By now it’s a sure bet that you are well aware of the necessity of publishing only the highest quality content on your legal website. Your content must be interesting, compelling, and must give the reader something of value. When your company engages in content strategy, however, it goes a bit beyond the words on the page and encompasses the challenges all sites face from web pages, mobile apps, print materials and social media. You want to ensure that all your efforts to publish only the highest quality content are paying off for your business as well as to your visitors—the ones you hope will eventually become clients. It’s easy to find your site has gotten bogged down in strategy issues, and although most of these mistakes can be relatively easy to correct, you must make it a priority or your site will take a hit.
Reacting Without Planning
While it can sometimes feel that you are on an endless treadmill where your content is concerned, simply trying your best to keep up with your firms brand campaigns, projects and new services, it’s important that you do more than simply react to all the demands being thrown at you. Of course you also must respond to user requests as well as staying up with and responding appropriately to your competitor’s actions. It’s easy to get overwhelmed, so take a deep breath, sit down with your team, and actually map out a strategy which allows you to plan your content for the future of your firm. You will always be busy—probably excessively busy—but a plan can keep you from getting behind and shifting into reaction mode. Remember to involve all those in your organization who are a part of the content process otherwise tasks will be duplicated and there will be an overall lack of quality control.
Expecting Miracles
Of course the content on your pages is extremely valuable to your firm and to your potential clients however it can be difficult to show that value as a clear return on investment. Of course you—and every other website owner—want a fast, indisputable manner to determine whether the investment in content is worth the effort. Determining your content’s ROI is much more complex, and requires both your time and effort. You must first define exactly what it is you expect your content to achieve then ask yourself whether those goals are being met. What is that particular achievement worth to your firm?
Add in the cost to your firm of creating the content and regular maintenance of the content and calculate the final cost, although it’s unlikely you will come up with an absolute number since evaluating content is a bit subjective. Measuring your content with an analytics program alone will never give you the complete picture of how your content is doing, so think about asking your peers or external content experts to give you an evaluation of your site’s content. Most experts believe that every hour you spend in analysis of your site will save many, many more hours of content creation, delivery and maintenance.
Focusing on Quantity Rather Than Quality
Yes, you should post often, particularly if you have a legal blog. It’s extremely important to keep your content fresh if you want your clients to keep returning for more, however don’t fall into the trap of believing that publishing anything—so long as you publish often—is better than publishing nothing. This is simply not true. First, more content obviously costs more to create, takes more time for maintenance and can actually subject your users to information overload. Scale back and ensure each and every piece of content you publish is first and foremost high-quality information that your users will find highly relevant. Then ask yourself if each particular block of content supports one of your firm’s primary business objectives, if it fills a distinct need of your readers, and if there is a person available to maintain it. The content which survives these rules will, in the end, be much more valuable than content posted simply to post. Plan wisely for every piece of your site’s content, then keep planning—remember why your user is interacting with your site in the first place, and never underestimate the power of your content.
