David Arato:
There is no such thing as the right length of content, theright amount to post. Is your content helpful? Is it something your readerswant to read?
Chris Dreyer:
Welcome to Personal Injury Mastermind. I'm your Host,Chris Dreyer, Founder and CEO of Rankings.io, the legal marketing company thebest firms hire when they want the ranking's traffic cases other law firmmarketing agencies can't deliver. On this show, I've been fortunate enough tolearn from some of the best minds in personal injury. And now we are bringingthem together in one place at the first ever PIM conference. PIMcon is comingto Scottsdale this September. We're laser focused on one thing, getting moreleads, not talking about just any leads, but quality leads that actually turninto cases. That's it. That's our entire focus. Not just theory, we're talkingabout actionable strategies that have been tried and tested by the best in thebusiness. If you're looking to conquer personal injury marketing and go fromgood to go, PIMcon is where you need to be. You gather the top personal injurymarketing experts to share their secrets, and believe me, this is cutting edgestuff you won't find anywhere else.
Don't miss out on another potential client. Grab yourticket to PIMcon now and get ready to supercharge your practice. Your futureself will thank you. Go to pimcon.org. All right, let's dive in. Today we'rediving into a crucial topic, dominating your market through powerful onlinecontent. Let's face it, having a website isn't enough. You need a website thatattracts leads. But here's the challenge. We're drowning in AI-generated fluffand Google keeps changing the rules. So how can you cut through the noise andtruly connect with potential clients? We've got the perfect expert.
Joining us today is David Arato, Founder of Lexicon LegalContent. David's team has helped over 300 law firms revolutionize their onlinepresence. Their writers aren't just marketers, they're lawyers. This expertiseis absolutely critical, especially with Google's recent major content algorithmupdate. That's exactly why I'm thrilled to have David here. With Google'slatest helpful content rollout, there's no one better equipped to guide usthrough these changes. David's unique blend of legal and content marketingknowledge makes him the go-to expert for law firms struggling to stand outonline. Get ready for a master class in creating content that not only ranksbut resonates with potential clients. Here's David Arato, Founder at LexiconLegal Content.
David Arato:
ChatGPT was released November 30, 2002. Two weeks later,Google adds an extra E to E-A-T with the expertise. Now, clearly AI can't haveexpertise in anything, right? So I think that was the first move in an anti-AIstance. Now with that being said, I don't think Google's anti AI, I thinkGoogle's anti-AI spam. So this helpful content update is really focusing onhaving helpful content that just demonstrates experience, expertise, authority,and trust.
Chris Dreyer:
We were joking, we were laughing about this. I think thealgorithm hasn't worked as well as they would hope. Maybe you could share someof the things that you've seen, some of the volatility out there.
David Arato:
Well, I think just a few hours ago, Barry Schwartzreported that John Mueller's site was de-indexed. John Mueller being the searchliaison, I believe, at Google.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, so I would say if you're a law firm listening andmaybe you've experienced some traffic decline that I would sit back. There'salways a little bit of things that they mess up and have to roll back. Wemonitor our clients on a weekly basis, their impressions, their clicks, andwe've seen some volatility. So I would say kind of batten down the hatches, soto speak. Let's lean into the expertise component On the outside it's like,yeah, you need experts, but how do you actually make your content showexpertise?
David Arato:
Well, I think all four of these factors in EAT arerelated. Your About Us page is extraordinarily important these days, showingthat where you went to school, have you published, have you spoken, your caseresults? Of course, if your jurisdiction allows you to talk about that, right?In terms of demonstrating that expertise in-depth content, which also speaks tothe authority of the content, which also builds trust. So all these factors arerelated. And the truth is, I think it comes to in-depth content that explainsthe law in a reader-friendly way.
Chris Dreyer:
So are you saying citing your content, citing the sources,what goes into that?
David Arato:
Well, I think it's finding good outbound links, right? Ifyou're going to cite a statute cite to the official statute, the .gov, the.edu, or to a court resource that discusses that statute in depth to show thereaders that you have done your research and this is accurate content. And infact, in the search quality guidelines that Google puts out regularly, it'sclear that the biggest factor is trust. And it also indicates to the qualityraters that if a website or a page shows incorrect information, that page is ofthe lowest trust level.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah. And I think that's where individuals have gotteninto trouble with using AI, and it spits out things that are incorrect. And sothere has to be human oversight. For the record, I'm not saying, don't use AI,I think you just have to use it as a tool and just monitor what it's puttingout.
David Arato:
Well, Chris, I think that's absolutely right. I think thatit's just a tool like anything else that we've used for years. Grammarly runson an AI algorithm. We've used that to do the first initial check of ourcontent for a decade now. This is just another tool in the writer's toolbox tocreate better content faster. But of course, it needs to be highly, highlyedited and checked by humans and subject matter experts.
Chris Dreyer:
From what I've seen, just my own experience testing Surferand Neuron Writer and some of these others, it's like they're one step awayfrom plagiarism, right? They're calling from the same top 10 sources, and Ithink that's what Google's trying to prevent, but maybe you could speak to thatas well.
