In the past, marketing such a specific practice was a challenge. Doctors opening an office are widely distributed, so reaching them all required saturation. But now, almost anyone considering doing anything will Google it first. And that’s where your advantage comes in.

If your legal blog is filled with articles about your niche, you will probably have considerably more content that anyone else on that topic. And Google loves content. Even more than that, it loves specific content. Google’s goal is to provide relevant information to everyone who searches. As searches become more and more specific, Google has a tougher time answering them. If you provide a likely source of information on a niche topic, it will be very easy to rank highly for those search terms. The competition just isn’t as high.

You get a win-win situation. Not only are you able to provide more specialized and relevant advice to clients, but it’s easier to reach them through your law blog. And, you enable Google to provide relevant information to a pretty narrow search term, which improves their service and makes you more easily findable.

According to Eli Pariser, the Filter Bubble is an unintended consequence of efforts by Google, Facebook, and others to personalize the web. You see, some very talented engineers at these companies have built computer programs that monitor what you do online, collect that data, and use it to predict what else will interest me. Other items, that the programs think will not interest me, are filtered out of my search results or news feed.

Great you might be thinking, finally a search engine that can read my mind. But Eli’s point is that part of what makes the internet great is that it exposes users to everything else that is out there. By eliminating those things that don’t fit our past interests, we may be depriving people of important information. Information that makes them a better person.

For example, in the talk that appears above, Eli shows the search results from two of his friends. He had them each Google the word “Egypt” in the midst of the political upheaval and riots that took place there recently. For one person, the results were full of news reports on the protests there. The second person’s result didn’t even mention them. If he had been depending on this Google search for his news, he would have no idea what was going on.

Eli’s talk is fascinating, and important, and I strongly encourage everyone to watch it and learn more about this phenomenon. But I’m sure right about now, you’re wondering – what does this have to do with me? I’m a lawyer with a blog, do I need to care.

And the truth is, the filter bubble may be good for you. One of the factors that Google uses to determine which results to display is geographic location. So when a person searches the term Business Lawyer from Salem, Oregon she gets different results than someone searching that same turn from Salem, Massachusetts. If you’re a business lawyer in Oregon, you are presumably more interested in Oregon searches, so this is a good deal. It also limits the competition for those key phrases when you’re trying to optimize your blog.

But if your blog falls outside of the user’s bubble, then it will be like you simply don’t exist. And this could be based on a hundred different factors that you have no control over. Maybe conservatives are more likely to click on your blog, so the search engines decide that you are a conservative site and stop showing your results to searchers it thinks are liberal.

There are clearly advantages to a more personalized web. And Eli acknowledges that in his talk. What he advocates for is that these new gatekeepers do a better job of mixing in results that we need with the results that we want. I may click link after link of funny pet pictures on reddit, but I still need to know about political instability in foreign countries.

Are you the new lawyer in town? Start calling the old guard. They may not have time for lunch, but I bet most would take a few minutes to meet if you made an appointment. This is something I did when I opened my solo practice, and it was more incredibly valuable. While meeting with one of the more established attorneys in town, she recounted her experience doing the same thing at her first job. She talked about how she had been sent to visit all the important players, and I could tell it flattered her to now be among that group. She referred me dozens of clients after that lunch.

But don’t limit yourself to other lawyers. Seek out professionals in related fields (or unrelated field). A friendly talk over lunch usually uncovers a number of ways you can help each other out. Clients tend to assume that lawyers are familiar with other professionals around, and will ask you for referrals often. It’s a lot easier to do that when you know what sort of services other people offer. Can you learn that from their website? Maybe. Will you get more cross-referrals if you’ve established a personal relationship with that person. Absolutely.

That being said, life isn’t all about getting more clients. It’s also about enjoying what you do. And any psychologist will tell you, we are social creatures. We crave human interaction. I don’t know about you, but I feel far more connected to people I see regularly in real life. So pick up the phone, make a few calls, and ask someone to lunch. Who knows, you might even make a new friend.

