ESQCoach: Marketing Tips for Lawyers

By Terrie S. Wheeler

Twheeler@MarketYourLawPractice.com

Blogging 101: What Lawyers Need to Know

A blog is a website, maintained by a person with substantive knowledge willing to share their viewpoints, opinions, and ideas with the world. It’s easy to establish a free account with www.WordPress.com, or www.Typepad.com .   You can search all blogs by topic (and subscribe to those you are interested in) at www.technorati.com.  One of the best ways to “get into” blogging is to find blogs in areas you have expertise, and provide substantive comments on select posts.   Here are links to a few blogs serving legal and financial professionals:

• Blog for Small Law Firms and Solo Practitioners: www.ESQCoach.wordpress.com
• Financial Advisor Blog:  http://segal.advisorblogcentral.com 
• An Inside Take from the Outside (written by a lawyer in the UK):  http://geotrupes.blogspot.com 

Blogging is a very powerful tool for professionals with refined knowledge, who are willing to share substance, who are good writers, and who will make the commitment to keep adding posts to keep the blog current. 

Another great way to find blogs of interest to you is through Google Reader, a service which searches blogs and RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to deliver desktop access to the content you are interested in (including links to blogs). 

So if you have significant expertise, are willing to share the substance of your knowledge, are a good write, and will keep your blog current (at least one entry per week), here are some tips for you to consider:

Blogger’s Block:  Don’t Over-Think your Blog Post – It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing each and every blog post must be an amazing work of art – - a literary treasure that will rock the world of its readers.  It’s easy to fall into the trap of painstakingly over-analyzing the content of your next post.  In other words, learn to overcome any perfectionist tendencies you might have, and simply trust your intuition on what readers would be interested in – - and DO IT.

Don’t Take your Role as a Blogger Too Seriously – - but Seriously Enough – There are millions of blogs out there in the blogosphere.  Is anyone really keeping track of yours?  Actually, they are!  A well written blog must not only convey substance, it must convey the personality of its writer. Don’t let your quest for brilliant, thought-provoking content prevent you from sharing your thoughts right now – today – in the format that flows when you meld fingers with keyboard.

Promote your Blog – Join an affinity group on a social networking site like LinkedIn or Facebook.    Start a discussion “thread” and ask for comments on your blog.  You’ll be amazed at the responses you receive by reaching out to other bloggers and readers of blogs.  There is also a very cost-effective service called PRWeb where for a reasonable amount of money, you can send targeted news releases about YOUR blog to web-based news outlets and search engines to drive visitors to your blog.

Cross-Market Your Blog– Drive traffic to your blog by doing any (or all) of the following:

Signature Block – Include a link to your blog in your Outlook signature block

Add an RSS feed to your blog on your Facebook and LinkedIn profiles – These links show you how to establish RSS feeds on both sites.   In doing so, each time you post to your blog, the posting automatically appears on both of your profiles.  

 Make sure your website home page provides an easy-to-find link to your blog – Consider adding a “What’s New” section to your homepage which is automatically updated using an RSS feed.  Here is one example on the Professional Services Marketing website.  Adding an RSS feed to your homepage has the dual benefit of driving traffic to your blog – - but also of ensuring the content on your homepage is fresh, which ultimately increases your search engine rankings

Promote your Blog on other Sites – Promote your newest blog posts on Twitter.  Learn more about how to use ONLY 140 characters by shortening long web addresses using Tiny URL.

On every blog post, reference your other social networking activities.

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