Even if your law firm has an attractive website filled with valuable content that is easily found through a web search, you could still be unreachable to a number of potential clients in your area. Why? Many of your potential clients may speak Spanish and may be searching for a lawyer using Spanish keywords — not English keywords.
To market to Spanish-speaking clients, you are going to need Spanish content on your website. This article explores how and why you should create Spanish web pages.
Who are Your Potential Clients, and How Are They Searching for a Lawyer?
According to the Office of Minority Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, there are 62.1 million Hispanics living in the United States. This figure represents 18.9 percent of the total U.S. population.
Census data shows that 71% of Hispanics speak a language other than English at home, and 28% of Hispanics say they are not fluent in English.
What do these Spanish-speaking people living in the United States do when they need a lawyer? Many of them perform internet searches using keywords and queries in Spanish. Will they find your law firm’s website if they are looking for “un abogado” in your area?
Would Your Law Firm Benefit from Marketing to Spanish-Speaking Clients?
Successful law firms need to know and market to all potential clients in their region and practice area. Therefore, you should ask yourself, “How many of your potential clients are Spanish-speaking?”
The top ten states in the U.S. with the largest Hispanic and Latino populations are:
- Arizona
- California
- Colorado
- Florida
- Georgia
- Illinois
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- New York
- Texas.
Even if you practice in a state not on this list, you may still benefit from marketing to Spanish-speaking clients. Do some research on your local demographics and determine whether there are nearby regions that have large groups of Spanish-speaking families or residents.
Many people assume that Spanish-speaking individuals in the United States all understand each other, but that’s not necessarily true. There are different dialects of Spanish. You may have a community of potential clients who came to the U.S. from Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Central America, or South America. Every area has its own unique dialect and phrases. Your website should reflect the language spoken by the people/community who are most likely to need your services.
Strategies for Creating Spanish Content on Your Law Firm’s Website
According to a 2020 survey by CSA Research, 76% of respondents to the survey prefer to buy products that have information in their own language. In your case, this would be legal services.
If Spanish-speaking users can’t read or understand your website, there is an extremely small likelihood that they will reach out to you for help. In all likelihood, these potential clients will leave your site and seek out another local firm with Spanish web content. Your competitors may be getting valuable leads simply by having foreign-language content on their websites.
Now comes the tricky part. How do you create Spanish content so you can reach the underserved Spanish-speaking people in your area? And what pages are most important? We’ve listed six different options you can use to create Spanish content on your website.
1. Create a Unique Spanish Landing Page
A Spanish landing page gives you the opportunity to create a dedicated page for Spanish-speaking users. This page will summarize your skills and experience, what services you provide, and how someone can contact you. As it may be your only page with Spanish content, you should avoid linking to other pages on your site.
However, you should provide a link to the Spanish landing page on your main site. You can include it with your main navigational links and label the link “Español” or something similar.
2. Translate Your Primary Landing Pages into Spanish
Consider translating your primary landing pages into Spanish. What are your primary landing pages? These pages will address topical legal questions users might have about their case, what types of services your law firm provides, under what circumstances a person may need your firm, and how to contact you. These pages are often based on a keyword term or topic, e.g., “Houston personal injury lawyer,” “Los Angeles car accident lawyer,” “New York criminal defense Lawyer,” or “Atlanta DUI lawyer.”
This option does not require you to write new content for your website, but it does require you to accurately translate your existing content into Spanish. Later in this article, we will discuss the problems with certain translating services and software, and we identify some tips for seeking an accurate translation of your content.
Once you have translated your primary landing pages into Spanish, you need to make them available from your main website. Consider creating a main Spanish navigational link in your main menu (with the new link written in Spanish, of course), and creating a submenu out of the other Spanish pages.
For example, if a person hovers over a main link that says “Español,” a submenu might appear listing the names of the other pages. If the person clicks on the main link, it will take them to your main Spanish landing page. On that main Spanish landing page, you should also create links to the other Spanish pages you’ve created.
3. Translate Your Practice Area Pages into Spanish
Every main practice area, whether it be personal injury, criminal defense, family law, or employment law, can be broken down into further practice areas. For personal injury law, it might be motor vehicle accidents, workplace accidents, product defects, etc. For criminal defense, DUI, violent crimes, and drug crimes, among others. For family law, divorce, child custody, and property division.
If you are serious about attracting Spanish-speaking clients, you are probably going to want your main practice area pages translated into Spanish. You may not need to translate every single practice area page, but you will need more than a couple of primary landing pages.