So when you sit down to write a new article for your blog, think about how your clients would describe the topic. Use those words, but also explain what terms lawyers use. They’ll appreciate knowing that it means the same thing, which is a good feeling to cultivate in a prospective client.

Putting yourself in a potential client’s shoes is always a valuable exercise. The things that you find interesting about your practice area are almost never the reasons that someone is looking for your services. It doesn’t mean you can’t write about more complex topics. You most certainly should. But if your goal is to attract new clients, you need to write to them too. The woman who got blind-sided isn’t searching for the newest developments in insurance stacking law. She wants to know how long it will be until she gets some money for her medical bills. So write both articles. In blogging, it really is the more the merrier.

There are a lot of great reasons to start a legal blog. Some lawyers want to increase their stature among peers. If that’s your goal, ignore this article. Or rather, just embrace the central principle: write for your audience. The more common goal when a lawyer starts a blog is to attract clients. And if that’s your objective, you need to write in a way that will interest your clients and that they can understand. But never NEVER talk down to them. No one likes that, no matter what Dr. House thinks.

You want articles on your blog that answer clients’ questions. Listen to the questions asked during your next consult, and you’ll have fodder for a huge round of new blog posts. Write those the same way you would describe the topic in person, and you’ll probably accomplish everything I’ve preached here. It’s a great SEO technique, but mostly it’s just common sense. Use the words your clients use for a better match on search engine results. It’s that easy. Let me know how it goes.

Wordpress, which claims to be the world’s most popular blogging platform, offers easy integration of countless themes. Simply upload a theme to your host, place it in the right directory, and you should have a new look to your blog. But, like many free things in life, there’s a catch. Lately, there’s been a large number of incidents involving malware being placed inside free themes. Use an infected theme, and you’ll unwittingly be promoting the latest viagra spammer.

One solution, is to purchase a premium theme. Doing this from a reputable source virtually guarantees a clean file. Some of our favorite include:

• Theme Forest – http://www.themeforest.net/
• Woo Themes – http://www.woothemes.com/
• Elegant Themes – http://www.elegantthemes.com/

These are high quality themes made by professional web designers, and would give any lawyer’s blog a great appearance. Depending on the theme you select, there may be some customization required. Placing your logo, for example, is incredibly easy for some options, and more complicated for others. Generally, the theme authors are willing to provide some support if you’ve purchased their product. You will still need to upload the file to your server, but if you’ve already launched a WordPress blog, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

At Web Judicata, customized designs uniquely tailored to your practice come standard with every plan. We understand that this is your face on the internet, and want to make it professional and impressive in every way that we can. More than that, we provide ongoing support for the inevitable changes that will occur as your firm grows and matures – at no extra cost. In every way we can, we offer a legal blogging solution that just works. You won’t need to learn HTML, CSS, Adobe Photoshop, or how to use an FTP client. You’ll just write.

That leaves an uncomfortable middle ground. A time when you could really use some extra help around the office, but the liability of hiring staff is just too daunting. Good news, the internet is coming to your rescue. Virtual assistants exist to fill just this gap. The basic concept is that you pay someone to provide assistance virtually, meaning from somewhere else. Because virtual assistants are independent contractors rather than employees, you aren’t responsible for employee-related taxes, insurance or benefits. And, you avoid the logistical problem of finding extra space, equipment and supplies. Win-win.

Virtual receptionists, like Ruby Receptionists, will answer your phone and give the impression that you’ve got someone right their in your office. They can screen calls, and take messages when you’re unavailable. Trust me, this is much better than voice mail. And best of all, it’s at an affordable price that you can cancel without having to fire an employee.

