Content Briefs For Legal Content

Content gap analysis and competitor analysis are powerful tools for creating high-performing content briefs, particularly in legal content, where accuracy, authority, and search visibility are crucial.

How They Help Inform Legal Content Briefs:

1. Content Gap Analysis

Identifies what your law firm’s website is missing in terms of relevant content.

• Reveals Missing Topics: If your site doesn’t address key legal issues (e.g., “How long does a DUI stay on your record in NJ”), a gap analysis highlights this.
• Improves Depth: You may have basic content on “personal injury,” but not deeper pages like “common car accident injuries in NJ.”
• Aligns With Search Intent: Shows where your existing content isn’t matching what people are really searching for — critical in law, where search terms vary widely.
• Informs Brief Elements:
  • Focus keywords
  • FAQ sections
  • Related legal statutes
  • Localized intent (e.g., NJ-specific law)

2. Competitor Analysis

Shows what other law firms are doing that works — and what you can do better or differently.

• Identifies Top-Performing Pages: You can see which competitor pages rank well and reverse-engineer their structure, topics, and formatting.
• Uncovers Differentiators: Helps you find opportunities to stand out with more detailed explanations, clearer calls to action, or more engaging visuals (e.g., timelines, checklists).
• Reveals Keyword & Topic Strategy: Lets you build briefs that target both broad and long-tail terms your competitors are ranking for.
• Informs Brief Elements:
  • Suggested titles/headlines
  • Subheadings and topic coverage
  • Tone and style (e.g., formal vs. conversational)
  • Internal linking opportunities

Supporting Documents for Content Briefs

Including supporting documents like statutes, case law, or court procedures in your legal content is a strategic way to fill gaps competitors often overlook — and significantly enhance the authority and completeness of your content briefs.

How Statutes Help Flesh Out Missing Elements:

1. Add Legal Accuracy and Depth

Many competitor pages provide summaries or surface-level info. Quoting or linking to actual statutes (e.g., N.J.S.A. 2C:12-1) provides:

• Precise legal language
• Statutory definitions and classifications (e.g., degrees of assault)
• Penalty ranges or procedural rules

This elevates trust and meets E-E-A-T standards (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness), which Google values in YMYL content like law.

2. Reveal Untapped Content Opportunities

Statutes often contain details competitors miss, such as:

• Lesser-known sub-sections (e.g., exceptions, enhancements, or special circumstances)
• Required legal thresholds or burden of proof
• Cross-references to related offenses or defenses

You can turn these into new sections, FAQs, or internal links (e.g., “difference between simple and aggravated assault under NJ law”).

3. Support Complex Topics with Authoritative Sources

When content becomes legally nuanced (e.g., Miranda violations, implied consent in DUI cases), citing the statute helps build clarity and credibility.

Your content has the opportunity to rank better in Google, while also having the potential to convert better because it reassures cautious readers (or legal researchers) that the information is grounded in real law.

Final Takeaway:

Competitors often focus on SEO basics and miss the legal backbone. By integrating statutes and legal documents into your content briefs, you bridge that gap, create more authoritative and defensible content, and better serve both users and law firm clients.

Included With Our Legal Content Writing Service

We utilize content briefs to support our content writers in crafting in-depth legal content for our law firm and lawyer clients.