Blog
0One of the biggest challenges a new legal blogger faces is generating enough content to attract search engines and start reaching prospective clients. The key to a successful blog is filling it with enough articles to satisfy google, without becoming dull and repetitive. It’s more difficult than it sounds. I remember setting up my first blog and thinking about how much I knew about my field. I assumed it would be easy to knock out a couple dozen posts. No problem I thought.
I was wrong.
Writing about your legal niche is easy. Writing something someone else might care about, now that’s harder. Writing it in a way the average client might want to read, that adds some difficulty. And getting over the anxiety about putting your legal knowledge on display for the world – that really makes it tough.
0One of my stranger hobbies is visiting legal blogs and websites. It dates back to my law school days when I dreamed of going solo. I started crawling through the websites of big city attorneys and country lawyers, taking notes and devising plans for my own site. I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. Sadly, a lot of ugly.
It’s rare that I visit another lawyer’s office and find anything other than a tasteful and professional space. But that same lawyer will have an absolute travesty of a web site. While an online presence is vital for legal professionals in the modern economy, an amateur attempt can do more harm than good.
0Why should you host your legal blog with Web Judicata? That’s the bottom line, right? There are cheaper solutions available for your law practice, and if after learning about the differences those still appeal to you, we’d be happy to offer a few suggestions. But Web Judicata was created by lawyers specifically for lawyers, and offers a number of significant advantages.
0Your domain is your address on the internet. It’s what someone would type to directly visit your legal blog or website. But if someone knows enough about you to type your site’s address, you’ve probably already reached them through other marketing means. Your legal blog is about reaching new people and turning strangers into clients. These are largely people who need what you have, but don’t know you exist.
So why is your domain important?
0Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an important techniques for blogging lawyers. In its most basic form, SEO is a method for raising your site’s rankings in a search engine’s organic rankings. Organic rankings account for the vast majority of all traffic from search engine, and can provide a steady stream of new client referrals.
0Do you use Law Practice Management Software? In my life as a solo, I did not. I made due with a mishmash of applications that worked well enough, especially considering that it was just me in the office. Things like syncing were less of a concern when it was just me. And I had no idea what I was missing.
0I graduated from law school and went solo. Why is a longer story, and not part of today’s ramblings. I knew that keeping my overhead low would be vital to success, so I worked hard to avoid unnecessary costs and did what I could to minimize the ones I couldn’t avoid. I read everything I could on going solo, and heard much sage advice on the folly of Yellow Pages advertising.
0If you are in the legal business to make money, and that should be at least a goal of your work, then attracting clients is the name of the game. Traditionally, lawyers didn’t advertise. At all. But times have changed. Not long ago, an ad in the phone book was enough to attract a steady stream of new clients. The bigger the ad, the more calls you received. But the game has changed again.
