Study Finds Consumers' Appetite for Online Content Growing; How Attorneys Can Feed It to Generate Leads

A November 2011 study of U.S. Internet users for Broadcom, a semiconductor manufacturer, reported that 87% of respondents consumed more than 11 hours of online content per week and at least 54% percent said they consume over 21 hours of online content per week:

Content marketing is a critical component of a comprehensive law firm marketing program, and there are many avenues you can use to spread your content to potential clients, including your website, blog, online directories like Avvo and JDSupra, and social media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google+.

With all these venues craving constant content feeds, how do marketing-savvy attorneys feed the beast? Here are some tips:

1. Plan ahead. Brainstorm a list of topics that would appeal to your target audience. Review your website analytics to see what pages of your site are getting the most visits, which can help stimulate ideas. Dig up speeches and presentations you’ve made over the last few years and repurpose those for articles, press releases and blog posts. Subscribe to blogs and news feeds that cover your practice area for ideas.

2. Make it interesting. Nielsen research shows that most people spend about a minute on any given web page, so strive to make your content easily digestible in that timeframe. Use short paragraphs and subheads to keep readers’ attention. Punch it up with references to current events or pop culture to make your content timely. Include client success stories (not using real names, of course).

3. Optimize your content. Be sure to optimize your content for search by including your keywords and keyword phrases in your title, subheads and image file names. 

4. Create backlinks. Sprinkle your content with links back to your website, blog, social media profiles or previous posts to create backlinks, which help boost your search engine ranking. Comment on other articles, blogs or forums with links back to a relevant post you’ve written, but be sure your comment adds value or it may be viewed as spam. 

5. Go social.  Promote your videos, posts, articles, press releases and other content on all your social network channels – not only on your own Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter page, but also through submissions to the discussion pages of groups you’ve joined.