Law Firm Marketing BLOG

There was a recent article posted on Home Office Warrior about 12 Ways a Blog Can Benefit Your Business. Running a law firm is a business so the reasons to use a blog can apply to your law firm marketing as well.

1. Blogs are not expensive and in fact cost less than most other marketing efforts.
   Attorneys Online, Inc can create a blog for your law firm that will match the same look and feel of your website and train you how to use it!
   If you don’t have a website Attorneys Online Inc can create a new design for your blog. You can contact our legal marketing consultants for more information.
2. New blogs launch quickly and are easy to use.
   Enough said.
3. Search engines love blogs and they love them because blogs are easily updated.
   As stated by Home Office Warrior, “This is a key to blogs and blogging. Because a blog is designed to be easily updated, you will update it with new, relevant content to your target market. If you can write an email, you can update and post to a blog. New, relevant content is key. Not just content, but relevant content.”
   The ability to add new content as often as you like can boost your search engine rankings so you are found under the types of practice areas that you handle. A blog is flexible and can be a powerful tool for reacting to current news topics, cases, and providing information for people in a timely manner. The key is that you decide 5 – 10 keywords you want to focus on and rotate the use of the words throughout your blog entries. As you start to go up in the rankings you can gradually build your keyword base but you will have to juggle the use of your keywords so your rankings don’t fall for the original set of phrases you selected.
4. Publishing a blog shows your readers who you are.
   A blog can help people in need of legal advice feel more comfortable contacting you. They have read your words, opinions, and if they subscribe to your blog you will continue to build their trust with each anecdote, story, and opinion you provide.
5. Blogs offer you a completely new way to communicate with your clients, prospects and fellow business owners.
   Home Office Warrior said it best: “Blogging is a communication between you and your target market. It is a conversation both you and your target can participate in.” People can relate to you by your blog and you can have a more personal approach to people since a blog is an ongoing conversation with people in the internet world.
6. Your target market is using the web to search for everything, including the services or products you are offering.
   A blog is another means to get your name out there for people when they need legal help. If you continually blog about a specific topic like say, New Jersey personal injury law and relevant legal matters eventually your blog will come up when people are looking for that type of legal help. You can provide current information that your potential clients need and if your competitors don’t have a blog then you are a step ahead.
7. Blogging can position you and your blog as the place to go for the information that is needed on the Internet.
   Very Important Facts Provided by Home Office Warrior: “This is accomplished by providing up-to-date, relevant content. A blog puts that information in a form and fashion your target can understand and use. It is projected that 75% of the general public is going to the Internet first to find those things they need. Blogging and its success in search engine placement will put you in front of your target market. And in turn, will drive business to you like no other marketing effort. “
   If your law firm can consistently provide information about the types of cases you would like to handle people will find you when they are searching for that type of legal expertise.
8. Blogging and posting relevant content can position you as a “thought leader” in your niche.
   The more you blog about a topic you have knowledge in the more proof you have as an expert in your field. Your blog can allow you to react to news, concerns, and items in a timely manner which will build your reputation with people visiting your blog and see you as a “thought leader” in the legal world.
   Another way to think about “thought leader” is try a unique angle that would set you apart from your competitors. The legal world can be vicious with the amount of competition you have in your area so to make an impression on people use your blog as a means to show your personality, your interests, and your beliefs. One of our clients, Larry M. Pollack, just launched his blog last week and came up with a great idea – Blog about bizarre and humorous court cases. Here’s the unique angle - he includes his opinion about them and provides “homework” for the next blog entry. That’s brilliant! Keep them coming back for more – you do this by being a “thought leader.”
9. By hosting a conversation on your blog, you will be positioned to succeed.
   Having a blog gives you the ability to communicate with potential clients. You can give feedback and connect with the people interested in your legal topics posted. The ability to communicate with people on a more personal level before they even call you or set foot in your office is what helps you stand apart from other attorneys that don’t use a blog.
10. Having a blog puts you in control of your own Web based magazine and talk show.
    A blog is your platform to discuss whatever is important to you and your firm. You decide what you want to blog about.
11. Your blog post will never disappear from the reach of your target market. While you may have complete control over the blog content you write you should be careful on what you do choose to write about because as stated by Home Office Warrior “your Web content is forever.” The plus side to such a long “shelf life” of your blog posts is that your content has the potential to reach a lot of people at different times and on a continual basis. If you send an email blast, a letter, run a print ad or TV commercial people can delete it, throw it away or turn it off. But your blog posts won’t be eliminated by people. You will always have a fresh crowd to see your blog so long as you keep your blog up-to-date with relevant content and you don’t take down your blog – that is how the “forever” side of your web content can work for you.
12. Get with it and blog, because if you don’t, you will be left behind.
    A famous quote applies here: Time waits for no man.
    The same is true about blogging – the longer you wait to set up a blog and use it the more competition you will have when you do start. Be ahead of the curve. Get a legal blog.  
     

If you use your law firm BLOG properly, it is a great asset for search engine optimization and our clients do notice an increase in their rankings – particularly those clients that chose to have the article headlines featured on their homepages.  In doing so, the rankings of both the main law firm website, as well as the BLOG have increased.  One of the most important pieces of advice that I give to my new BLOG clients is to choose a list of about 10 keyword phrases that the law firm would like to be found under.  Then, every time he/she writes a BLOG entry, make sure to include one of those phrases somewhere in the posting.  Keep in mind that the postings can be short and sweet.  Just talk about something going on with your law firm, your CLE classes, your law firm marketing strategy, or new case law and somehow incorporate one of the phrases.  While I know you can think of hundreds you want to come up under, do your best to narrow the list down as much as possible and start smaller.  You can always expand later once you have great placement.

Phillip Daigneault of Daigneault, Abel & Daigneault, a Los Angeles divorce lawyer, recently hired Attorneys Online to give the firm a stronger web presence.  While he has had a law firm website for a long time, he realized that it was time to create a corporate identity that can be branded for all of his marketing pieces.  We will be creating an attorney website design that will give an overview of all of the services that the firm can provide; additionally, we will be creating a niche practice attorney website design that emphasizes the firm’s strength in being a divorce resource.  To compliment this lawyer marketing strategy, we will be creating a law firm BLOG that will focus on divorce and family law matters in California, specifically in Los Angeles.
 

Daigneault will be providing the majority of the law firm website’s content, as well as articles for the BLOG.  If he or any of our other clients ever needed assistance in writing customized content for the law firm, we can provide it to you; as always, you can then change it, adjust it, personalize it, and give approval for us to put it up.  We welcome Phillip to the Attorneys Online, Inc. client family.