Ways to Improve Your Law Firm’s Online Presence: Pillar Pages, Content Clusters & Internal Linking

No matter if your law firm is big or small, chances are you’ve spent a significant amount of money on a website and other means of Internet marketing. However, to get the best return on your online investment, you can’t just create content for a website or write regular blog posts and think the job is done.

Times have changed, and Google has moved towards determining search rankings based on topic authority. Besides writing lots of content and choosing the right keywords, you also now need to focus on the correct content and understand how your content has to work together to keep your online content marketing presence alive and well. That is why having a strong and organized content marketing strategy is key to getting potential clients to find you online.

Businessman hand holding creative light bulb with marketing network icons on planning strategy, analysis solution and development, Modern business, Innovative of new ideas.

So, what is the best way to get your website or blog content organized to increase your search rankings? Well, you’ve come to the right place. It all begins with pillar pages, content clusters and internal linking. These three items will help you create an organized network of comprehensive guides. The guides will focus on practice areas that your law firm is looking to rank for in search engines.

If you correctly create pillar pages, content clusters and internal linking, you can become an authority on a specific topic in the eyes of Google. Then, potential clients will have an easier time getting to your website and are more likely to stay there once they arrive.

What Is A Pillar Page?

A pillar page is the first piece to organizing your website. A pillar page is a main topic page on your law firm’s website. It should feature content that covers all aspects of a particular legal topic and should address most questions about the subject.

As a law firm, a pillar page may cover an area of law that your firm specializes in or a practice area you are looking to grow. While most pillar pages are much longer than typical blog posts because they cover all aspects of the topic, they still leave room for more in-depth information to be covered in smaller, related website pages, articles or blog posts.

Once a pillar page is created, it then links out to the smaller, more detailed pages and blog posts, and in return, they link back. This network of pages works together to make you an authority on the subject and organically benefits your search engine optimization (SEO).

How To Create A Pillar Page?

Now that you have a brief overview of what a pillar page is, how should you begin creating one? First of all, you need to determine what you want your law firm to be known for and your law practice areas of expertise. You are aiming to educate people about your firm’s various legal services on the pillar pages.

Some useful pillar pages to begin with include What Is, How to, and Best of types of content.

“What Is” pillar pages can define an area of law that your firm practices.
“How to” pillar pages explain and educate visitors about the process of handling a legal situation or a step-by-step guide. For example, How to Manage Sexual Harassment at Work or What Steps to Take After a Car Accident.
“Best of” pillar pages can give an overview of a topic in a smaller, more straightforward format, such as 5 Safety Tips Every Biker Should Follow.

As for the length of your pillar page, there’s no exact number that you need to adhere to, but generally, they range from 2,000-5,000 words. The goal really shouldn’t be on the number of words but more so on the quality of the content. You should provide better and more useful content than your competitors.

Why You Need Content Clusters

After you’ve decided on a central topic for a pillar page, it’s time to focus on content clusters that will support the pillar page. Content clusters include articles, blog posts and other pages on your firm’s website that give a more in-depth look at specific keywords from your main pillar page.

The content clusters will be the links found on your pillar page, and each cluster links back to the pillar page. A good start is to have 5-10 clusters for each pillar page on your site. Content clusters are an area where you can look to repurpose content. You probably already have pages on your website or blog articles that would make sense to link to and from a pillar page topic.

Here is an example of a law firm pillar page and its content clusters. If your law firm is looking to rank better for Florida employment lawyers, one pillar page could be A Guide to Florida Employment Law. Some of the more in-depth content clusters could include Handling Workplace Sexual Harassment, When to Hire an Employment Law Attorney, Florida Employee Legal Rights, How to File a Florida Employment Discrimination Claim and Employee Wins Age Discrimination Lawsuit.

Internal Linking Is A Must

It is necessary to have a robust internal linking system on your website to increase your search engine rankings and to keep people at your website once they find it. There are two types of links: internal and external. An internal link is any link from one page on your website to another page on your website. Internal links are how users and search engines find content on your website. External links take you away from your site to other website resources.

Internal linking on your website allows everything written about one specific topic to be easily accessed by your visitors. When people want to learn more about the topic, they can stay on your website versus going elsewhere.

Now that you have an introduction to these concepts, you can begin adjusting how you create and organize your law firm’s website content. You’ll soon be seen as an authority on various legal topics, and as a result, more traffic will come your way. Once visitors reach your site, they’ll see how knowledgeable your firm is on the legal concept they were searching for and will likely stick around to learn more.

Pillar Page resources:

https://overthinkgroup.com/pillar-page/

https://neilpatel.com/blog/pillar-pages-explained/

https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Content-Marketing-Unlocked-Pillar-Cluster-Pages.pdf

https://www.clariantcreative.com/guide-to-pillar-pages-and-topic-clusters

https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2020/08/create-pillar-content-search/

Content Cluster resources:

https://www.biggerlawfirm.com/using-topic-clusters-to-improve-law-firm-seo/amp/

https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2021/01/ranked-topic-cluster-model/

Internal Linking Resources:

https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2015/07/linking-techniques-content-ranked/

https://www.biggerlawfirm.com/creating-an-internal-linking-strategy-for-your-law-firm-website/