal professionals are busy people and may not have the time to learn about and run lead-generation initiatives, and that’s where Tao Digital comes in. In the past, our efforts have led to one law firm increasing its leads by 174%.

If these types of results are what your firm is looking for, reach out to the team today.

Tips for Law Firm Blog Writing

In an evolving world of video marketing, PPC and social media, it’s easy to forget the humble blog. Although no longer the go-to marketing option, the written word remains an effective tool for generating new business.

With the UK legal industry seeing dramatic falls from the market’s peak in 2022, solicitors must work harder than ever to take on new cases. For example, property lawyers alone handle 40% fewer cases today than in 2022.

However, pumping out legal blogs won’t yield the results you want. Although companies that blog gain 67% more sales opportunities than companies that don’t, there must be a method to the madness.

The benefits of having a legal blog

Active legal blogs are a long-term asset for your firm. According to HubSpot, websites with active blogs receive 434% more indexed pages.

In short, the more useful content on Google from your firm, the larger your footprint; and with over a third of potential clients beginning their search online, blogging just makes sense.

Legal blogs have other benefits for your firm, too. Here’s a rundown of some of the advantages of taking the time to blog:

Improved Rankings – Blogging is part of your overarching law firm content marketing and SEO strategies. With the latter being crucial in driving traffic to your website, blogging represents one of the pillars of successful law firm SEO.

Demonstrate Expertise – Approximately 96% of people seek legal advice online. By commenting on trending topics and addressing commonly asked questions, you can provide value and establish yourself as an authority.

Hit Your Target Audience – The digital revolution shifted the initiative from traditional marketing. Although these tactics are still relevant, blogging is often the only way to hit a considerable proportion of your potential client base.

Increase Your Brand Awareness – Law firms are brand-led. People don’t just choose you because of your services, as all your direct competitors offer the same services. They choose you because of your brand. Blogging is an opportunity to stamp your brand’s unique values and story on the minds of your target audience.

Grow Your Revenues – Ultimately, marketing is about growing your business. Both through direct business and brand awareness, blogging, directly and indirectly, empowers your firm to explode its revenues.

Types of blog post content for a law firm

Starting a blog is one thing, but not every blog is the same. Solicitors have various blog content they can publish for one reason or another.

So, what are the most common types of blogs law firms publish?

Core topics related to your practice area.
Mythbusting posts.
Changes to the law.
Trending case reviews.
Frequently asked question posts.
Success stories.
How-to posts.

The above is a general overview of some areas a legal blog may cover. However, having a mixture of trending posts and evergreen content is vital. Likewise, many blogs write so-called “super guides” as landing pages.

Finding blog topics for your law firm

One of the sticking points solicitors experience is determining blog topics. Traditionally, this was a trial-and-error process, which is why some law firms spent years trying new things. But time is money, and writing a series of poor-performing blogs is a net loss.

Instead of fumbling around for blog topics that may or may not work, here are a few pointers on tried-and-tested topics known to accomplish different goals.

Understanding common legal terms.
Legal FAQs series.
Addressing some of the most significant legal challenges in your practice area.
Practical advice for handling situations your clients may encounter in their daily lives.

Legal checklists for given situations, with downloadables included.
Promote upcoming webinars.
Exclusive offers for your practice.
Case studies.
Success stories.

Graphic of a woman adding an image to a site

Analysis of recent legal developments.
Breaking down new laws.
Talking about legal trends.
Predictions about what’s in store for the legal landscape.

Graphic of a woman pointing to a Youtube video

Short pieces of legal trivia.
Infographics to simplify complex legal concepts.
Legal humour.
Story-based blogs.

The importance of SEO in blog writing

Write the most fantastic blog in the world; none of it will matter if nobody finds it. This happens when you write a blog without heed to SEO. Optimising blogs for Google is pivotal to driving traffic to that blog and is where much of the marketing value comes from.

At the heart of SEO lies comprehensive keyword research so you know what your target audience is searching for. Tailoring your content accordingly enables you to rank, which results in clicks and potential new clients.

Likewise, backlinks and on-page SEO lend credibility to your blog and your brand as a whole. High-authority backlinks to your content signal to Google that this is trustworthy content that provides value to searchers, resulting in a higher ranking.

It takes time, and there are no shortcuts, but consistently adhering to core SEO principles in each post will elevate your law firm.

Get Content Strategy Support Contact Us

Tips and guidelines for writing law firm blog content

Writing law firm blog content requires extensive research. If an experienced legal professional writes the blog, most of the effort will be spent choosing the right angle for a particular topic.

