You likely have a pile of words on the Internet. Some piles are bigger than others.
Call it a website, a blog, or a big pile of words—I don’t care. And it doesn’t matter what you call it.
What matters is that you contribute your expertise to those in need of information. Demonstrating your expertise attracts attention. The attention turns into relationships, phone calls, and inquiries. The inquiries turn into clients. The clients turn into money. The money pays for food, shelter, and luxury vacations at beach resorts.
Words on your website equal fancy cocktails with umbrellas on top. Get it?
Of course, you only get the fancy cocktail if the words on your site provide value to your audience. You’ve got to create information that is useful and valuable and that you deliver in a manner that helps people. No one values a bunch of crap that says “Raleigh divorce lawyer” over and over. Real words need to change lives. They need to make a difference.
The Number of Words It Takes to Grow Your Business
When I speak to lawyers at my workshops about building websites and the need for words, they quickly ask, “How many words?” They want to know how much writing it takes to generate new business.
Here’s the answer. You need 66,000 words (ideally, kept current and up-to-date). Of course, that number varies by practice area, and it’s kind of a wild guess. But it’s better than nothing, and you like specifics, so I’m being specific. If you argue with me about whether I’m right, then I’ll agree with you. I admit that it’s a guess (but an educated guess).
The conversation quickly turns into “I don’t have time to write that much,” “How can I get someone to do that for me?” and “How much will that cost?”
It’s Easier Than You Think to Hit the Magic Number
Let’s break it down.
Let’s say you write 300 words a day, which seriously is really not very much (in fact, this is word number 331 right here, if you count the headline). You can likely write 300 words in fewer than 15 minutes since you’re writing about something you already know (this took 7 minutes so far, and that’s while simultaneously checking Facebook).
If you write 300 words a day, Monday to Friday, for the next year, you’ll have written 66,000 words. You’ll be done. You’ll have substantial content.
In fact, if you write 300 words a day for the next year, you can use those words for more than the website. You can turn them into:
- a book,
- a bunch of e-books,
- videos,
- white papers,
- a slide deck for Slideshare,
- podcasts,
- infographics,
- seminars, and
- webinars.
You get the idea.
Start writing. You don’t need to finish it overnight. You’re playing the long game. You’re building a business. You’re not finishing a project. Get going. Write. Keep writing. Once you get started, you’ll have your 66,000 words before you realize what hit you.
You’ve got the words. They’re in your head. You’ve got a few minutes a day to crank them out. They’ll accumulate quickly, and they’ll pay off for you for years. Spending a few minutes a day building that core content will boost your practice and set your course for decades to come. Don’t look for reasons that you can’t do it. Just do it. Take a few minutes today to get it done.