David Arato:
Well, I think by definition, AI-generated content is goingto be generic and as you said, close to plagiarism, because the way thetechnology operates, it is guessing the next best word. This is a reductionistthing to say, but I think it helps people understand how it's working. It'shighly advanced predictive text, the way that your phone or Word knows whatshould be coming next. AI is doing the same thing just at a bigger scale. Soit's reading the corpus of data that it's been given, and spitting somethingout that is going to be, again, by definition, generic and down the middle.It's never going to be thought leadership. So in order to use AI to create contentthat's demonstrating E-A-T or double E-A-T, you need to ensure that you'readding information gain, you're adding a human element, you're doing someoriginal research and giving it something it doesn't know.
Chris Dreyer:
I love that phrase information gain. And that's so true,and that's why a lot of individuals, a lot of SEO agencies, you see thesedoorway pages. It's like they take the exact same landing page and they throw adifferent city in the title. And there has to be some unique component, whetherit's driving directions or different statute or what have you. Otherwise, whywould Google recognize it as being different?
David Arato:
Absolutely. Or adding information that is not within thedata it's been trained on. So in ChatGPT's case, post 2021.
Chris Dreyer:
All right, let's cut through the noise and talk aboutsearch engine marketing for law firms. This field is always changing, andthere's no magic formula that works for everyone. You've probably heard allsorts of advice, post four blogs a month, now you need 30. Make sure each pieceis exactly 1500 words. It's overwhelming, and quite frankly, it's a lot of BS.But here's what really matters. Quality, relevance, and the user experience.Google's getting smarter, and it's not just about hitting some arbitrary wordcount anymore. It's about creating content that genuinely helps your potentialclients. Now, this looks different depending on the firm size and resources. Solet's break it down into two scenarios. First, we'll talk about how the soloattorney working with a tight budget might work through this. Then we'll shiftgears to larger well-established firms. When you've got more to work with, howdo you leverage that capital to dominate your market? David explains.
David Arato:
Well, I think that it's pretty clear that Google wantsyour website to be regularly updated. It doesn't want your website to sitthere, so it's going to fall down in the rankings. So that's pretty clear toeverybody, right? So one thing to do I think, is to see what your competitorsare doing and do more of it or do it better. Now, Google has also said in theirguidance very clearly, "There is no such thing as the right length ofcontent, the right amount to post." Is your content helpful? Is it somethingyour readers want to read? That being said, if you're going to establish thesefour things, expertise, experience, authority, and trust, you can't do that in300 words. You just can't do it, especially in the legal space. You're going tohave to go into depth on something, right, or on the topic you're discussing.
So we like to say start with blogs of 1,000 words. Thatgives you enough time to explain the legal topic, explain how you can help thereader, and let them know how to get in touch with you. Again, can't do it in500 words. Regarding keeping your website up to date, we recommend postingweekly. Again, it really depends on your market. What are your competitorsdoing? What's working in that market is the first place to start. Now, to yoursecond question, the bigger law firm, if we're talking about personal injury inLos Angeles, in New York, Morgan & Morgan, that's who you're going after,right? Again, maybe it's a daily posting, but you have to ensure that thecontent that you're creating is original and helpful. You don't regurgitate thesame content over and over again just to post.
Chris Dreyer:
Back when you started quite a while ago, some queriesdidn't exist.
David Arato:
Yeah.
Chris Dreyer:
So if you wrote a long tail on a query, you would rankjust by the nature of being the only one, what's the balance of new contentproduction versus the refreshing and the pruning?
David Arato:
Obviously, creating new content on a regular basis is veryimportant, and there's no shortage of topics to discuss in the legal space. Wecan always go a level deeper and discuss that topic and discuss it in a waythat's of importance to the readers and your potential clientele as a law firm.That said, if you've got a page that's performing really, really well and suddenlyit's not performing well, it's time to look at that page and figure out what'sgoing on. It may be the case that the content's bloated and it's not helpful toreaders because no one wants to read 10,000 words on car accidents. It also maybe the case that it's too thin.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, and I think that's where a lot of times the SEOagency, I'll put my kind of scapegoat hat on here.
David Arato:
Please do.
Chris Dreyer:
A lot of times the SEO agency may do good work, but ifthey have a poor design and the content isn't formatted well so that the usercan get the information they need, they come to the website, and it's a poorwebsite they leave.
David Arato:
Sure, sure. And I think that initial user experience is soimportant, right? And this speaks again to content format. We do our best tonot create these huge chunks of texts that no one wants to read. Whether we dothat with a design element such as an accordion that you can expand and openthe section section, or use bullet points to clearly provide information to thereaders. The formatting of that content is also so important to the way theuser interacts with it.
Chris Dreyer:
As a follow-up to that, just some general guidance here.So say you have a personal injury attorney, he's an auto accident attorney, howoften should he be updating his content? Maybe it depends, but versus the generalattorney, just some general guidance.