Here are some tips for writing impactful legal content.

Identify topics of value

Put yourself in the shoes of your target audience and ask, “Why would I want to read this?”

Answering this question enables you to find the value angle in your content. It could be the answer to a single question or provide clarity on how the legal process works. Whatever it is, the topic must be relevant and interesting to the people you’re targeting.

Write with authority

Above all, you must project your authority. The only way to make your particular perspective on a subject stand out in a crowded market is to lead with your experience.

Create engaging titles

Your title is the sign in the shop window. If it doesn’t make sense, nobody will click on your post. On the other hand, it must get right to the point.

This is where competitor research and looking up high-ranking blogs on similar subjects come into play.

Write for easy scanning

Long-form blog posts can be highly effective for SEO purposes, but not everyone wants to spare 15 minutes to read every word.

Creating a table of contents at the top of your post and being specific with your subheadings makes it easy for people to scroll quickly to the section that interests them.

Ask the audience

Are you struggling to determine your next subject?

Ask your existing audience what they would like to know. If you already have an email list, send out an email blast asking them what legal topics they would like to know about. Law firms without an online presence should rely on competitor research to guide them.

Measure your success

Look to the data to discover what works. You can dig into the results once a few months have passed and enough blogs have been published.

Figure out what got the biggest response and then review that blog against other hits. Find the consistencies between your top performers to uncover patterns you can apply to future content.

However, the best way to supercharge your growth is to consult with the SEO and content marketing experts at Tao Digital. If you’re not getting the desired results or don’t have the time to learn the skills yourself, speak to the team to find out what we can do for you.

How to Create a Law Firm Content Marketing Strategy

Content is king, and nothing has changed in that respect.

Producing content to rise up Google’s rankings and provide valuable information to your target audience is as old as the Internet itself. Today, 73% of B2B marketers and 70% of B2C have a content marketing strategy, and for a good reason. It works.

Content marketing is a core pillar of successful SEO, and the legal industry is no exception. But, like any form of marketing, you need a strategy, so here’s what you need to know about building one for your law firm.

What is content marketing for law firms?

As an art form, content marketing is a broad topic. Beginners often get confused about what it means and why they’re doing it. This is because content marketing as a concept can apply to various types of initiatives.

All forms of content have one goal: to share valuable content.

This is something that applies to every industry. In one study, 67% of marketers reported that content marketing won them new leads. From the perspective of the legal trade, content marketing can involve sharing content like:

Blogs
Q&As
Case studies
Video interviews

The point is not what type of content you have, but what type resonates with your audience. Getting this right opens up a whole new world of possibilities, with 96% of decision-makers saying that content marketing has been effective for their brands.

Should law firms invest in content marketing?

If you value gaining new clients via the online realm, content marketing is essential to getting seen. Your website might act as your virtual business card, but valuable digital assets offer a chance for prospective clients to engage with your brand.

Content marketing is a powerful channel for growing your practice when done correctly. Some of the reasons to invest in content marketing include:

Content marketing is crucial to bolstering a Law Firm’s SEO.
Strong content drives your social media presence.
Nailing your strategy can help expand your audience.
Content alone can nurture leads without picking up the phone.

Ultimately, the legal industry can benefit from content marketing as much as any other niche in the overarching economy. Today, 77% of lawyers use social media as a tool, so it’s a natural next step to add content marketing.

Does content marketing actually work for the legal industry?

Think that content marketing doesn’t work for legal practices? Think again.

If you have an audience that asks questions, you have a place for content marketing in your overall marketing strategy. The reality is that content marketing generates three times more leads than traditional marketing whilst costing 62% less.

It makes sense economically, and the results speak for themselves. If you’re still unsure whether it works for local solicitors, remember that SEO is universally important. Without content, you stand little chance of seeing any SEO progress.

What should a content strategy for a law firm include?

Writing a blog or shooting a video and tossing it onto your website isn’t enough to see results. Unlike Rome, building it and expecting people to come isn’t a viable strategy. Competition is too fierce, and without direction, there are no guarantees you’re even giving your audience what they want.

So, consider your strategy before thinking about what you want to create. Here’s what you should do before launching your content marketing drive:

Keyword Research – Keyword research tells you what people are searching for and what your audience is searching for. If people in Manchester are searching for a “judicial separation solicitor”, then it tells you this is a good subject to focus on, and for your area.

