Content writing for single entity business (The use of I)
-
Most of my clients consist of single entity law firms in which my clients repeatedly use the pronoun "I" to describe every service they provide.
I have always preferred using the business name The Law Office of..." put lawyer name here".
Is it ok to repetitively use the pronoun "I" in the content. To me it feels lack luster and childish not very professional, however I have a hard time convincing the lawyers of this.
What are your thoughts? Can good content be written with the repetitive use of "I"? If not is the business name sufficient or maybe another pronoun?
I will be showing responses to my clients if that is ok.
-
Hey Donald,
What I'm understanding is that your clients use
"I offer estate planning services"
as opposed to
"At Adams Law, comprehensive estate planning services have been designed to help you ..."
And that you feel the second example seems more professional. I can see where you're coming from. I can also see that overuse of the word 'I' can start to look rather narcissistic. There's an anecdote about Teddy Roosevelt writing a book so full of the word 'I' that his typesetters had to purchase more of that letter! And, interestingly, this same topic has been coming up in the 2016 primary cycle in which pundits are counting the number of times one Democratic candidate is using the word 'I' vs. the other using the word 'we'. The upshot is, at least in my view, that pronouns definitely set a tone and say a lot about a person or a business. Here's what I think:
-
Legal firms are supposed to sound professional because they deal in matters of serious import for their clients. Most people would not want to entrust their legal affairs to a law firm that seems sloppy or careless. So, a small but significant signal of professionalism is the company's name. Adams Attorneys At Law sounds very official, right? More so than "I do law and stuff like that." would. Then, too, web copy should always be modestly optimized with a brand's name, just for the sake of associating the brand's content with the brand's name in the user's mind.
-
However, mention of the brand's name does not need to exclude use of personal pronouns like 'We' or 'I'. As in, "I want every client of Adams Law to be empowered with accessible, affordable counsel." Or "We will make sure you feel comfortable at Adams Law from your first phone call, to your first meeting, to your final settlement." You can use both. A key point of using first person pronouns is to indicate that a human being or group of humans are communicating something. This is meant to engender a sense of approachability - of someone manning the ship, right? "We are here to help you" is more indicative of a personal communication than "Adams Law exists to help clients".
-
But how far you go with with this depends on the culture of your business. A lawyer who deals with family law may want to project more personal empathy than one who deals with taxes. Or, one who is managing wealth may want to project more of an energetic, hip vibe than one who is trying to appear aggressive because he takes criminal cases.
-
I've written copy for so many different industries over the past 10+ years and my preferred pronoun for nearly all business models is actually not 'I' or 'We'. It's 'YOU'. For most business models, I advocate that 'you' be the most frequently used pronoun, and that 'I' or 'We' come second to that and the brand comes third. How you finesse this relates to how formally a business interacts with its customers. From stuffy to downright laid back, knowing the preferred tone of a client's culture is what should set the tone for all copy, creating consistency and a clear message.
Hope this helps!
-
-
The client can still write their content using the pronoun 'I'. Your copywriters could adjust that content using pronouns such as 'they', and then see if your client prefers the amended content.
-
Trevor,
I am very much in agreement with you.
-
Personally, I think readers of content written in the first person are less likely to trust and like what is being conveyed. A person or company that talks about themselves is much less credible than that person or company being talked about by someone else. Show your clients examples of first-person writing vs. third-person writing and see which they prefer. As you say, client is boss.
-
Many of my web design clients like to write their own content instead of having my copywriter do it. Sometimes this works out, most times it does not. I ask this question because many of my lawyer clients love to write their own content and this "I" is consistent amongst all of them who do write their own.
It is not how I would write it and I recommend other options but the client is boss!
-
I don't think that there is anything wrong with using the word "I" in these situations. I believe that it is a matter of personal style. I see it as more "transparent" than if the attorney used "The Law Firm of..." as that might convey to some people that there are multiple attorneys at the office and that my work might be given to associates. It would make me feel that my work is going to be done by "The Man" or "The Woman" who is the face of the firm.
