Schedule a FREE Internet Marketing Audit

149 – The Ten Golden Rules of Content Creation for Law Firms by David Arato and Jay Berkowitz

I’ve seen too many law firms miss the mark with content that sounds smart—but doesn’t connect or convert or trigger free SEO traffic. That’s why David Arato and I teamed up to outline the 10 Golden Rules of Content Creation for Law Firms. Drawing from both of our backgrounds in law (David was the attorney) and digital marketing, we created a framework that helps firms write in a way that Google understands, clients relate to, and fellow attorneys respect. We covered everything from avoiding legal jargon to using AI-friendly formats, all with a focus on practical strategies that actually work. Whether you’re writing content yourself or reviewing what your agency delivers, these rules will help you create with more clarity, more purpose, and better results.

Key Topics

04:41 – Golden Rule #1 – Avoid Legal Jargon – The importance of writing for your client and matching how people actually search.

08:07 – Golden Rule #2 – Answer Questions – How answering client FAQs is now the most valuable SEO tactic and how Google’s AI Overviews and PAA (People Also Ask) results reward this strategy.

15:37 – Golden Rule #3 – Leverage Multiple Content Formats – How to cascade one video into blogs, social posts, and Google Business Profile in order to boost reach and ranking.

17:52 – Golden Rule #4 – Create Educational Resources – Why top-of-funnel content earns trust before clients are ready to hire and how education content builds long-term value.

19:39 – Golden Rule #5 – Use Advanced SEO Strategies – Learn how to use long-tail keywords for better ranking and lead quality, pruning underperforming webpages and balancing content for three target audiences.

27:09 – Golden Rule #6 – Humanize Your Firm – Using personal stories, community involvement, and first-person language.

28:24 – Golden Rule #7 – Address Timely Legal Issues – The importance of sharing your take on timely issues to show expertise.

29:50 – Golden Rule #8 – Include Calls to Action in Every Piece of Content – Placing CTAs to capture leads without being pushy and avoid losing leads in the moment.

31:24 – Golden Rule #9 – Develop Consistent Brand Message and Voices Across all Content – How brand consistency across your site and social media increases trust and recognition.

34:16 – Golden Rule #10 – Implement the Easy Book Strategy – Turning your blog content into a professional ebook that builds authority and grows your list.

38:14 – Jay’s rapid fire questions for David re: technology, apps, books and sports.

Resources Mentioned

Books:

  • The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey – https://a.co/d/4eSjoaU
  • How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie – https://a.co/d/4eSjoaU

Podcasts:

Apps/Tools:

About our Guest:

David Arato, JD is the founder of Lexicon Legal Content, a content marketing agency specializing in high-quality, SEO-driven legal content for law firms across the U.S. and Canada. With a background in law and over a decade of experience in legal writing and digital marketing, David helps firms craft content that ranks, builds authority, and drives results. He holds a J.D. from Saint Louis University School of Law and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Missouri–St. Louis. Based in Breckenridge, Colorado, David is known for blending legal expertise with strategic content insight.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidarato/

https://www.lexiconlegalcontent.com 

About Jay Berkowitz:

Jay Berkowitz is a best-selling author and popular keynote speaker. Mr. Berkowitz managed marketing departments at: Coca-Cola, Sprint and McDonald’s Restaurants, and he is the Founder and CEO of Ten Golden Rules,  a digital marketing agency specialized in working with attorneys.

Mr. Berkowitz is the author of Advanced Internet Marketing for Law Firms, The Ten Golden Rules of Online Marketing and 10 Free Internet Marketing Strategies that went to #1 on Amazon.  He is the host of the Ten Golden Rules of Internet Marketing Webinar and Podcast. He has been profiled by the Wall Street Journal, The Business Journals and FOX Business TV.

Mr. Berkowitz was selected for membership as a TITAN for Elite Digital Marketing Agencies, he is the recipient of a SOFIE Award for Most Effective use of Emerging Media, and a Special BERNAY’s Award.