Competitor Research – Examine your leading competitors. What are they writing about? Which keywords are they using? How are they structuring their content? If it’s working for them, there’s a good chance it will also work for you, but you have to do it better.

Budget – Time is money. Whether you outsource or not, every piece of content takes time away from other parts of your business. Defining a content marketing budget early will help you to keep all your ducks in a row.

Content Type – Every type of content comes with its own pros and cons. Podcasts can be great for brand-building, but they also take massive amounts of time to produce and promote. Most law firms will start with basic blogs before investing in other content types.

Alignment – How will your content align with your brand? Consider matters like tone of voice, style and whether your content accurately depicts what you do.

Content Funnel – Building a content funnel is essential for turning casual readers into clients. Divide your content funnel into top, mid and bottom so that you can measure how effective your content is at converting.

These strategic aspects spell the beginning of a flourishing content marketing campaign. Every law firm will still have to endure a period of experimentation in the beginning, but once you hit on something good, you’ll be surprised at how effective content marketing can be.

Book a Meeting Contact Us

What type of content should law firms create?

Countless types of content exist. Maybe you’ve dreamed of having the number one legal podcast in the UK. Perhaps you’re looking at becoming a YouTube sensation. Regardless of how you approach content marketing, the only thing that matters is whether that content directly or indirectly results in more business.

So, what type of content is likely to work for your law firm?

Blogs are the core pieces of content available. They’re highly effective at delivering valuable information to your audience. Ultimately, a legal blog should educate the reader.

Service pages are often used as landing pages in the legal industry. They tell your audience what you can do for them. They’re a place to provide a solution to a problem someone has, via your services.

Don’t tell people how great you are. Show them. If you were involved in a landmark case that hit the headlines, make a big deal out of it. Writing about your big wins demonstrates to potential clients that you’re a heavy-hitter they can rely on to help them deal with their legal troubles.

The law is complicated. That’s why explainer videos are so effective in the legal industry. Breaking down complex legal concepts isn’t just educational. It’s also an opportunity for you to introduce your staff and promote your brand.

Graphic of a man pointing to a phone screen

Social media is also a type of content marketing. Due to the casual nature of these platforms, it’s a chance to make your team friendlier and more approachable.

Note that these five options are all great starting points if you’re taking your first steps into content marketing. Try not to do too much at once. A little done well will accomplish far more than casting a wide net.

Best practices for law firms creating content

There’s a misconception that answering the big questions is enough to make your content marketing successful. Whether you like it or not, law firms creating content must always have SEO in mind.

Here are some of the best practices all law firms should follow when generating content.

Answer questions in your content

Only 8% of search queries are questions, but even if you enter a few random words, Google will respond with question snippets. It underlines the importance of answering questions, so the easiest way to do this is by doing just that.

Sometimes, a big question may require an entire blog all to itself. On other occasions, an easy way to answer questions is to append an FAQ section to a piece of content.

Regardless, every piece of content should answer a question your audience has.

Featured snippet optimisation

Featured snippets are your shortcut to the top of Google. These are the answer boxes you see when performing certain types of searches. Approximately 30.9% of featured snippets rank in position one, and 8.6% of clicks go to these snippets.

Let’s get one thing clear. There’s no way to game the featured snippets system. Google decides as to who gets the snippet. You can reduce the time it takes by hitting niche questions your competitors aren’t answering, but higher-quality content always wins the race.

Some tips include:

Phrasing a question as “What is”.
Answer a question in two to three sentences.
Use well-structured headings.
Bolding the main section of your answer.

Create a content hub

Content hubs are a curated collection of content on a specific subject. It houses all types of content and divides it into a single subject.

The value of creating separate content hubs around your specialist areas is increasing engagement. They act as series that guide your reader through several types of content.

Keeping them on your pages longer and upping your click-through rates signals to Google that you offer great content. It’s also a chance to position your legal brand as an industry authority.

Prove your EEAT

Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, or EEAT, is Google’s way of fighting against low-quality content, especially AI-generated. You need to figure out how you’ll hit these four points within your content.

Here’s how to do it:

Experience – This is proof that you’re not just rewriting someone else’s content. So, in the case of a lawyer, pairing a case study with an article on that case from a local newspaper would hit this point. An author profile including your credentials, whether you wrote or proofread the article, can also help with proving experience.

Expertise – Who are you? Using your leading legal superstar as the author would also hit this point because Google will scour the web for information on that person. If they’ve won industry awards, it automatically contributes to the “Expertise” rating.

