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How to Keep Your Law Firm's Online Content Evergreen

If you had to choose between evergreen content and content that’s constantly seasonal or based on one-time events, it’s always best to choose evergreen content. This is timeless content that stays relevant for years to come. From a digital marketing and content marketing perspective, you want to have content that drives traffic even after trends or significant events pass.

So how do law firms keep their content evergreen? Because the law rarely changes, many legal topics can be considered timeless. However, this isn’t always the case as factors in your legal field may change. Here are some tips to manage your content and ensure it stands the test of time. 

Tips for Maintaining Evergreen Content

Check if these tips are applicable to your area of law and the content you want to add to your law firm’s website. 

1) Know the Difference Between Trends and Evergreen Traffic

Even in the law industry, online content should be a balance of informative industry content and a bit of search engine optimization (SEO). So when choosing your topics, you may use keyword research tools to find trending topics in your field. When you come across a potential topic, try to distinguish between a viral topic and an evergreen topic. 

Viral topics have a high search volume. However, they’re linked to something trending – like a scandal or a short-term event – so that search volume isn’t going to last forever. After it peaks, traffic will drop quickly and significantly. Evergreen topics, on the other hand, also have a high search volume initially. However, after it peaks, it still has a significant amount of traffic. 

Some of the ways to tell the difference include:

  • Using analysis tools to look at its history
  • Angling your content so that the topic also targets other evergreen keywords
  • Look at your existing content and observe the traffic of articles that cover similar topics

2) Avoid Dates and Times 

Avoid dating your content as this can shorten the lifespan of your article. Adding dates and times to your article can harm its ability to stay timeless for a number of reasons:

  • Users will stop searching for topics tied to a certain date
  • Relative time indicators like “Last week” or “This year” can make the content feel outdated
  • People are searching for updated content, so they may choose content made later because they assume your content is outdated. 

Aside from dates and times, avoid creating content that’s likely to be irrelevant years later. For example, writing about the changes in legal proceedings during the pandemic won’t be relevant in a few years. You could write it if it benefits users at the moment, but don’t expect this to be an article that will pull in users in the long run. 

3) Cater Your Content to Everyday Users

Writing your content in simplified language is an effective way to make your content accessible. It’s also a good way to keep your content evergreen. In your law field, there will always be potential clients looking for information, so keeping your content accessible to beginners can help you reach a wider audience. Some ways to cater your content to everyday users:

  • Use simple words and shorter sentences.
  • Structure your sentences in an active voice. If applicable, create content in the second person to make it resonate with the reader. 
  • Break down your content into smaller paragraphs.
  • Minimize the use of complex legal jargon, especially those not used outside of your industry. 
  • For technical law topics, create straightforward content.

Content that meets these standards tends to be more accessible to everyday users. Depending on your law field, these could mean people outside your profession or industry that need your services but don’t necessarily understand it. And evergreen topics that are easy to read are more likely to drive your target audience to your website. 

4) Use Your Social Media Platforms

On top of users finding your content on search engine results pages, you can also use your social media following to keep your content relevant. If you have a social media calendar, you can schedule promotional posts that link your followers to your article. 

By creating evergreen content, there will always be a target audience interested in your content. You can also use internal links across other articles with high traffic to drive your users toward your content. 

5) Update Your Content Regularly

If you find a potentially evergreen topic but need to use statistical data, you may have to update your content every few years to ensure statistics and studies cited remain relevant. As a general rule of thumb, ensure that any sources, statistics, or data aren’t more than five years old. If they are, you may need to either find more updated resources or double-check if your content is still relevant and worth updating. 

On top of keeping your content evergreen, updating your content has some digital marketing advantages. You can update your keyword strategy and update your publication date, which can boost your online traffic. 

Why Is Evergreen Content Important?

Some of the main reasons businesses in the legal industry need evergreen content include these three key features. 

1) Boost Your Search Rankings

You want to have content that’s steadily driving traffic to your website. If your content is mostly viral articles with a short lifespan, there will come a point where it doesn’t benefit your website in terms of SEO. And that’s because no one is looking for that article. 

Evergreen content boosts your search rankings for a number of reasons:

  • Drives organic traffic to your website
  • Attracts users at every stage of their buyer’s journey
  • Establishes your business as an authoritative figure in your industry
  • Leverages your position as a qualified professional, compared to other content written by someone who isn’t in the legal industry
  • Reduced bounce rates

2) Cost-Effective Content Marketing

Generating traffic organically is more cost-effective compared to pay-per-click campaigns and other ad strategies. With ads, you have to pay to get your business in view of a general demographic. However, there’s no guarantee that you’re reaching the right people. 

With ranking content, you’re reaching an audience that’s searching for your particular content. And because you’re raking in organic traffic, you’re reducing the long-term costs necessary for steady traffic to your website. 

3) Drive Your Leads and Conversions

Most businesses will see customers at any of the three stages of their buyer’s journey. If they’re identifying a problem, browsing for solutions, and comparing their options, evergreen content can push your users further down their journey and convince them to get in touch with you.

Evergreen Content That’s Made for Your Website

While your website can have both evergreen content and seasonal topics, you should focus your efforts on building traffic-driving content to improve your visibility, get users to your website, and convince them to take the next step and reach out to your firm. By carefully considering your topics and the way your content is written, you can see significant traffic heading to your website for informative content.

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