How to write your law blog content for robots

When you write your law blog, you expect human readers. But you may overlook that non-humans also read your blog posts. Bots, those search engine creepy crawlies that spend every nanosecond indexing content, need to be considered if prospective human clients, presumably your target market, are ever going to see your blog posts.

Because there is a lot of content out there, bots (or spiders, crawlers, or robots) can’t index every word. They prioritize content and index only that which fits within their algorithmic rules. Thus, implementing some basic search engine optimization, or “SEO”, into your writing is advisable. Otherwise, your content could get buried deep in search rankings, never to be seen again.

Let’s suppose that you write solid content, but include analogy or instructive metaphors in your law blog content to add interest. The literal-minded bots won’t grasp that complexity even if a human reader would understand that you are squarely on topic. Your writing might have flair, but would almost certainly suffer in search rankings and fail to reach your audience.

Given that you are competing with a world of other blogs (over 76 million just on WordPress) it seems wise to take any indexing advantage you can get. One of the best things you can do to help your SEO is to add links to your post and to be so darned interesting that others link to you as an information source. Even linking to yourself, such as to previous posts, to a page of your website, or to a landing page can aid your ranking.

Just as each page of your website should feature its own set of keywords, each blog post should have specific keywords that associate with a page of your website or a landing page, known as “cornerstone content” . A page with cornerstone content acts as a hub for a certain set of keywords.

So, to help your next law blog post improve its search ranking:

  • Use the same words and phrases as your keywords that prospective clients would use when they search for legal assistance. This helps your content pop as most relevant in search results. For more guidance on how to judge the value of a keyword, the Moz “Beginners Guide to SEO” is a useful resource.
  • Put your keywords in the title and at the top of your post. Be clear and be consistent.
  • Sprinkle keywords throughout the post, but don’t overdo it. Bots hate keyword cramming and can get vindictive enough to ban you from indexes.
  • Make keywords as specific as possible to acquire the most targeted search traffic.
  • Bots have improved in recognising keyword synonyms, but be sure they are straight-forward.
  • Write authoritatively (fundamental to any good law blog) so that others link to you as an information source.
  • Cite valuable information from other top-notch websites or blogs and link to them within your law blog post.
  • Have keywords of a website page or landing page act as a cornerstone for your post content.

If you achieve at least some of these objectives in each post of your law blog, you will help your content reach more prospective clients.