Authoritativeness – This is all about who you are but with a twist. Google will also examine your entire website to see if that authority extends throughout. Content hubs help to build up your topical authority.

Trustworthiness – A combination of the previous three. You can’t aim for this one, but consistently producing high-quality content will contribute.

SEO optimisation for all content

Hitting all of Google’s best practices for content should be considered a bare minimum for all types of content.

For example, you should include headings, neatly divided sub-sections and meta descriptions for every page. Any good SEO consultant will ensure these basic SEO components are present throughout your website.

Updating and refreshing content

Evergreen content, or content that’s as relevant today as it was five years ago, creates a flywheel that keeps people coming to your website. Many brands have less than ten pieces of content that consistently attract new business for years.

However, the legal industry is especially vulnerable to disruption because of changes in the law. You may have written a lengthy guide on data privacy laws, but one change could make all that outdated. Google also takes note of that.

Regularly updating your primary content whenever there are changes can ensure they remain high-performing pieces. This doesn’t just mean changing the information but also updating your keywords and other SEO components.

Obviously, it isn’t practical to keep doing this with all of your content, but it must be mandatory with your best-performing pages.

Let Tao Digital handle your content marketing

Content marketing is one of the key pillars of quality SEO. You handle the expertise and let us handle the content optimisation, distribution and technical SEO tweaks. With an expert SEO consultant by your side, you can ensure that every piece of content is primed for success.

To learn more about what digital marketing can do for your Law Firm, reach out to us and let’s talk today.

It’s a common misunderstanding that working with a small budget for SEO means you can’t generate results. How can you possibly make enough improvements to the site in so few hours per month?

Well, for us at Tao Digital Marketing, our work with Fleetcover goes to show that results can be achieved by focusing on the most important changes in the little time you have.

In this case study, we’ll break down how we increased leads by 751%, keywords by 259% and impressions by 535% on a budget of less than £1,000 / $1,347 per month, equating to one day’s work. That’s a small spend for SEO, but making the right changes at the right time, and focusing our efforts on the most important aspects, generated these positive results.

Objectives

Our objectives were similar to what every website ultimately wants to achieve: generate leads for the business and increase online visibility for relevant search terms.

To be a little more specific, we picked this client up in March 2019, but of course, results generally started to pick up from November 2019 as Google started to crawl the site more regularly.

Our targets/KPIs for the next 12 months were based on numbers from April-November 2019, as below:

Increase leads from 175 to 500
Install a new chat function on the site and gain 50 leads through it
Increase site clicks from 2,200 to 5,000
Increase keywords ranked for from 229 to 500

The target audience was businesses that need fleet insurance. This spans a wide range of industries, from those operating coaches and taxis through to motor trade.

Our strategy focused on technical SEO and content creation. There was one big issue, though: we didn’t build the site ourselves, nor did we have the level of access that would allow us to make any design or fundamental changes that could support SEO and lead generation. In turn, our strategy had to be heavily content-driven.

Our strategy

1. Add a chat function

In November 2019, we added the ‘TawkTo’ chat function to the site which has helped generate leads. After analyzing when their audience was visiting the website, we found that most users were on the site late at night and on weekends.

With their team being out of the office and unable to answer any phone calls during these timeframes, we thought it would be of value to offer an online chat function to help capture inquiries so potential customers wouldn’t be put off or frustrated! This would put them at an advantage compared to their competitors who were not doing this.

We implemented the bot so it appears on the tab as a message notification, drawing people’s attention to the page even when it isn’t the active tab. So far, 330 inquiries have been made through this function.

fleetcover chat function installed

2. Implement technical SEO

Tweaks that support technical SEO are perhaps some of the most important changes you can make to see real results. We implemented this by:

Optimizing page titles
Creating meta descriptions that were between 100-155 characters, using keywords that naturally fit
Using the optimal image sizes that each website required
Using alt text for images
Implementing internal and external links where possible
Utilizing FAQ schema on the more frequently searched questions
Optimizing the sitemap by getting rid of URLs that wouldn’t support organic search
Using the robots.txt file to point search crawlers in the right direction
Creating 301 redirects. There were a number of outdated pages as well as 404 errors that needed to be addressed
Making usability tweaks to the design. We were very limited in what we could achieve on the site as the incumbent were not massively helpful in terms of the access they would give us. We were able to get round this in certain areas, an example being the ‘Get a Quote’ buttons. We had a feeling user metrics mattered in this competitive market, so we did our utmost to capitalise on this.

