5 things to make your content stand out from the crowd – [Part 4: structure]

by | Jul 15, 2023

Introduction

This article is the fourth in my series on the key points that a legal marketing professional or lawyer needs to bear in mind when putting together content. The first article looked at the importance of title, the second at topic and keywords, the third article tackled the need to personalise content.

This fourth article tackles the issue of structure.

As with all my articles on this topic, I am referring to all forms of content (articles, podcasts, webinars, blogs) and the points made apply equally to content in hard copy as they do to digital content.  When I refer to “readers”, I am including “viewers” and “listeners”.

Back to school/university

 All legal marketing content is a form of advocacy.  It needs to persuade.

You want to carry the reader with you so you need to introduce your topic clearly, evaluate the evidence and then wrap things up with a pithy, commercially focussed conclusion.

If talking about “structure” is taking your back to school/university and someone telling you that you need a beginning, middle and end then you are on the right lines.  Structure is important not just for essays and dissertations but for all legal marketing content.

As Dale Carnegie famously said: “Tell the audience what you’re going to say, say it then tell them what you’ve said”.

So you need to plan (ie have a structure) for what you are going to produce, bearing in mind all the points made in my earlier articles – an engaging title,  an interesting and commercially appealing topic as well as a clear idea of your audience.

Yet somehow, perhaps as a result of the ever increasing pressure to get material out, writers of legal content often fail to plan/structure it effectively.  They simply write.

Why you need to think about structure

Here are the main reasons why it is so important to think about structure:

  1. If your content is not encouraging engagement, then it is a waste of your precious time.
  2. Content these days is primarily digital and impactful digital content needs to be structured for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). The best structure for SEO is:
    1. A title (H1)
    2. A content heading (H2)
    3. Other subsidiary headers (H3)
    4. Wherever possible use lists.
    5. Use strong and bold elements.
  3. Whilst on the subject of SEO, research suggests that the search engines optimise content over 500 words. Having said this, I personally see no reason not to employ short, to the point pieces as well, not least because people’s attention spans are famously short.
  4. Well-structured content is easy to read. These days people are used to scanning quickly.  If you give them a wodge of impenetrable text then they will surf on past you – and on to your competitors’ content.
  5. If your title suggests a useful piece of advice but the actual content fails to deliver this succinctly and clearly then you will frustrate the reader.
  6. All of which points make your content eminently shareable.

Conclusion

Being reminded and following these simple rules regarding production of effective content will be a breeze for those in the legal sector.

So why not get ahead of the competition and produce thoughtful content that actually attracts clients?