Running a legal blog is a lot of work. First, you need to watch out for keywords, trends, and news. Then, you have to do some research, outline your ideas, write, and edit your draft. Finally, you need to pay attention to your audience and how they respond to the new content and plan the next ones.
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If you do not see improvement in traffic or rankings, all that work would’ve gone to waste. Worse, it might be the beginning of a downward trend, and you need to address the cause ASAP.
So, when your ROI unfortunately stagnates, you want to address the issue as soon as possible.
1. You’re Rushing Your Content
Since Lawyer SEO revolves around content, bloggers feel pressured to churn out as much content as possible. As a result, they rush through the writing process and forget to proofread, fact-check, or optimize their manuscripts.
Remember, the SERPs rank pages of the highest quality first. Therefore, search algorithms strive to give users the most relevant, updated, and informative results. If the quality of your content slips, you’ll end up with several but low-ranking pages that don’t get a lot of traffic.
In short, it’s much better to have fewer but more high-quality pages that rank high. Not to mention, blogs that post as often as multiple times a day likely have a whole team of content writers and editors.
2. You’re Not Matching Your Competitors
You are competing with thousands of blog posts discussing the same topics. So if your content quality doesn’t keep up, other pages can overtake yours.
It’s understandable for rookies not to have as much experience with content creation and SEO. However, most bloggers will learn to improve their content, keywords, and optimizations as time goes on. If you’re not improving, your content won’t climb up the ranks.
Remember, there’s a reason why the top pages rank high. Google and other search engines stick to an algorithm, which has a list of ranking factors to sort through millions of pages. Hence, if a page is at the top of the SERPs, that means Google considers it the best among all pages competing for the same keywords.
The best way to go about this is to look up your keywords and study what the highest-ranking pages have. Take note of everything, including the content itself, the keywords, page design, and CTAs. Then, compare them to your content and see what they’re doing that you aren’t.
3. You’re Not Posting Consistently
Consistency is a crucial factor in SEO and content marketing. Not only should you be coming out with high-quality content, but you also need to do so consistently. This is the best way to gradually build an audience and climb up the SERP ranking.
Although you should avoid rushing your content, it’s equally vital that you set a posting schedule and stick with it. Getting more content out means more chances to rank pages. So if you want steady growth in traffic and rankings, you want to make sure you aren’t abandoning your blog for extended periods.
Not to mention, returning audiences are crucial when you’re trying to build readership. Readers interested in your content will regularly come back for more, so you want them to have something new every week or so.
It’s best to stick to a content calendar, considering all the research, writing, editing, and proofreading you need to do. To avoid rushing your content, you need to set reasonable deadlines for each required task. So, if it takes you a week or two to finish a new legal blog post, you should stick to that schedule and do it consistently. You’re not rushing, but you’re also making sure you’re producing high-quality legal content at a steady pace.
4. Your Blogs Aren’t Getting Indexed
Blogs need to be indexed for them to get ranked on the SERPs. So if your blogs aren’t getting ranked, people won’t find them in the search results.
There are several reasons why your blogs may not be indexed, and they are usually tied to content quality and site structure. Some of these factors can include:
- Your pages are duplicates or plagiarized
- Your website or pages don’t deliver a good user experience
- Your website isn’t mobile-friendly
- Search engines can’t crawl your page due to redirect loops, HTML, or plugins
- You have “NoIndex” and “NoFollow” tags
- You stuffed keywords or used blackhat SEO tactics
- Your content is thin, uninformative, or generally low-quality
Not getting indexed is a red flag, so there’s likely a much bigger problem with your content or website.
5. Your Keywords Are Losing Search Volumes
SERPs rankings can change. It could either be because of an algorithm update, new content, or just evolving interests.
Remember, keyword search volumes indicate how many people use a specific set of words to execute a search. Hence, general keywords are high-volume, while longer and more specific keywords are slightly lower-volume.
That said, search volumes change for multiple reasons. The most likely to fluctuate would be seasonal keywords. For example, keywords like “holiday presents” will drop off in search volumes sometime during the year’s second quarter.
In some cases, new trends or news stories pop up, increasing the volumes for keywords related to them. This is common for breaking news stories like COVID-19 or new controversial laws. This could also happen for new products, songs, movies, and so on. In short, interest shoots up and wanes for whatever is the most talked about at the moment.
Regardless of the reason, you should go back to older blogs and reoptimize your keywords. This means keeping track of your keywords and looking for possible changes in volume and search algorithms.
Bottom-line
Running a legal blog for content marketing for attorneys is a lot of work. However, it also brings excellent ROI, bringing in more traffic, boosting lead generation, and increasing conversions. In addition, all the work you put into law firm marketing contributes to an increase in your law firm’s client base.
So, make sure you’re continuously optimizing and improving your strategies to keep the ROI going. Stagnation essentially renders all the hard work you put into it useless.
Author’s Bio
JC Serrano is the founder of 1000Attorneys.com, one of the very few private enterprises certified to process lawyer referrals by the California State Bar. His marketing strategies have continuously evolved since 2005, incorporating ever-changing SEO strategies into lawyerleadmachine.com.