4. Create a Dedicated Spanish Site Using a Subdomain
Creating a dedicated Spanish website is a more thorough way of making all your online information available to Spanish-speaking clients. Every single part of the Spanish website will be written in Spanish, including the menus, the footers, and any other static information that exists on all the pages of the site.
A subdomain is an extension of your main domain. For instance, let’s say your main website is:
- https://myfamilylawfirm.com/
Your Spanish subdomain could be:
- https://abogadosdefamilia.myfamilylawfirm.com/
You may need to check to see if this option is possible with your web host. If you create a dedicated Spanish site, you have the option to write unique Spanish content, which we will discuss more in strategy number six.
5. Publish a Spanish Version of Blog Articles Originally Published in English
Many law firms keep a blog. Blog posts address key topics and questions your clients may have about your practice area. They may explain the laws that will impact a client’s case, or they may be non-legal content meant to drive traffic. Whatever the blog articles are about, you need them to be available to Spanish speakers, too.
This means you should create a Spanish version of each of your blog articles. If you have a dedicated Spanish site, you will also have a dedicated Spanish blog. Suppose you do not have a dedicated Spanish site but want to create Spanish versions of your English blog articles. In this case, you could create a link toward the top of the English article that will bring the Spanish speaker to the Spanish version of the article.
6. Write Unique Spanish-Language Content
So far, most of the strategies have involved translating existing English content into Spanish. Creating unique Spanish-language content for your law firm’s website is a strategy that involves more effort and cost., but it will also increase your appeal among Spanish-speaking leads.
Unique content is not a translation. You will need a native-level Spanish writer to take your content and rewrite it for the particular ethnic group to whom you are marketing. For instance, if your region consists of a large number of Puerto Ricans, you may decide to hire a content writer who is fluent in the Spanish dialect that Puerto Ricans speak.
This strategy shows that you care about a specific community, you are aware of their culture, and you want to help them through your legal services. In fact, you are showing you are willing to communicate with them in the way they understand best. That kind of message will go a long way to gaining trust among your Spanish-speaking clientele.
How to Translate Your Content into Spanish
Now that you understand various strategies for making your web content available to Spanish-speaking people who may need your legal services, it is time to discuss the issue of translation. As we noted above, creating unique content is the most thoughtful and likely the most effective strategy. However, it is not the easiest strategy. You can consider other options, such as hiring a translator to translate your English pages into Spanish or working with a legal marketing company.
Many law firms (and businesses everywhere) are tempted to use translation software to translate their web content. We’ll tell you why this is not the best idea.
Why You Should Hire a Translator
Hiring a human to translate your web content from English to Spanish is much preferable to using non-human software. Bad translations are abundant in our day-to-day world. We try to read product instructions that have been poorly translated into English from another language, and it makes us laugh because it doesn’t make any sense.
A human translator who is proficient in both English and Spanish will be able to avoid the obvious mistakes that are a turn-off to your Spanish-speaking clients. Even if the translator does a direct translation of your content, you should end up with decent Spanish web content that will feel welcoming to a Spanish speaker.
Why You Should Not Use Translation Software
Translation software, translation apps, and even AI translation services are not human and, therefore, not nuanced in their language. They make terrible mistakes that sound ridiculous to a native Spanish speaker and cause potential clients to leave your website.
Not only that, but the bad content that these services create may negatively affect your SEO, which means search engines may not feature your website when users type in Spanish keywords or queries.
The Advantages of Working with a Legal Marketing Company
A legal marketing company understands the unique problems law firms face when trying to reach a minority ethnic group in their region. As marketing experts, they can provide the human translations that you need to remain professional throughout your entire website, including the Spanish pages.
Not only that, a legal marketing company will know how to improve your SEO, so web users who search for lawyers using Spanish keywords will be able to find your firm’s website. They can maximize the impact of your web content using proven strategies. The legal marketing company will help you reach more clients, build trust among Spanish speakers, and reach your overarching goals as a legal firm.
LawRank Has a Successful Track Record of Helping Law Firms Reach Spanish-Speaking Clients
LawRank is a legal marketing company specializing in search engine optimization, web design, and PPC for attorneys. We can help you reach Spanish-speaking clients by providing you with Spanish web content that is accurate and welcoming.
Both of our co-founders are Spanish, and 80% of our staff is fluent in Spanish. We can provide all the web tools you need to gain new clients, including Spanish-language contact forms and testimonials from Spanish-speaking clients.
Let LawRank increase your website traffic and your leads through professional Spanish legal content that has been developed and/or approved by attorneys. Contact us to learn more about our legal content services.