Peter Boyd is a Florida attorney who founded PaperStreet. He has helped over 1,500 law firms with their websites, content and marketing.
Partners in law firms that have not added a blog to their website often wonder if they should. Those who only post blogs sporadically sometimes feel like they need to post more regularly. But they’re not sure if it’s worth the effort.
Legal marketing firms recommend blogging for a variety of reasons. But these firms also frequently provide blogging services to firms, so their opinion may appear biased.
When deciding whether and how often to blog—and on what topics—it is helpful to consider some statistics.
It may seem hard to believe, but as recently as 2018, the American Bar Association (ABA)reports that 23% of law firms surveyed still did not have a website. By-2021, that number had decreased to 6%. That means nearly all law firms now have the ability to post a blog.
The internet used to be accessed by consumers on their desktop and laptop computers, but now the majority of online searches are conducted on cell phones, according to statistics released by Statcounter.com
Nearly 53% of all searches in the U.S. are conducted on mobile devices.
Despite the above fact, 26% of law firms report that they do not know whether their website is optimized for viewing on a handheld device such as a cell phone. This is critical because search engines won’t rank sites high in search results if those sites are not mobile-friendly. Just as important, all those potential clients looking on their phones may refuse to consider a firm if it is hard to read a blog or other information on their screens.
According to the ABA, 59% of law firm websites include articles on legal topics written by law firm staff as opposed to an outside consultant. However, the report does not indicate whether the staff members writing those articles are attorneys, paralegals, or marketing personnel.
While firms may include legal content geared toward consumer education on their websites, little more than a third of firms have established a blog to regularly produce informational articles. Only 37% of firms reported establishing a blog, while 57% of firms report that they do not have a blog, and 6% of firms responding reported that they did not know whether they had a blog. This indicates that if these firms do have a blog, it does not feature prominently on the firm’s site or in the marketing strategy.
The vast majority of firms that produce blogs report that they do so to cultivate new clients and strengthen relationships with current clients. That is the primary goal for 88% of law firms reporting.
One of the biggest surprises revealed in the ABA statistics is that nearly 60% of firms that blog do so because they “enjoy writing and outreach.” So despite the fact that a blog is a proven way of improving search engine optimization or accomplishing other objectives, many attorneys write for the sheer joy of writing and communicating.
Another common reason law firms cite for producing a blog is career development and networking (47%). Only 35% report that they produce a blog to improve the search engine rankings for their website.
Overall, only 5% of reporting attorneys say that they personally keep a blog for professional purposes. Solo practitioners are much more likely to do so than attorneys in big firms. 11% of solo practitioners maintain a blog, while only 4-6% of lawyers in firms with two or more lawyers produce their own personal blogs as distinguished from a firm blog.
It may not be surprising that 62% of law firms with 100 or more lawyers produce a blog. Firms of that size have significant resources to produce regular legal content. What is surprising is that only 1/3 of firms with 10-49 lawyers report having a blog. This percentage is very close to the percentage of small firms with 2-9 lawyers, 29% of which report producing a blog.
Statistics show that social media is more popular with law firms than blogging. 86% of firms reporting to the ABA said that their firm has a presence on social media, with LinkedIn being the most popular site.
The fact that the majority of law firms do not produce blogs and those that do are more likely to write blogs for fun rather than to improve SEO shows that many firms do not understand how to harness the power of blogging for marketing purposes. Blogging is an easy and cost-effective way to add quality content to a law firm’s website, which is the best way to improve search engine rankings according to Google.
Law firms that want to consider adding a blog but do not want to devote firm resources to the task may want to consider working with a marketing firm to produce regular content for a nominal fee.