And if you need more help than a receptionist can provide, maybe you want to consider a virtual paralegal. Someone working remotely who can handle more complicated legal tasks for your growing practice. You won’t get the companionship of having someone else in the office, but you’ll also avoid a huge amount of the overhead by only paying for what you need. Then, once you’ve grown to a point that you’re comfortable, you can drop the virtual assistant or simply hire more. Like all great things online, the system is scalable.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again: keeping your overhead low is a vital component to surviving as a lawyer. Virtual assistants provide an amazing way to grow incrementally, in a way that was previously impossible. If you’re considering an expansion, you owe it to yourself to at least consider the option. What have you got to lose?

To solve this, LawyerUp charges a monthly subscription fee which guarantees access to an attorney whenever you need one. Even at 2:00 a.m. on a Saturday. At $4.95 a month, the subscription service is affordable for just about anyone, at least anyone who could afford a lawyer. Obviously, this is aimed at people in need of a criminal defense lawyer (other areas of law don’t seem to have the same kind of urgency in the middle of the night).

Currently, LawyerUp operates in only a few jurisdictions but I’m guessing they have intentions of growing. So it raises an interesting question: would you answer your phone in the middle of the night for a prospective client? Would you answer your phone after 5:00? Because if not, it looks like someone else will.

The legal professional is notoriously opposed to innovation. Advertising is still a new development. This kind of change is often met with skepticism, doubt, and slow acceptance. But, if the lawyer down the street is taking late-night calls, how are you going to compete? This isn’t just a hypothetical question. Technology is making it easier and easier to stay connected, at all hours. In the competitive field of law, you better believe that other lawyers are going to use it to offer more access, either through LawyerUp or on their own.

And not just in criminal law. How many times have you come in Monday morning to a series of frantic weekend messages from clients of all kinds of cases? If a quick Google search turned up another lawyer in town able to talk to them Sunday afternoon, do you think you’d still have a client? I’ve changed service providers over less.

We already bring our email home on our phones. And I’m guessing some of you have given favored clients your cell phone number just in case of an emergency. Maybe soon, you’ll be doing that for everyone. Or at least offering an alternative. Doctors take turns being “on-call” during non-work hours. For existing clients, firms could do it in house, but solos would face a mountain of practical and ethical hurdles.

For new clients, well in that case it’s every lawyer for himself.

But as your blog grows, and prospective clients start rolling in from the web, you acquire a great source for new content: analytics. All our legal blogging packages here at Web Judicata include a custom analytics package which tells you, among other things, what search terms readers used to find your blog. Initially, it will be the terms that you’ve chosen to optimize for: your practice area and your geographic location. But as your base of articles grows, the terms that show up will become more and more diverse.

You’ll discover that someone is searching for a strange tangent to an article you wrote a few months ago. By writing an article on that specific subject, you’ll be even more likely to attract that search term the next go around. And if one person used it to locate you, odds are good that someone else will as well.

Getting in your client’s head

Another benefit of reviewing the search results is to learn how your clients think. The terms you would use to find a lawyer are not the same as what prospective clients search with. Lawyers think in terms of “personal injury attorneys” while clients talk about “car crash lawyers.” You might handle family law cases, but your client needs a divorce. The same goes for estate planning, when really someone just wants a will. If your blog is full of legalese (or even just formal terms) clients won’t find you as easily.

By monitoring how people are finding your law blog, you can expand the scope of terms that you emphasize. Putting the terms that your clients actually use in the title of posts is an important SEO technique for lawyers that will net real benefits for your practice. And, the more you do it, the more your base of search terms will grow.

Even if you don’t use Web Judicata for your law blog, you should be using an system to track your visitors. Google offers a very nice, free, option with Google Analytics – and it is relatively easy to integrate with most of the blogging platforms out there.

If you’re a Web Judicata subscriber, you have access to advanced training on web analytics and the best ways to use it to grow your blog.

If you are spending money marketing your law practice, you’re crazy unless you track the results. I had lunch with an attorney the other day who is spending four figures a month on newspaper advertising (which he called cheap compared to his phone book ad). When I asked him what sort of a return he was getting on that investment he started at my blankly for a minute before saying, “well I’m pretty busy.”

