[author: Kevin Vermeulen]
If you’re like most professionals with an online presence, you put a lot of thought into the content that goes on your website. You’re aware of what potential clients are looking for, and you’ve got some ideas about SEO. You know that attracting new visitors and leads is about a lot more than just churning out any kind of content you can think of and putting it online.
One thing you probably haven’t thought about, though, is your online biography. Your bio page can be an absolute goldmine when it comes to search engine optimization and generating free traffic back to your firm’s website. In fact, in the case of lawyers, up to 80% of the traffic coming from search engines can be attributed to bio pages.
What does your attorney biography page look like? If you’ve just more or less copied and pasted your resume, it’s time to take a step back and rethink the possibilities. In this blog, I am uncovering the untapped potential of your online attorney bio, revealing how it can achieve more for you and your firm than you might expect.
Why You Should Write A Professional Bio
Putting together a professional bio can be time consuming, but in the end, it is well worth the effort. Once it’s completed, you’ll find that it keeps on giving back, and probably in more ways than you expected.
Your Bio Can Take Many Forms In Many Places
For your own website, you should write a full length biography that covers your education, experience and personal attributes. It doesn’t stop there though. Using your original bio as a starting point, you can create shorter, custom bio entries that can be used in a number of different ways. For example, you can use some form of your bio on:
- Social media pages
- Professional forums and message boards
- Professional directories
- Event/Conference/Webinar information pages
- Web or print content contributions
All these channels provide an opportunity for you to highlight your professional qualifications and encourage visitors to return to your own website. In cases where you can include direct links, those links will also help a bit with SEO.
A Well Written Bio Page Is Naturally Full Of Keywords
Your biography page is a great way to get all kinds of keywords relevant to your services and the problems you help to solve into a single web page. As you’re talking about yourself, you’re naturally going to mention the services you provide, your education, notable past cases, etc.
Even a short bio will be rich with the keywords your target audience is likely to enter in a web search. When it comes to SEO, these pages have a very good chance of ranking well for many different keywords and phrases.
Bio Pages Help Instill Trust
In many cases, when someone sees content from you or your firm that they like, their next step will be to look over the author’s bio to glean a bit more information about the person who wrote it.
A well written bio will make that person feel like they’ve gotten to know you better. It will take the level of trust up a notch. If the reader likes what they see, they’ll often go looking for more content written by the same person as they move along the path from anonymous visitor to bonafide lead.
Points To Include In Your Online Bio
The key to putting together a good bio page is to demonstrate your knowledge and skills without sounding over the top or self-promoting. With that in mind, here are a few things to consider as you’re developing your online biography.
Keep Your Target Audience In Mind
Just like any other content you produce, write with your target audience in mind. Especially if you’ve got limited space, make sure you get the most relevant information included first.
Tell A Story
Cold, dry facts that read like a resume are boring, and we all know what boring content does to Internet readers. Wherever possible, try to add a bit of the “why” behind the facts. For example, “I then decided to apply to Harvard Law School because…” or “I decided to focus on family law because…” Statements like these help humanize you and keep readers interested in what they are reading.
Leave Them Wanting More
Your bio should contain interesting information, but don’t lay everything out in detail. You’re walking a fine line. You want to give the audience an idea of who you are, but you also want to leave them curious enough that they will seek out more of your content, or better yet, a consultation.
Make It Easy To Connect
Perhaps the most important part of an attorney biography page is an easy-to-follow invitation to connect. Make it easy for the reader to get in touch with you. Where it makes sense, include phone numbers, email address and/or a link to an online form where the viewer can send a message or make a request.
It should be obvious by now that your biography page is one of the most important pages to appear on your website — and even on other websites. Take your time writing it. The effort you put into it will be well spent. When done well, your online biography will not only help attract new visitors, but help convert them into new clients too.
Is Your Attorney Bio Page Working as Hard as It Should?
Your attorney bio is one of the most powerful pages on your website—but it won’t drive results unless your overall site is built to support visibility, engagement, and conversion. Even the best-written biography can be overlooked if it’s buried in a poorly structured website or difficult to find on mobile.
That’s why it’s important to take a step back and look at the bigger picture: Is your website optimized to attract and convert the right clients?
At Good2bSocial, the digital marketing division of Best Lawyers, we’ve helped countless law firms elevate their digital presence with high-performing websites designed specifically for the legal industry. To help you assess where your firm stands, we’re offering a complimentary 45-minute website consultation.
What you’ll get in your free consultation:
- A high-level review of your website’s design, structure, and navigation
- Actionable insights on SEO, mobile optimization, and user experience
- Recommendations to ensure attorney bios and key content are discoverable and compelling
- A conversation about whether a redesign or refresh could better support your goals