Connect with Ten Golden Rules

Subscribe to Ten Golden Rules on YouTube

Check out our webinars on TenGoldenRules.com

Connect with Ten Golden Rules on LinkedIn

Follow Ten Golden Rules on Facebook

Connect with Jay Berkowitz on LinkedIn

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcast review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.

Transcript
David Arato:

Leverage multiple content formats. When you create a piece of content, whether it's video or text or anything else, you can use that content to create content in various formats and expand your reach exponentially.

Jay Berkowitz:

Yeah, and I mentioned earlier that we use this concept called cascading content, and I talked about the video where one of our attorneys answered the question, what to do after you get hit by an Uber and that video goes on YouTube, but as David suggested, we can use that content in many different ways. So the content, the video, also goes on the website, on a blog, and we write a blog about the video, explaining the video, because Google can read the words from a video using AI, they transcribe the video, and they analyze videos for SEO purposes, and they understand the words. So we're going to write a blog post about the video to create additional words and additional SEO search engine optimization, but then we also use that content on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and we point that content back to the blog to get more information. Another great place people forget about one of the most important assets you own on the internet. I get technically, you don't own it. You lease it is your Google Maps or your GBP, Google business profile, and so we add all those videos each week. We generally do post a video each week for each client. Those videos go on Google Maps and link back to the blog post or the website with the more detail about that question and answer. And when I say it's the most important asset, one of the most important assets you own that Google business profile, Google Maps results come up before SEO results. So you've got to constantly be optimizing and updating your Google profile, and so as David suggested, leveraging multiple content formats. Once you create that article or that video, you want to use it in as many places as possible, and customize it for each of those places, right? Don't just drop the article on Facebook that doesn't make any sense. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, whatever time this podcast finds you.

Jay Berkowitz:y. And we're trying to get to:David Arato:Sure. Graduated law school in:Jay Berkowitz:esome. I didn't realize since:David Arato:

avoid legal jargon. Sorry,

Jay Berkowitz:

sorry. Jay, wasn't sure who was going to pitch it. You go first. I'll go second. Okay, avoid legal jargon. So go ahead. How do you express that?

David Arato:

I think the important thing to realize, especially if you're an attorney trying to create your own content, that most of your time is spent communicating with other attorneys and with judges, both verbally and written. Yeah, and as a result, you're steeped in this language that we all went we went to law school. We learned how to speak this way. We learned how to write in a certain way that doesn't necessarily resonate with your clients. First of all, you're too strong, right? That's right. And secondly, it doesn't, certainly doesn't resonate with Google. When creating written content or any format of content, it's best to avoid the legalese and lawyer speak that we're also accustomed to in the legal profession. I

Jay Berkowitz:

want to tell a quick story, and I'll try and do this super quick. We got a summer intern seven or eight years ago. That was my tennis buddy's kid, and he comes in, and then I realized, like, he doesn't know PowerPoint, he doesn't know Excel on his first date, because he was a 10th grade intern. He's a high school intern, and we were used to college interns, so I said, come to a meeting. He comes to the meeting, and after the meeting, he says, Can you explain what the client was asking about? What's the difference between cost per lead and cost per sale? And I'm like, Oh, great. My intern doesn't know PowerPoint, and now he's going to ask me a million questions. So a light bulb went off, and I said, Look, I'm going to whiteboard this for you. I'm going to explain it to you. You're going to take notes, and you're going to write a blog. And so over the summer, Matt, the intern, wrote about 25 blog posts, and about seven or eight blog posting. I was sitting with someone, and they asked me a question about websites, and I said, oh my, my intern just wrote a great blog on that. Here's the blog. Why don't you read it? And she read this thing, and she said, Oh my God, that's so great. I never understood it so clearly. And I realized this was written at a 10th grade level, yep, literally. And of course, I edit it and correct it, but writing in a 10th grade level is, I think, the best example I can give of avoid legal jargon, and they always say you should write at a 10th grade level. And here's like a pro tip, you can take any article or any writing, drop it in chat GPT and say, rewrite this at a 10th grade level or seventh grade level, absolutely, then humanize it again, but that's a great tip for avoiding legal jargon, right? Like a 10th grader