David Arato:
Sure. So I think with the mass tort being such acompetitive space, that content should be updated much more regularly than thecar accident attorney. And again, you said it yourself, it does depend. Itdepends on the market, the competitiveness of the market, what the other firmsin the area are doing. Watching that, and again, looking at it and saying,"Okay, they're doing it this. We're going to do this plus 25%."
Chris Dreyer:
Let's dive into one of the most debated topics in legalSEO, content versus backlinks. We've got two major camps. On one side, justfocus on great content. That's what Google wants. They believe it. If you nailyour content, the rankings will follow. The other side is all about links.They'll tell you without promoting your content and building those links, eventhe best articles might as well be invisible online. David plants his feetfirmly on both sides of the dividing line.
David Arato:
I think SEO is a holistic pursuit. Content's a huge partof it. That happens to be what we do, and we will help agencies and law firmswith content. But if you really want your content in front of as many people asyou can, I think promoting it on social media, obtaining backlinks, guestposting, putting out as much omnichannel marketing. Omnichannel contentmarketing is the answer. Be everywhere your clientele is.
Chris Dreyer:
I love that answer. And then I also wanted to speak tomaybe the difference between copywriting versus general content and call toactions and things like that. So how does your agency specifically handle thedifferent nuances that comes to taglines and positioning and things like that?How do you guys incorporate that into your content?
David Arato:
What we do is very much a hybrid of copywriting andthought leadership content, right? Because I think SEO content is what Googleis trying to penalize, content that is clearly created to manipulate searchengine rankings. That being said, the keyword placement in formatting and usingHTML tags and internal link, it would be ridiculous to say that doesn't matter.So it's a balancing act of using SEO best practices while creating content thatis written for human readers to again, be helpful while demonstrating thethings Google wants it to demonstrate.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, and I keep hearing you state this. Helpful, helpful,helpful. The expertise, and that's what Google's trying to avoid, is they don'twant spam hitting their index because then it takes a lot more money to crawl,and then that leads to complications and showing the best search results. A fewother things too. Look, we've had other content agencies on the show. We've hadVerblio on the show, we've had Textbrokers. There's a lot of individuals in thespace that generate content, right? How do you guys set yourself apart? How areyou different from the other content agencies in the space?
David Arato:
Well, I think it's that we're a journey-led, right? Thatwe are in the space niched down, specifically working with law firms andagencies with law firm clients. In a regulated space like this, it isabsolutely critical that your content is accurate. It's absolutely criticalthat your content is demonstrating expertise. And without a specialized team,it's really difficult to do that. And we focused on that space in such a waythat I'm going to say it, I think we're the best in the market.
Chris Dreyer:
Dave, where can our audience go to learn more and get intouch?
David Arato:
Well, our website is Www.lexacomlegalcontent.com. You canemail me directly at David@lexiconlegalcontent.com @Arato is my Twitter. I'm onLinkedIn. And also we have a special offer for your listeners atlexiconlegalcontent.com/PIM.
Chris Dreyer:
All right, y'all, let's go over the pinpoints. A recap ofthe key takeaways from today's episode. AI is here to stay, but it's not themagic bullet. Some think it is. Here's the deal. In the E-E-A-T equation, thesecond E, expertise, can't come from AI alone. It comes from you, the attorneyciting your sources, providing rock solid outbound links. This isn't just aboutSEO, it's about building trust. Remember, we're operating in a regulated space.Your content has to be accurate or you're dead in the water. When you'recreating content, think like a scholar, back up your claims with links toreputable sources, government websites, court resources, and respected legalpublications. This isn't just for Google. It shows your potential clients thatyou know your stuff, not just making things up.
David Arato:
And in fact, in the search quality guidelines that Googleputs out regularly, it's clear that the biggest factor is trust. It also indicatesto the quality raters that if a website or a page shows incorrect information,that page is of the lowest trust level.
Chris Dreyer:
Sometimes less is more. Sure, you might need more than1,000 words to explain a complex legal topic, but remember, most people don'twant to read a novel to get any answer. They want the info and they want itnow. Get smart with the content structure. Use dropdown menus and expandableelements to create user-friendly experience. And please write for youraudience, not for the lawyers.
David Arato:
The formatting of that content is also so important to theway the user interacts with it.
Chris Dreyer:
Be helpful. Put yourself in the potential client's shoes.What do they need? What do they want? Your content should solve problems,answer questions and show why you're the go-to expert in your field. Do thatconsistently, and you'll be the head and shoulders above the competition.
David Arato:
You have to ensure that the content that you're creatingis original and healthy. Don't regurgitate the same content over and over againjust to post.
Chris Dreyer:
Unreasonable success come from consistently doing whatothers won't. It's not about cutting corners and gaining the system. It's aboutproviding genuine value, demonstrating real expertise, and making your contentas user-friendly as possible. For more information about David, check out theshow notes. Before you go, do me a solid and smash that follow button tosubscribe. I sincerely appreciate it. And you won't want to miss out on thenext episode of Personal Injury Mastermind with me, Chris Dreyer, Founder andCEO of Rankings.io. All right everybody, thanks for hanging out. See you nexttime. I'm out.
