YouTube is the most accessible, affordable, and effective channel for lawyers to host and share their video content, especially compared to traditional television ads or CTV options. However, like most organic (non-paid) marketing campaigns, there are steps law firms can take to optimize their video content and make the most of their efforts.
In this blog, we review how to develop scalable YouTube campaigns for lawyers, and which elements you should focus on and include to achieve the biggest impact.
The longer people watch your clip, the more helpful and engaging they find the content—and that’s good news for you and your firm!
If you’re pouring time, energy, and money into YouTube and video marketing, you deserve to understand if those efforts are successful. One of our core values is transparency; we take enormous care to outline your campaigns’ performance so you can make the best choices for your firm and your budget. With LaFleur, you can expect regular reporting on all deliverables and recommendations for tactics if you ever need to pivot your approach.
Video SEO: The basics
Search engine optimization for videos on a YouTube channel is different than traditional content marketing. If you’re ready to start reaching potential clients using a video marketing strategy, you should understand what metrics matter in search.- YouTube channel metrics: The number of people who follow your channel and number of views your videos get.
- Engagement: The number of likes, comments, and other engagements your videos receive.
- Video specs technical details: The length of your video, the video description, and other features.
- Keywords: Including your desired keyword in the video title and other locations.
How to create optimized legal marketing video content
YouTube is the one of the most used social media platforms, in part because it functions like a search engine. In this sense, creating optimized content doesn’t have to be challenging; you just need to have a plan. Here are five tactics to get started:1. Create content that’s relevant to your target clients
In our experience, the most commonly searched and successful legal YouTube videos answer common questions or legal issues like “When will I get my settlement check?” or “What happens when one spouse doesn’t want a divorce?” If you’re not sure what the most valuable or relevant keywords are, our team can help. We provide all of our clients with a comprehensive report outlining the best keywords for their law firm, so they know what terms to target.2. Include the keyword in the video title
Your video titles should be short, succinct, and include the essential information. Our clients tend to see the best results when video titles are no more than 10 words in length and optimized for the target keywords. Let’s say you’re making a video about mistakes in child custody cases. A weak title example would be: “Avoid These Problems if You Are Facing an Uphill Custody Battle After or During Divorce Proceedings.” While it gives the viewer a vague idea of what the video will cover, it’s long, wordy, and non-specific. A stronger video title would be “5 Mistakes That Can Hurt Your Child Custody Case” because it’s short, to the point, and gives prospective clients a clear idea of what to expect.3. Write detailed video descriptions
Over half of the videos ranking in the first in YouTube search have descriptions with more than 50 words. Detailed video descriptions are not only helpful for viewers, but are part of an effective video optimization strategy.4. Keep your videos to 3 to 5 minutes in length
While the intricacies of the law might be exciting to attorneys and other legal professionals, these details can confuse and overwhelm the average legal consumer. Instead of diving into legal strategy, outline the essential information your ideal client needs to learn about their situation, make a decision, and give your firm a call. Another advantage to keeping your content brief: videos that are three to five minutes tend to perform best.5. Post consistently
A regular posting schedule is key for performance. For blog content, our legal clients see the most traction and success posting once a week. Video is similar; we recommend posting once a week. If coming up with this much video content seems overwhelming, remember that your videos can correlate with your blog content. Many of our clients create videos about the same topics as their blogs, and then embed the videos in the blog page. This helps boost engagement with the blog itself, as well as providing your target audience multiple ways to learn about their legal questions.Related Content: How to write great SEO-friendly headlines
Boost engagement with a video distribution strategy
Creating a plan for sharing your video strategically will help boost views and engagement and make your efforts even more effective. When we work with clients to produce video assets, we help them develop a robust distribution strategy. These strategies often include:- Sharing on social media: Link to your YouTube channel in the footer of every digital property for quick and easy access to your video content. Additionally, be sure to share your videos on all of your social media channels, like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
- Embedding in web pages: Embedding videos in corresponding web pages—like landing pages, blogs, practice area pages, and client success stories—are a great way to drive conversions. Users love video, and we tend to see pages with video content have increased conversion rates compared to still images.
- Include videos in your newsletters: If you don’t already send a monthly or quarterly digital newsletter aggregating your recent content to your subscribers, you should consider doing so. Video increases email engagement, too, and gives your subscribers something to look forward to each month. If you’re not sure how to set up email newsletter campaigns or what type of video content to include, our video marketing experts are happy to help.
How to gauge video optimization success
If you’re starting your firm’s video marketing efforts from scratch and are worried about competing with larger, more established brands, don’t fret. According to SEMrush, 18% of videos featured in YouTube search are from channels with less than 1,000 subscribers, proving that you don’t need millions of followers to perform well or reach your target audience. Other signs of success include:Video engagement
An increase in views, likes, or subscribers indicates that viewers not only like and are engaging with your content, but that they trust your firm to provide trustworthy information as well. Increased views also suggest growing brand awareness, a metric that’s more difficult to track, but just as important.Clicks, calls, and conversions
We at LaFleur often talk about how the most important metrics of digital marketing success are the number of clients you obtain. If people are watching your videos and call your firm as a result, your videos are working! We have a lot of experience helping clients track user journey and determine lead sources, so if you have questions about your videos’ effectiveness, let us know! We’re ready and happy to help.Metrics
YouTube gives users an incredible amount of insight into their content’s performance. One of the most helpful in understanding if your video strategy is working is the video duration insight. This tool measures “key moments for audience retention,” meaning you can see where and when people stop watching. Here’s an example of what that looks like:
The longer people watch your clip, the more helpful and engaging they find the content—and that’s good news for you and your firm!
If you’re pouring time, energy, and money into YouTube and video marketing, you deserve to understand if those efforts are successful. One of our core values is transparency; we take enormous care to outline your campaigns’ performance so you can make the best choices for your firm and your budget. With LaFleur, you can expect regular reporting on all deliverables and recommendations for tactics if you ever need to pivot your approach.