About

These days, marketing and SEO for professional service providers is all about content.

Its helpfulness. Its quality. Its trustworthiness.

Over and over, Google has focused its core search algorithm updates on the value of creating quality web content that’s helpful to users. And it’s clear that Google rewards those who create such content with better search results.

We’re now at the point where creating and sharing expert, authoritative, and trustworthy web content can be said to be the definition of good SEO.

For lawyers, law firms, and other professional service providers, effective marketing is all about accompanying potential clients on their journey from understanding their legal, accounting or business issue(s) to securing effective counsel and resolving the matter.

The best marketing helps a professional find their ideal clients by first helping any and all possible clients find the advisor that’s right for them.

How? By creating and delivering marketing content in the form of blog posts, case studies, films, whitepapers, web copy, and email that attracts those you most hope to serve. (And, when necessary, pushing away those you don’t.)

For lawyers, accountants & consultants, marketing with content—or “content marketing—”is never just about “the sale”, or converting a prospect into a paying client.

It’s about delivering real value by demonstrating empathy, expertise, and trustworthiness—each and every time a prospect (or client) engages with you online.

Actually, despite its name, content marketing is more about the audience—identifying it, empathizing with it, serving it, growing it—than it is about the content itself.

 

You became a lawyer because you wanted to do justice—those unable to help themselves while making an honest living. (Not to be a salesperson or internet expert.)

You defend the innocent. Ensure the integrity of good contracts. Protect property rights. Find for the refugee. Seek recovery and recompense for the injured. Help mothers and fathers protect & provide for their children. Liberate the wrongly imprisoned.

And most of you became lawyers so you could do just that. Not just make money.

To do justice, you must first find clients to serve. Or they must find you.

Apart from actually practicing law, acquiring a flow of new clients is the biggest challenge small firm lawyers face. It’s in the top 2 for those in mid-size and large firms.

And not just any client—quality clients: You’re looking for those who you’re best suited to help. Those who can and will pay your fees. Who will send referrals.

You must balance client work with all the other work associated with running a business. And much of that work involves marketing.

Sure, you can do much of it yourself—writing your own blog posts, case studies, law summaries, and social media. Doing a certain amount of that work yourself can make sense. At least for a while.

But what do you do when you’re just too busy? When you realize your time is better spent serving existing clients, not attracting more? When you know you have to find new clients but just can’t find the time?

After all, clients aren’t the other people in your life who need your care and attention.

 

I help busy lawyers like you plan, write, and deliver marketing content that engages the clients you hope to serve.

Am I a good fit for your practice? Only you can judge. Here’s what might make me right to serve your practice…

I have a track record of content marketing success. I’m an accomplished marketer with a pedigree of strategic content marketing, creation, and delivery. I’ve been both marketing counsel and writer for highly-skilled accountants and management consultants.

I have a mastery of Google’s search quality guidelines. I understand the higher level of scrutiny that comes with creating “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL) content, and the import of expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (EAT) to every page.

I understand the professional responsibility of lawyers and have worked in highly regulated industries. Word choice is important: superlatives are a no-no. A lawyer calling him- or herself an “expert” or “the best” is not a good idea. Lots of words have specific legal meaning and cannot be easily swapped out for synonyms.

I know-what-I-don’t-know about the law (but, with exposure and study, I work across a variety of legal practice areas.) In law school, you don’t learn laws. Thee are simply too many of them to study—and vary widely by jurisdiction. Instead, you learn how to “think like a lawyer”. I have a healthy understanding of how much I don’t know. But I’m curious, precise, and a quick learner.

A law school graduate (Pitt Law, 1995), I’ve spent my career serving clients and marketing the services of professionals who do—first as a client-facing communicator at a management consulting firm, later as a marketer of HR-, deals-, and strategy-related consulting.

While I chose not to practice law (entering management consulting upon passing the bar), creating written content—whether for employees, management, the C-Suite, or purchasing decision-makers—has always been central to my daily work.