David Arato:

Jay, I'd like to piggyback on that just a bit. We recently had an issue with a client in Texas who practice in family law, and they had a bunch of content that they were trying to rank for child custody. The attorney rightfully so. Said, child custody doesn't exist in Texas. It's called conservatorship. But again, using that legal jargon, conservatorship, rather than child custody, isn't good a for SEO, B, your clients are not searching parenting time or conservatorship. Your clients are searching for child custody, because that's what lay people say

Jay Berkowitz:

so you may describe it, define it, yes. Include conservatorship, but you want to write in consumer jargon. All right, yes. Number two is answer questions. And I'll lead off on this one, because this is one of my main passion points, one of the great new opportunities for SEO that we've actually been working on for four or five years. Google basically rewrote their algorithms, and they targeted question and answers. They basically can understand human language. They rewrote the algorithms to understand semantics, and so we've been answering client questions for the last four or five years, and I'm going to share a screen. I'll describe it really well if you're on the audio version of this, but super quickly. I just want people to see what I'm talking about. So there's a brand new result in Google searches now, and it's the AI overview result. Basically it's like a chat GPT answer, and Google's delivering this 30% of the times. And I'm sure everybody knows what I'm talking about by now, but on the screen, we see a search for, can you get laid off while on light duty? And the AI overviews, Google basically compiles a result, but what Google does is they show the websites that they used to write that answer, and our client, Jeff McDonald, comes up with an answer to that question and a link to his website, and they used his website to compile the answer. Another example is PAA. It's what we call the industry, but it's a people also ask questions, and I'm showing a search for Is It Worth doing after a car accident? There's two Pay Per Click ads, and then the first result that Google uses, something industry calls a Rich Snippet, is my client, Brian Garrett, and he has the best answer to that question. Now Google's also showing a lot of PAs people also ask, and they're showing the other variants that question. So what we've been doing is our client has been answering questions in the form of videos, and we shoot a video and he answers a question. I'm showing another screenshot of the YouTube page where he's answering a question, what happens if an Uber or Lyft driver hits you? And we optimize that YouTube. Video, put it on YouTube, then we use the video and a blog post on the website to answer a question, thoroughly answer a question, right with the blog and the video that answers the question. We also use those videos in other media. We'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute, but I'm going to stop sharing again. I'm just going to explain why this is so valuable and so important. So basically, what you want to do is answer questions, because people are asking questions. Now, as I explained, we used to search like car accident attorney, and then we get like all these car accident attorneys from across the country. Then we'd refine our search Car Accident Attorney near me or car accident attorney Boca Raton, because I live in Boca razone, Google's more sophisticated now, so we can ask questions like, What do I do if I get hit by an Uber so the new SEO opportunity is to answer questions in your blogs, answer Questions in your frequently asked questions page and use this approach to come up in what are called the Zero click Results. And a zero click result is a chat GPT answer or an AI overviews answer. And that's a new industry term where people are not going to click, but there is an opportunity to be featured in those articles and get a click. So actually, the zero clicks are leading to a lot of clicks. David, I went a little long, but why don't you expand on answer questions? Well,

David Arato:

that was extraordinarily comprehensive. I would add that answering those questions, I think, inherently, is also optimizing for Voice Search, because as Google becomes more conversational, and as we are now asking questions more in the way we speak, this is how we are also looking at optimizing written content for Voice Search. To your point, no one says these words into their Alexa or their Google voice assistant find Car Accident Attorney near me. Now that was, of course, a Google search 10 years ago. Now, people say, who's the best car accident attorney in my area or in Boca? Raton, to your point, by answering those questions, you're also cross optimizing for other forms of search.

