Blog Marketing Tips for Lawyers and Law Firms

One of the best blog marketing tips I can give any lawyer that is thinking about starting a blog is to just start one.  Blogging is one of the fastest and easiest ways to position yourself as an expert in your chosen practice area.  For those of you who don’t know what I am talking about, a blog is nothing more than an online journal.  It’s a website just like any other, but because of the way it is structured and because the content of a blog is always changing, it can quickly get picked up by the search engines and greatly increase your chances of getting search “hits” in your chosen practice area.

Entire books have been written that discuss various blog marketing tips, and I certainly am not going to try to duplicate them here.  Several good books on the topic are Blogging for Dummies by Brad Hill and Blogwild! By Andy Wibbels. 

There are several key blog marketing tips that you need to be aware of.  First, any lawyer that is responsible for marketing their practice must be aware of blogging as another tool to market their practice.  Second, you should understand that you could start a blog today if you wanted to with very little effort.  Third, I've included in this article some basic information about some of the main blogging companies and the plusses and minuses to each.  Finally, this web page will give you some ideas on how to find new content for your blog, should you choose to start one.

What is a blog?

 A blog is simply an online journal.  Andy Wibbels describes a blog as follows:

A blog – short for “weblog” – is often described as an online diary.  The most recent entries (called posts) appear on the homepage of the blog with links to archives of older posts.  Archives are organized by date and often categorized by topic.  Many times each post has a form for readers to add their own comments at the end to give their opinion or reaction to the post’s content.

The real genius in blogs appears in the process of how they are written.  You can update your blog instantly from any Internet connection on any computer anywhere in the world.  It’s super easy.  If you can send an e-mail, you can publish a weblog.

How do I start a blog?

The first of my many blog marketing tips is that if you don't already have a legal marketing blog, you should start one.  I've said this to so many attorneys, and so few have heeded this advice.  If you have a computer – any computer – you can start a blog.  To start a blog for your law practice, I recommend using either Blogger or Typepad.  There are some other blog programs out there (MSN Spaces or Yahoo! 360), but I am not as familiar with them.  The first blog I started was on Blogger, and soon thereafter I switched to Typepad because of additional archiving features that Typepad offered.  I recommend that you check out both websites to see which you prefer.  If you are so inclined, you may also use your own software to create and host your own weblog with either Moveable Type or Wordpress.

Major blogging websites

The two major blogging websites that will best satisfy your needs for a law practice are Typepad and Blogger.  If you get really serious about blogging, I recommend that you pick up one of the books referenced above to walk you through the process.  In this short section I have included only a brief overview of each website.

Cost:   Blogger is free while Typepad will cost you between $5-15 per month, depending on the service level you choose.  I recommend using the Pro service level if you choose Typepad for $8.95 per month.

Ease of Use:  Neither Blogger nor Typepad are “easy” to use, but they are not difficult either.  Typepad has lots of menus which can be confusing, and you may need to learn a little HTML for formatting.  (Trust me, it isn’t THAT hard.)  Lot’s of what you will be doing is cutting and pasting.  The benefit to all of these menus in Typepad is that you can do more with your blog, and it is easier to organize your archived content. 

Features:  One of the things that I really did not like about Blogger was that you could only archive your posts by date.  Typepad, on the other hand, easily allows you to organize your posts by category and date, which is a huge advantage, especially when you are looking for an old post.  Another benefit to using Typepad is that you can use Trackbacks, which cannot be used in Blogger.

How do I find new content to write about?

Another of the great blog marketing tips is to constantly create new content.  Lawyers should never have a problem finding new content to write about.  Before you draft any new content for your blog or website, always ask yourself "What's the point of this post, and what do I want to achieve?"  Here are some quick ideas that can help you get started:

• Review a new case, giving specific details which explain how the case might be useful, and how it will impact your practice area. 
• Publish a helpful how-to article.  If you are a family law attorney, you may want to publish information on how to protect or prepare yourself if you are thinking about a divorce.  By doing this, you will breath some life into your law practice and build credibility with your readers.
• Make an insightful comment on news in your practice area.  This should be something that is truly meaningful, not just reblogging what someone else has written or somebody else’s opinion.

These are just a few blog marketing tips for you to consider as you think about the best ways to market your law practice.  Click here for more blog marketing tactics and tools.