3. Optimize the “Get a Quote” form

We added heat mapping and anonymized visitor recording to the site. When we analyzed the data, it became very apparent that many people weren’t filling out the “Get a Quote” form due to it being too long — like standing at the bottom of a mountain, trying to work out the right route to the top! The original form had almost 10 questions, which overwhelmed the user and resulted in low conversion rates.

fleetcover multi step form

multi step form for quote

We’ve had great success using multi-step forms on other client’s sites, so we decided to create one for Fleetcover. We had all the questions needed to provide a full quotation, but split it all up into easier-to-digest tabs and user-designed icons, rather than just text.

Our new form was built creatively and had four steps, making the process easier. With this change alone, leads from the form grew from 175 before November 2019 to 1,489 over the past 12 months (751% increase).

4. Focus heavily on content creation

fleetcover hgv service page

Service pages

Content creation is an area where we really got the chance to demonstrate creative flair alongside data analysis. We started by reviewing Fleetcover’s service pages, and fleshed out the content to make it more engaging.

fleetcover service page

Keyword research and search intent

Over time, we continued to research keywords, focusing heavily on understanding the search intent behind them, and creating detailed content and FAQs to meet the audience’s needs and Google’s understanding of those intents.

One topic we’ve been focusing on is the rise of electric vehicles and how this will grow and affect the insurance industry. As the development and popularity of these vehicles progresses, we’re going to look at how we can use this in our content strategy.

Formatting and style

Including clear, natural CTAs at the end of each piece was really important, not only to round out the articles, but also to encourage readers to use Fleetcover’s broker service.

In addition, utilizing a simple but effective tone of voice helped to meet the needs of potential consumers and give them the information they need in a straightforward way. When focusing on keywords/phrases that contain industry jargon, we always include information about what the word or phrase means for those with informational intent about a particular topic, for example ‘fleet breakdown cover’.

Results

Sales

We achieved the goal of gaining more sales, as website conversion rates jumped from 3% to 14%, and leads increased from 175 to 1,489 (751%). This massive increase (pleasantly) surprised us as we are working with a site with a domain authority of 22 in a competitive industry, so to achieve these results so quickly was a great boost for both ourselves and Fleetcover.

Fleetcover was previously spending a considerable amount on purchasing leads from other companies, whereas now they have invested into SEO, which has significantly increased the number of leads they generate. With SEO, these leads are of a higher quality than PPC leads, and are therefore more likely to use their services. There is little need for Fleetcover to purchase leads now, as the business is becoming its own profitable arm of Walmsleys Insurance Brokers.

Rankings

We’ve helped Fleetcover gain online visibility for certain keywords such as “fleet insurance brokers” (#1) and “fleet insurance quote” (#2). Their positioning for “Fleet breakdown cover” has also moved from #15 to #4, and “fleet insurance quote” has moved from #10 to #2. The main benefit of these ranking improvements is the huge increase in traffic!

We also gained top spot for the main keyword of “fleet insurance”, but this has since been taken by one of the juggernauts (excuse the pun) of the industry. We’ll be back, but for now, domain authority reigned supreme.

In April 2019, Fleetcover was only ranking for 229 keywords, and they now rank for 824, a 259% increase.

Traffic

As mentioned, we saw results beginning in November as Google crawled the site more actively and found more relevant content. Therefore, April – November 2019 is our “before” comparison for what we’ve managed to achieve over the past 12 months:

April – November 2019

Impressions: 296,000

Clicks: 2,220

November 2019 – November 2020

Impressions: 1,880,000 (up 322%)

Clicks: 6,470 (up 194%)

Thanks to more than exceeding our set KPI goals, we were shortlisted for three SEO awards this year, and Fleetcover’s CEO had only good things to say:

“For years we’ve been looking for a company to do exactly what you have done and I can honestly say in 12 years of being involved in marketing, this is the first time that any marketing company has proactively gone ahead and done something for us in this way. I’ve whinged about it for so long that it made my day when it dropped in my inbox. Really chuffed.”

Well, that just speaks for itself, doesn’t it?

How to use Answer the Public to boost your SEO

There are absolutely loads of helpful SEO tools out there, but when it comes to helping with content marketing, we do have our favourites.

One such favourite is Answer the Public, which is the holy grail for our content writers. Not only does it make coming up with content ideas so much easier, it shows you what people are searching for in real time. Responding to these searches and providing useful content is a sure way to move yourself up the pages on search engines such as Google.