Jay Berkowitz:

And voice search is Siri Alexa, Google. Voice like we all know how to ask a question of the AI. Voice, assist, right? Hopefully. And you also talked about data and statistics. You want to expand on that a little

David Arato:

bit Sure, I think that people often, especially at the top of the funnel, who know that they have some sort of a legal issue or anything issue, frankly, but we're in legal so let's stick there. We'll be looking for information, and as a result, I think including information in your content will make that content more responsive to informational top of funnel awareness, building queries, getting your firm and your website in front of people who, again, may not be at the conversion stage, but you're building awareness of your brand to people with a legal problem that eventually they will realize needs To be solved by, hopefully not them by an attorney. And

Jay Berkowitz:

again, back to the AI overviews and the chat GPT results and perplexity and Claude and all the LLM large language model results, having statistics, particularly having unique statistics. And if you can publish an article like the seven most dangerous intersections in my county, and you can get six or 10 different media sources to link to that study on your website. That study becomes known as an authority, E, A, T is a term in the industry. I'll let David talk about that. But basically what you're doing is you're publishing statistics, making that those statistics and authority on the internet, and then the AI overviews, chat, GPT will feature your website,

David Arato:

I think also, if you can crunch those statistics in a way that creates new data, even if it's simple as year over year, accidents at this intersection have increased by X percentage or amount Google, especially now in the AI, in the age of AI, content is going to look at that as fresh content that hasn't just been regurgitated by an LLM, you're adding something to the conversation which is going to increase your chances of ranking. Well,

Jay Berkowitz:

yeah, and a lot of times we'll hire college students to do run that, do that survey and create a 30 page study on a topic like the most dangerous intersections. You had a couple other tips for writing for AI overviews. PAA, chat. GPT,

David Arato:

sure. I mean, this is a very evolving area. It seems to me that the industry guidance that is the best practices involve answering the question posed in the top of the content. I recently read an article on one of the industry magazines, online magazines, LMS are lazy. They don't want to read the whole article. They want to get to the answer. So answer the question, how to guides that are broken down, formatted with HTML markup, H ones, H twos, H threes. A step by step guides, clearly identifying. Step one, do this? Step two, do X, Y, etc,

Jay Berkowitz:

yeah, basically, you're giving a nice, clean, concise answer. The llms, the large language models, the AI overviews, the chat gpts. Are looking for easy answers. All right, we killed that one. That was great. The next one, number three, strategy for optimizing legal content, David, is

David Arato:

leverage multiple content formats. When you create a piece of content, whether it's video or text or anything else, you can use that content to create content in various formats and expand your reach exponentially.

Jay Berkowitz:

Yeah, and I mentioned earlier that we use this concept called cascading content. And I talked about the video where one of our attorneys answered the question, what to do after you get hit by an Uber and that video goes on YouTube. But as David suggested, we can use that content in many different ways. So the content, the video, also goes on the website, on a blog, and we write a blog about the video, explaining the video, because Google can read the words from a video using AI. They transcribe the video, and they analyze videos for SEO purposes, and they understand the words. So we're going to write a blog post about the video to create additional words and additional SEO search engine optimization. But then we also use that content on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and we point that content back to the blog to get more information. Another great place people forget about one of the most important assets you own on the internet. I get technically, you don't own it. You lease it is your Google Maps or your GBP Google business profile. And so we add all those videos each week. We generally do post a video each week for each client. Those videos go on Google Maps and link back to the blog post or the website with the more detail about that question and answer. And when I say it's the most important asset, one of the most important assets you own, that Google business profile, Google Maps results come up before SEO results. So you've gotta constantly be optimizing and updating your Google profile, and so as David suggested, leveraging multiple content formats. Once you create that article or that video, you want to use it in as many places as possible, and customize it for each of those places, right? Don't just drop the article on Facebook that doesn't make any sense. Number four, create educational resources go ahead. David,

David Arato:

well, as I mentioned earlier, a lot of people who are at the beginning of their client journey in terms of finding an attorney are in a place where they're looking for their search is not commercial in intent. It's educational intent. They want information. So again, this goes back to what we were talking about earlier, how to guides, step by step, resources are going to increase your firm's reach for those top of funnel searches, chances are, if you're the first firm they interact with, you are they're going to be the firm that they call eventually when they need an