Return on Investment (ROI)

For all my friend knows, he hasn’t gotten a single new client from the newspaper ad. For the record, I don’t think this is the case – but I also don’t think it’s producing as much work as he believes it is. Without data on where your clients come from, it’s impossible to know where you marketing efforts and budget are best spent.

I have a former client who sends me a tremendous number of quality referrals. About every other month I take him out to lunch and we talk for a few hours. This is some of the best time I spend promoting my practice. I happen to like the guy and have a great time, but he really

Saying Thank You

I also make it a point to send a thank you to anyone who refers me a client. You’d be amazed how far a little common curtesy will go. Here someone has sent me a client worth hundreds or thousands of dollars to me and my firm. The least I can do is say thank you. And if its another attorney, make a point to return the favor when I come across someone outside my niche.

Again, writing a thank you note takes time. But my numbers indicate that a client who refers someone new to me once is significantly more likely to do it again. And even though I would do it regardless, it’s nice to know that such a simple gesture produces real returns for my business.

Optimizing Your Advertising

If you’re going to spend money promoting your law firm, you should spend it in the most effective way possible. I don’t think anyone would disagree with that statement. But the only way to know how well your marketing is working, is to track where your intake calls come from, which of those prospects becomes a paying client, and how much that client pays you.

Once you have those numbers, it’s simple arithmetic to determine how much you’re making from your various marketing efforts. Then, you can start experimenting. It may be that a certain ad accounts is producing a huge return on investment. Is that scalable? Can you pour more money into that channel and produce better results? How about the other way? Can you cut back on the budget for that item but still get comparable results? You’ll be surprised what you discover.

Front of Mind

There is a more abstract benefit to heavy advertising that isn’t as easily tracked with this method. If you’re doing a good job of consistently getting yourself in front of a large part of your target audience, you may achieve front of mind status. That is, when people think of a lawyer in your town, they may think of you. Not because of a specific ad, billboard, or radio spot. But because they have repeatedly seen your name or picture in a way that ties the association in their mind.

This is invaluable, but I also think it’s an offshoot of effective marketing management. A half-page ad in the Sunday paper every week for years isn’t the only way to achieve front of mind status. It may work, but it will cost you. Especially for new lawyers and those just starting a practice, trying to get clients through sheer saturation is suicide.

Use hard data to find what works, and then test that method until you get the best return on your investment. Of course, I think a law blog is the best investment you can make, but that’s just me.

Image via nettuts

For example, imagine you have a video of yourself talking about the latest developments in Trusts and Estate law stored on a server in California. Without a CDN, a visitor from California will be able to access your blog more quickly than someone from New York. But with a CDN, there are copies of the video spread out across the U.S. and the world, so that no matter where your visitors come from your blog loads quickly. It ensures that your content is closer to your visitors, and also distributes the load to keep servers responding quickly and efficiently. It also makes sure that your blog can withstand the onslaught of visitors of an article goes “viral.” Shared hosting is particularly vulnerable to being taken down by a sudden link from a popular source. Our private hosting and CDN setup allows Web Judicata blogs to stay afloat no matter how popular you get.

For lawyers with a specific jurisdiction or a niche practice, having a blog that loads quickly around the world may not seem that important. But distributing the load makes your page faster for everyone, even if they’re all coming from Wisconsin.

Google believes they lose 20% of their traffic for each additional 100 milliseconds it takes a page to load. They are so concerned with speed that they incorporate your page’s load time into search rankings. All things being equal, the faster legal blog will rank higher than its competition. Wouldn’t you like that advantage over the lawyer down the street?

CDNs are included in the Plus and Premium plans for lawyer’s blogs here at Web Judicata. With use this in combination with individually configured caching and private servers to make your blog fast and reliable.