In this blog, we’re going to explain what Answer the Public is, why it’s useful and how it can help you to boost your online presence.

What is Answer the Public?

Answer the Public is a long-tail keyword tool that shows you questions and autocomplete searches around a certain topic. This can help you to understand what people are searching for so that you can provide content featuring relevant, in-depth answers that people are actually searching for and looking to find answers to.

Is Answer the Public free?

Answer the Public is free, but only for a few searches per day! Otherwise, you’re going to run into this guy…

The downside of this is that it works off your IP address, so if a colleague is also using the tool they can hit the day’s limit for your whole team. Not good news for those needing to churn out content consistently.

If you’re stuck for content ideas and want to improve your SEO, it’s definitely worth investing in the tool, which costs $99 per month, or $79 per month if you pay annually. This lets you have unlimited searches and users, as well as allowing you to compare data over time.

Looking for help with generating more sales leads?

Speak to one of our team today about our SEO services

get in touch

How does Answer the Public work?

As mentioned above, the site shows you what people are searching for. We’re going to use the example of one of our clients, Complete Koi & Aquatics, here. Through another SEO tool, Ahrefs, we saw that ‘Ghost Koi’ was being searched for around 1,900 times per month with a keyword difficulty of 0 - what a goldmine!

If you don’t have another SEO tool to help with this, simply note down some topics that you think potential customers would be interested in reading about.

We then headed over to Answer the Public, typed this phrase in and had a look at the results. There are two ways which Answer the Public will display results, the first is through a visualisation wheel. Although the tool will never tell you the exact amount of searches for each question, the darker the dots on the wheel, the more they are searched.

Be warned, though - it can also mean that the particular question or phrase is trending at the moment and actually has relatively low search terms in comparison to others. You’ll never get 100% accurate numbers as search engines like to keep this information top secret.

The screenshot above is just the ‘questions’ section. As you scroll down, there are more wheels for prepositions (i.e. ‘ghost koi for sale near me’) comparisons (ghost koi vs goldfish), and finally alphabeticals, which list every searched term from A to Z.

The other way the information is presented is as ‘data’, as below:

This is a bit easier to read than the visualisation wheel, but the downside is that you don’t get hints as to what is searched the most.

This information is really useful, because when you know so much about your niche, you forget the kinds of information newcomers might be looking for. You might be surprised with what people are asking about!

Using Answer the Public for SEO

Using these questions in a piece of content can really help to boost your rankings. It shows search engines that you’re an expert in your field. Generally, the more questions you answer and the more in-depth you go, the better. This is of course dependent on the number of searches and content, as sometimes people are just looking for a small amount of information.

Based on our research, we then created a piece titled ‘Everything you need to know about Ghost Koi’, which answered many of the questions from Answer the Public. This piece was published in July 2020 and naturally it will take a while for search engines to pick up on this content, but at the time of writing (December 2020), Complete Koi are now position #1 on Google for ‘Ghost Koi Carp’ and ‘Butterfly Ghost Koi’, even though their domain rating is 3.7. We expect this to continue increasing!

Similar results can be expected if you follow this process. Ensuring that the questions are formatted as H2s, H3s and H4s will mean the keyword is in the questions too, and that search engines will understand that they are your headings and subheadings.

For an extra boost, add FAQ schema to your content. This means that your questions and answers will appear when people type in related search terms, as below.

This is much more eye catching to users, and they can get their answers without even having to click on a site. Even if you’re not ranking for the term they typed in, you can appear in excerpts on the page as above, which is especially useful if you’re just getting started.

Another way that Answer the Public can help with SEO is the feature that helps you to compare data over time. For example, if we head towards Winter and suddenly spot that people are searching for questions such as ‘Do Ghost Koi hibernate?’, we can add this into the content and keep it up to date.

Also, if a new cool gadget for ponds has been released but there aren’t many searches around this yet, we can get the product page ranking as searches increase and keep an eye out for more questions trickling in as the product gains popularity. This can help us to answer those questions before anyone else does.

Finally, if one of your old pieces of content previously had a lot of traffic but is slipping down in the ranks, it could be that your competitors are answering questions you aren’t. Keep an eye on old content and update it as and when new questions arise.

In conclusion…

Answer the Public is a fantastic tool for any content writers looking for more ideas and to boost their SEO.

If you’re stretched for resources and would like to outsource content research and writing, we’re your people! Get in touch today via hello@taodigital.org or call 01204 282 213 and we’ll see how we can help.