Jay Berkowitz:

attorney. Yeah, and perhaps this podcast itself is an example of an educational resource. Absolutely, every week we do a podcast, and every month we do a great webinar, and we answer questions for attorneys, and we provide educational resources, SEO for law firms. Today's content production for law firms. We'll talk about EOS for law firms, or YouTube strategies. So we provide this overall, what I call thought leadership umbrella. We provide a lot of great content for free, and we've been really successful with that. We have been over a million views on our YouTube channel, which blows me away still to say it, and every week, we get calls from folks who watch our content and are looking for help with one of the topics, and we get a business opportunity. And the same thing exists for the attorneys for content developers, right? David and I are doing this. That's right. Whatever your business is, answer the questions you get asked most frequently and create educational resources. Tip number 410, golden rules. Golden Rule number five for creating legal content is use advanced SEO strategies, and we're going to give you a few. One of the basic ones, David

Unknown:d. Also, how many hundreds of:Jay Berkowitz:attorney is probably searched:David Arato:

And I think that also goes to the AI issue right now too, that AI can create hyper local content, but if you can demonstrate true local understanding of a market, not just a statistic as to what the most dangerous accident is, but you know that traffic gets bad at the corner of Main and park at this hour, if you put that in your content, I think it Really signals to Google. A, this is a real person. B, they have experience in the area, and we should surface his content above generic AI, where do accidents happen in Boca? Raton,

Jay Berkowitz:

so those are a couple basic SEO strategies. Why don't you give us a little bit more advanced SEO

David Arato:

tip. Well, one of them, I think that your pillar pages. So let's say you're in personal injury, your car accident page, your slip and fall page, need to be updated regularly, quarterly, at a minimum. The content needs to be fresh. Freshness is confirmed as a ranking factor for Google. So if it sits there in stale, chances are it's going to drop down to the rankings. Also, chances are your competitors are looking at your content and trying to outrank it regularly. So that's one thing. The other thing that I think is counterintuitive, you're just going to rewrite some of those most important pages, yes, like your practice area, page about car accidents, motorcycle accidents, truck accidents, you got to read. I'm not sure for pages. I'm not sure if a whole rewrite is always necessary. It maybe even a refresh. Make sure the statistics are up to date, add more information. Which leads to the second point. It's counterintuitive to many people who are in the content marketing space, but pruning content that is not performing well or has become outdated. There was a time I think that a five, 600,000 page website would rank, inherently rank better than a smaller website. But those days are long gone. If you have a bunch of bloat on your site, it will actually hurt performance.

Jay Berkowitz:

Yeah, pruning is a industry term, and we looked at a site the other day, and I think 33% of the pages had traffic, and the other 67% had zero traffic or zero traffic from the search engines. So what are they doing? And then another tip is, a lot of people put content about mass torts, and some of those mass torts, you don't even want calls on them anymore. So that's a good example of content to prune. Give you one other one. A lot of times people get a bunch of calls for auto accident repair and they get a bunch of calls for people looking for a repair shop. They're not a repair shop, and it's like eight steps to they need a lawyer, and they just get a bunch of crappy calls about people looking for an auto accident repair shop. And so that's a beginner SEO strategy, an intermediate and one advanced one. I love this one is balanced content for three audiences. David, take it away. Sure.

David Arato:

I think when you're creating content for law firm and marketing law firm online, you have to consider that you're speaking to three distinct audiences. One, obviously you want your site to rank well, so search engines, so you need to create content that. Aligns with SEO best practices with regard to keywords, structure, formatting, internal linking, external linking, etc. But you also have to consider that you are writing for human beings that are in a situation for which they need a lawyer. So it has to be, as we talked about in the first point, readable, not too jargony if that's a word. So you're also writing to people, you have to sound compassionate, be compassionate, and also compelling, and demonstrate your expertise and your authority in the area, so you're trustworthy source of legal services. Finally, and I think this gets lost in a lot of for a lot of firms and a lot of agencies, actually is writing for other attorneys in the legal community at large, because in this day and age, you're going for referrals. Most law firms want referrals from other firms. So you need to establish this. You have to walk this fine line between establishing yourself as a resource for consumers who do not have legal training yet, also being competent and having the expertise to the extent that other attorneys and other people in the legal community will respect and want to send business your way.

