Digital White Papers

I L T A W H I T E P A P E R | M A R K E T I N G T E C H N O L O G Y 15 C O N T E N T T H A T K I L L S : H O W T O C R E A T E S T R A T E G I C A L L Y T A R G E T E D C O N T E N T T O A T T R A C T B U S I N E S S There are many ways to slice and dice data in content research, but here's what we've found most effective. First, we look at the average search volume for the attorney's identified goal search terms using keyword planning tools. Are people actually using the search terms the attorney wants to come up for? If so, how many people are searching? Is there a similar search term that has a higher average search volume? Next, we look at competition. How competitive are these search terms? What are our chances of beating the current results for that search term? Depending on the results, perhaps we need to adjust our focus. A search term with high search volume or competition may be too broad for the audience we are targeting. By settling on a more niche search term, we may be sacrificing higher traffic but gaining a more strategic audience. This is a good time to remember that concrete business development goals, like opening new matters, should far outweight vanity metrics, such as a high number of pageviews. it's a trend that has outlived its trendiness. As proven through analytics and numerous case studies, web content is the most effective method of establishing an attorney as a thought leader and demonstrating her expertise. Where the narrative of a bio or a service page description tells your audience what your attorney does, a smart, strategic piece of content is her chance to show her audience what she knows and how she thinks. In short, attorneys define their digital reputation by the content they create. However, in order for content to do all of these things, it must be valuable content. To be clear, a potential topic for content shouldn't necessarily be dictated by the attorney's conception of "valuable content." Many attorneys are tempted to simply write about the latest appellate decision that came down in their practice areas, or to repurpose a research memo written for a client. While convenient, these topics are driven by the attorney's immediate concerns, not those of his audience. So how do we create valuable content? It starts with an understanding of your content creator's business development goals. • What audience do you want to be in front of? • What industry or geography do you want to appeal to? • What search terms do you want to show up for? With this information, you can reverse-engineer the content and devise a strate so that your creator is writing something that her audience wants to read instead of writing something that the attorney wants to write. And because the content will respond to a demand in the marketplace for that specific information, the attorney or practice area will get much more benefit for the precious (and billable) time spent creating the content. Creating Valuable Content: The Process To get attorneys to think about strate prior to pen hitting the paper, we created a two-page worksheet that asks attorneys to think through their content goals and how they align with their business development goals. The worksheet takes about five to 10 minutes to complete, and then the attorney submits it to marketing for analysis. To get attorneys to think about strate prior to pen hitting the paper, we created a two-page worksheet that asks attorneys to think through their content goals and how they align with their business development goals.

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