The only downside of this, is if the attorney does take on associates or partners in the future, then these articles would need to be edited for any service for which the work will be shared or for which the primary attorney will not be determining the philosophy and methods that will be used and holding signature authority over each job.
================================
Applying this to SEO... If I hired someone to work on my websites and they were outsourcing that work to others, I would not be happy with that being done undisclosed. If others are being used, I would want to know who is making changes to my site and be able to have full faith in their work, integrity and competence. I realize that this is common practice by many individual SEO providers, just saying that I would not like it.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
International subdirectory without localized content - best practice / need advice
Hi there, Our site uses a subdirectory for regional and multilingual sites as show below for 200+ countries.
Local Website Optimization | | erinfalwell
EX: /en_US/ All sites have ~the same content & are in English. We have hreflang tags but still have crawl issues. Is there another URL structure you would recommend? Are there any other ways to avoid the duplicate page & crawl budget issues outside of the hreflang tag? Appreciate it!0 -
Question about partial duplicate content on location landing pages of multilocation business
Hi everyone, I am a psychologist in private practice in Colorado and I recently went from one location to 2 locations. I'm currently updating my website to better accommodate the second location. I also plan continued expansion in the future, so there will be more and more locations as time goes on. As a result, I am making my websites current homepage non-location specific and creating location landing pages as I have seen written about in many places. My question is: I know that location landing pages should have unique content, and I have plenty of this, but how much content is it also okay to have be duplicate across the location landing pages and the homepage? For instance, here is the current draft of the new homepage (these are not live yet): http://www.effectivetherapysolutions.com/dev/ And here are the drafts of the location landing pages: http://www.effectivetherapysolutions.com/dev/denver-office http://www.effectivetherapysolutions.com/dev/colorado-springs-office And for reference, here is the current homepage that is actually live for my single Denver location: http://www.effectivetherapysolutions.com/ As you can see, the location landing pages have the following sections of unique content: Therapist picture at the top testimonial quotes (the one on the homepage is the only thing I have I framed in this block from crawl so that it appears as unique content on the Denver page) therapist bios GMB listing driving directions and hours and I also haven't added these yet, but we will also have unique client success stories and appropriately tagged images of the offices So that's plenty of unique content on the pages, but I also have the following sections of content that are identical or nearly identical to what I have on the homepage: Intro paragraph blue and green "adult" and child/teen" boxes under the intro paragraph "our treatment really works" section "types of anxiety we treat" section Is that okay or is that too much duplicate content? The reason I have it that way is that my website has been very successful for years at converting site visitors into paying clients, and I don't want to lose aspects of the page that I know work when people land on it. And now that I am optimizing the location landing pages to be where people end up instead of the homepage, I want them to still see all of that content that I know is effective at conversion. If people on here do think it is too much, one possible solution is to turn parts of it into pictures or put them into I-frames on the location pages so Google doesn't crawl those parts of the location pages, but leave them normal on the homepage so it still gets crawled on there. I've seen a lot written about not having duplicate content on location landing pages for this type of website, but everything I've read seems to refer to entire pages being copied with just the location names changed, which is not what I'm doing, hence my question. Thanks everyone!
Local Website Optimization | | gremmy90 -
If I am starting a new business, similar to my existing business...
Howdy MOZ community, I hope you are enjoying the last days of summer as much as we are here in Toronto-Canada.I own an Air Duct Cleaning business, I have done the web design as well as SEO, My website is currently ranking for quite a few keywords (some of them on the top of the SERPS) special thanks to MOZ for their awesome tools and blog posts.I am starting a Mobile Car Detailing business, Despite the fact that my Duct Cleaning domain is 5 years old with a DA of 42 and PA of 40 (main page).Would it be better for me to just add pages to my existing website (despite the fact that both businesses are in a cleaning niche) or would it be better for me to start another website from scratch? Would it be a bonus for me in terms of my current DA to add pages to my existing website.like for example: www.mywebsite.ca/Mobile-Auto-Detailing or would I get penalized for it? I thank you all for answering my question. Alex
Local Website Optimization | | DustChasersToronto0 -
Store Locator Apps - Which Do You Use?