Jay Berkowitz:

That's a great one, because often people will go to the real estate attorney, who's the only attorney they know, with the guy who looked at their house acquisition deal, and ask him for a PI lawyer. And no one pops into his head. He's going to do a quick Google search, but he's going to use the legal jargon. So that's a great one. That's a third audience. So let's review our 10 golden rules for creating great legal content. Number one is avoid legal jargon, right? Like a 10th grader. Number two is answer questions you're now writing for those Q and A tools like Siri and Alexa. Number three, leverage multiple content formats and cascade your content. Number four, create educational resources. Number five, advanced SEO strategies like long tail keywords, updating and pruning and writing for three audiences, 10 golden rules. Golden Rule number six for creating great legal content is humanize your firm. What do you mean by that? David, so

David Arato:

if you go to a generic Law firm website where someone talks about where they went to law school and where they're admitted to practice law, and there's some generic content about how they can help you with whatever legal situation you have. It doesn't resonate with readers. Also. It likely isn't going to rank well in today's SEO environment. Talk about yourself, talk about your background, talk about your win. Speak in the first person. Insert on your bio page, for example. Discuss your community involvement. Things like this make you more of a real person, to consumers and, frankly, to Google, which will help you on both fronts. And

Jay Berkowitz:

it's great if you can tell a story. So if you have great case studies and success stories of folks you've helped out, you know, really tell the story about the person and the case and how their life changed as a result of the accident, and really bring emotion into it like you would for a jury. Absolutely awesome. 10 golden rules. Golden Rule number seven for creating great legal content is address timely legal issues. Go ahead. David,

David Arato:

so I think years ago, this was really referred to as news jacking, and I'm not sure how effective that specifically is anymore, but addressing issues such as newsworthy events in your area of law that are relevant to your area of law, changes in the law industry news is going to help you develop, or rather demonstrate The eeat needed to rank well. And I think demonstrating or rather discussing timely issues related to your practice area speaks to each element of that, being, your experience, your expertise, your building authority as being a source of news, frankly, in your area of law. And then it builds trust,

Jay Berkowitz:

E, A T, expertise, experience, authority, an acronym that we're using in SEO. I think we referred to it before. Thanks for you did sharing that one. And just to David's point, what's was popular five or six years ago. We never did it at 10 golden rules, but it was car accident blogging and basically writing a blog post about major accidents and hoping a family would search for that accident. The problem with that is it sends Google a signal that you're a news site like a local car accident blog, and it confuses Google. Today, you've gotta be very focused if you're a car accident attorney, you gotta write about being a car accident attorney, not write about car accidents. Sounds the same, but it's not. Number eight, I love this one you included, include calls to action in every piece of content. How do you do that?

David Arato:

By directing readers as to how they can contact you. I mean, they have to be able to find you. The content exists, ultimately, to make contact with a. Potential client. So every piece of content, and a lot of people build this into their websites, their header has a prominent phone number. There's a footer with a Contact Us, Link. But I think in the content, for example, our standard practice when we create blog content for law firms is to have a short mini call to action, a mini CTA is what we call it, above the fold, so the reader doesn't have to scroll down. So there's a link, go to our Contact Us. Link. Here's our phone number, so they, if they're like happy, they read the first paragraph. This is my guy. I'm going to pick up the phone and call there's also a call to action at the bottom. So we make it as easy as possible. Remove any path of resistance there is between the reader or the listener or the viewer. Remove the path of resistance from them contacting you, either by text, email, WhatsApp, semaphore, I don't know, but they should be able to get in touch with I

Jay Berkowitz:

love it. I've been lately when I'm reading an article, a lot of times I'll click on the reader view on my phone, sure, and so that's going to make some of the calls to action go away, right? You sure always want to have a phone number at the top of the page. On a mobile phone, you want to have a sticky hitter, you talk to the contact form at the bottom. And every website should have chat, a chat box, like a intake or Apex chat, alright. Number nine, we're getting there. We're getting there. Develop consistent brand message and voices across all content. I'm going to riff on this one for a minute if I can tell a story that I was doing some research for some of my clients. And I always grab a screenshot just of a basic search, like car accident attorney Philadelphia. Car Accident Attorney near me, and I look at our clients down here in South Florida, and on a couple back to back searches, I saw my client like a solo attorney down here in South Florida, and John Morgan. And then we had a, have a very large client in Philadelphia, and I saw him and John Morgan in the local service ads. The Google LSA is right at the top of the page. So you know, why is John Morgan coming up all across the country? Well, he has a $400 million advertising budget, but that's not the answer, because Google will tell you over and over, you can't just bid the most and come up in that position. You have to meet all other seven criteria in our 10 golden rule, secret algorithm for the LSAS. And I'm smiling because there's a whole webinar on that if you want to learn about the secret algorithm on our 10 golden rules YouTube channel, you can watch that video. But what that told me was there's something in the algorithm that's very important, which is click through rate. And if somebody recognizes John Morgan's face because he's got billboards and TV commercials running non stop, he has a higher likelihood of getting clicked. If he has a higher likelihood of getting clicked, then Google's going to make more money. And at the end of the day, Google's going to optimize all of their paid products to make more money. So now, the answer to the question isn't spend $400 million because most of the rest of the as a matter of fact, all of the rest of the country doesn't have that budget, but what you can do is be consistent with your brand message across all of your different mediums. And the first thing you gotta do is figure out your brand message. Are you the guy who fights for your clients, or are you the law firm that fights the insurance company? Or are you the guys who get the big check? Or are you the member of the community. Whatever your brand message is, pick one, stick with it, and be super consistent with a consistent brand message and brand voice across all content. I'll let David expand upon that

David Arato:

that was, again, very comprehensive. If you're a law firm outsourcing your marketing, make sure you have a partner that understands that messaging and stays consistent to it.

Jay Berkowitz:

Great. Pick one. Stick to it consistent. Brand, message, slogan, logo, visuals, coloring consistently across your website, your social media, even your email signatures and community activities. Alright, we made it number 10. David, what is the 10th golden rule of creating great content for legal marketing,

David Arato:

implementing your easy book strategy every time you create content? And this is this goes back to what was it number three, that your blog content, or your practice area page content can be used as the impetus, or rather the seeds, of a downloadable eBook asset, lead magnet,

Jay Berkowitz:

yeah, this is one of my favorite tricks of all time that I share with people, and they're like, Oh, how did you write your book? And how do you write a book? And my fifth book is coming out this year. Here's a super easy way to get a book. I call it like the easy book strategy. First things, write the table of contents. So like David and I brainstorm for about 45 minutes on these 10 golden rules. And you can do the same thing, write out the 10 or 15 questions that you get asked all the time. And then what you're going to do is make, basically make that the. Table of Contents for your book. Then you're going to write a blog post on each of those 10 questions and 10 answers. And then at the end of 10 weeks, write one a week every publish one on your blog every week for 10 weeks. And then at the end of 10 weeks, you can create an ebook, and you can do it with there's some online sites like Fiverr, and for like 20 bucks, you could get a PDF, a beautiful ebook of those 10 blogs with some graphics and a really great cover that's super downloadable. And then that can be a lead magnet on your website. So when people come to your website, if they're just doing some research and they're not ready to hire an attorney, they might download your ebook of the 10 Things to do after a car accident, the seven questions to ask before you talk to your insurance company or the insert state, the Florida car accident handbook and write 10 blog posts about what to do after a car accident, the things not to answer With the insurance company, why you need a lawyer and create your ebook? And it's also really great for getting speaking engagements, because now you've got a book, or even if it's an ebook, and you can publish that very inexpensively online, and then you can get booked for speaking gigs at your chamber of commerce and your Bar Association. And it's great way to build authority and generate leads. David, any other last thoughts on the easy book strategy?

David Arato:

No, I just learned a bunch. Jay, thanks for that information.