Hey Everybody! I'd so appreciate feedback from our web developers and Local SEO wizards here regarding store locator apps (you know - type in a city/zip and get shown the stores nearest you). There are a number of different paid options out there on the market, and a couple of free ones. If you are managing the websites/SEO for multi-location clients, would you share with me which store locator app you chose, why you chose it and how you like it? I am particularly interested in two things about these: Does you app allow you to build a permanent landing page for each store location, including the ability to fully customize the content on that page? In terms of ensuring that these landing pages get crawled, have you used an html sitemap, some type of directory page with crawlable links or some other feature that allows bots to reach the landing pages? Or, if you're not doing any of that, do you believe Google is crawling javascript/ajax/something else to get through your store locator widget to the landing pages? Thanks, in advance, for helping me with my research on this topic!
Local Website Optimization | | MiriamEllis0 -
How can I migrate a website's content to a new WP theme, delete the old site, and avoid duplication and other issues?
Hey everyone. I recently took on a side project managing a family member's website (www.donaldtlevinemd.com). I don't want to get too into it, but my relative was roped into two shady digital marketing firms that did nothing but a mix of black-hat SEO (and nothing at all). His site currently runs off a custom wordpress theme which is incompatible with important plugins I want to use for local optimization. I'm also unable to implement responsive design for mobile. The silver lining is that these previous "content marketers" did no legitimate link building (I'm auditing the link profile now) so I feel comfortable starting fresh. I'm just not technical enough to understand how to go about migrating his domain to a new theme (or creating a new domain altogether). All advice is appreciated! Thanks for your help!
Local Website Optimization | | jampaper1 -
How does duplicate content work when creating location specific pages?
In a bid to improve the visibility of my site on the Google SERP's, I am creating landing pages that were initially going to be used in some online advertising. I then thought it might be a good idea to improve the content on the pages so that they would perform better in localised searches. So I have a landing page designed specifically to promote what my business can do, and funnel the user in to requesting a quote from us. The main keyword phrase I am using is "website design london", and I will be creating a few more such as "website design birmingham", "website design leeds". The only thing that I've changed at the moment across all these pages is the location name, I haven't touched any of the USP's or the testimonial that I use. However, in both cases "website design XXX" doesn't show up in any of the USP's or testimonial. So my question is that when I have these pages built, and they're indexed, will I be penalised for this tactic?
Local Website Optimization | | mickburkesnr0 -
Expert Advice Needed: Single Domain vs Multiple Domain for 2 Different Countries?
Hi MOZers, We are looking for some advice on whether to have a single TLD(.com) or 2 separate domains (.ca) & (.com) Our website will have different products & pricing for each of US users(.com) and Canada users(.ca). Since, we are targeting different countries & user groups with each domain - we are not concerned about "duplicate content". So, does it make more sense to have a single domain for compounding our content marketing efforts? Or, Will it be more beneficial to have seperate domains for the geo-targeting benefits on Google.CA & Google.COM? Looking forward to some great suggestions.
Local Website Optimization | | ScorePromotions0 -
Local Area SEO - Directions Page and Multiple Use of Direction pages
Hello, We are looking to focus on multiple local areas and it has been suggested one way to mention lots of different locations on pages without doing lists or using grey SEO practices is to create directions pages. We are trying this with a client who has 2 business at the same address. The layout is:- Introduction - 2-3 sentences Directions by Car Park Parking info Directions by Public Transports Closing - 3-4 sentences - using clients keywords The hope is the having locations/areas and the clients keywords on the same page will capture some of the local areas with the clients keywords. I have some questions:- 1. If we use the same directions text and just change the opening and closing paragraphs on the different website will this be enough to not have a duplicate content issue. 2. Are the directions pages the best way to capture keywords and local area/locations on the same page. 3. Is there anything I am missing or could do instead? Looking forward to everyone's input....
Local Website Optimization | | JohnW-UK0