Jay Berkowitz:

Awesome. Quick review. We'll go over the 10 golden rules of creating great content, great legal content. First one, avoid legal jargon. Number two, answer questions. Number three, leverage multiple content formats. Number four, create educational resources. Number five, use advanced SEO strategies and write for three audiences. Number six, humanize your firm with personal content. Number seven, address timely legal issues, changes in laws, things people be asking questions about. There's all kinds of questions in Florida right now about the changes to the laws for home insurance, for PIP and personal injury. The laws have changed and the regulations have changed, and people are asking those questions. Number eight, include calls to action in every piece of content. David had some great tips there. Number nine, develop a consistent brand message and deliver that consistently in all your content, all your visuals. And finally, the easy book strategy, an easy way to develop your first book. And your ebook, by the way, can turn into a book, because once you put out that ebook, you'll get a bunch more questions on every topic, and you can easily flush that out into bigger chapters and your first book, congratulations on becoming an author. Well, David, we wrap every 10 golden rules podcast with a couple what I call, sort of the quick and easy questions. Sure the first one is what personal productivity, apps or tools do you use to be such a great business person?

David Arato:

Personal productivity? This sounds super silly. I use Google's integrated in Gmail, integrated tasks app that is my daily small task reminder. And I'm also really old school. I carry a notebook everywhere I go. Awesome. Do you have a personal wellness and fitness routine I do so I live in Breckenridge, Colorado. So months, December through mid May, maybe even late May, some years, I ski regularly, lift weights, meditate and I always need to get my sleep. Awesome. Best business books. Ooh. So this is a tough one, because it's always the last one I read, and the last one I'm actually currently finishing it, seven habits, Highly Effective People. I had never read that one. What's up there with Carnegie? Carnegie, and I just have to go back, and I feel like it's one of the foundational books in this space. Really enjoy. I

Jay Berkowitz:

love it. Isn't it great? One of the ones where you pick things you like doing and things you're great at, and you make four quadrants. Yeah, that's that one, and that's been updated in EOS as it we use that in EOS the delegate and elevate. They call it Sure. Basically, what you want to do is do the things you love doing and you're great at and the things you hate doing and you suck at. Find someone else to do it. Well, if you don't, you don't like you're doing it, you're not going to do it. That's the thing blogs, podcasts and youtubes. When something in your feed hits your feed in the morning and you see that, which one do you immediately turn to?

David Arato:

Wow, so that's tough. I'm a regular listener of the daily, stoic, nice and New York Times daily. I'm not familiar with that one. It's pretty niche, but I really enjoy him and his take on things and the daily from the New York Times for sure. Yeah.

Jay Berkowitz:

Well, I know this because David and I hung out at a big legal conference and we watched my team versus his team, the Winnipeg Jets and the Saint Louis Blues. Fortunately, the Jets got a goal with 1.6 seconds left to tie it and then won it in overtime of game seven. But any other hockey or NFL teams

David Arato:

the abs for sure. And growing up in St Louis, I'm a man without a team for the NFL. The Rams left, as everyone knows, and they had come when I was in mid high school, so I never, like attached myself to them, and I cannot get on board with the Broncos. I'm trying really, really hard. I live 60 miles from Denver, but I just can't do it. Maybe you need a little winning streak to make That's right. I think that's what the issue is. Every year I say, this is the year we're going to go to a game. We never do

Jay Berkowitz:

two more questions, what's a great introduction for you? Who should folks introduce as a business contact? We

David Arato:

work both directly with law firms that do not have in house marketing, and we love working with agencies that do not have in house content, or who want to outsource their legal content, if they're generalist agencies and do not feel that they have the expertise to thoroughly vet or create content for law firms, we love working with them as well. Great. And last question, Where can people get in touch with you? People can email me directly, David at lexicon, legal content.com, I'm on LinkedIn, linkedin.com. Forward slash. David Arado, and where you can find our company in all the socials.

Jay Berkowitz:

Awesome. David, this was lots of fun. Last thing I said, Hey, if you made it this long, you probably like content like this. And as I said, we really appreciate it if you subscribe on YouTube or iTunes and give us a five star review, we love you for it. David, this was awesome. We'll see you soon, buddy. Thanks appreciate being on.