My blogging mantra has always been:


Most commonly, it's the "often" component of this equation that generates the most discussion and debate.  For example, a recent Portfolio story on lawyer blogs pointed out that:

[...] many are finding that feeding the blog beast with fresh content is a legal challenge unto itself. Lawyers and blog specialists say the best legal blogs generate at least several posts per week.

While it's important to blog often, particularly when getting a blog off the ground, timing is equally, if not more important than frequency.  In other words, you don't need to blog often so much as you need to blog early.

First to press:  One component of blogging early involves reacting quickly to a big news story, getting a post up on breaking news or a recently issued decision before other bloggers come on the scene.  When you post about a new development early, you make your blog indispensable to readers; a go to source of up to date information.  In addition, an early post on a topic ensures that other bloggers or media sources will link to or comment on your blog, therefore giving you more exposure.  A couple of rules about posting early, however. 

First, if there's a hot news story or just-issued judicial decision, don't just throw out a link with a single line like "read this!" or "breaking news!"  To make your post valuable, you must offer some original insight or prediction, even if it's based on a quick first impression.  You can always update the post or write a follow up as events emerge.  Second, you don't need to be first to press with every single news item, or you run the risk of converting your blog into a news feed rather than a source of analysis and conversation.  If you enjoy providing rapid feed on new developments, share your blurbs on Twitter, which offers a  better platform for short form writing than a blog.

Early in the morning:   When I say that you should blog early, I also mean it literally, as in early in the morning.   Many heavy blog readers like newspaper reporters (who can give you more exposure) or other lawyers (who can generate referrals) tend to scroll through their news feeders first thing in the morning in search of fodder for their own blog posts and stories.  If you can get your posts up early in the morning, they're more likely to be read when fresh.  By contrast, if you post on a time-sensitive topic later in the day, by the time your post comes up on an aggregator, it may be yesterday's news.

Early in the week:  Posting early in the week is important for two reasons.  First, (and though the evidence is hardly scientific), based on my experience at several different blogs, readership is generally highest on Mondays or Tuesdays.  A  survey of various design blogs reached a similar conclusion, though Thursdays were a close second.  Tuesday is also the most popular activity day for Twitter, which can also be a source of traffic to your blog if you tweet links to your posts.   Statistics aside, there's a second reason to post early in the week: it will allow more time for conversation to brew throughout the week which will also generate more traffic.

Early adapter:  Finally, if you're just starting a blog, you gain a tremendous advantage if you can establish yourself as first to market on a particular topic.  Indeed, many of the earliest blogs, like Howard Bashman's appellate law blog,  How Appealing continue to dominate not just because of quality but also a strong first mover advantage that helps keep competitors at bay.  Even though blogging is more common than five years ago, there's still plenty of room for lawyers to establish a blog on a  topic that's not yet been covered and benefit from a first mover advantage from that  particular niche.

In short, I can't emphasize this point often enough:  blog early!

Here is another post on this topic (from last year) from Blog for Profit.

 

It's time for another round up of updates on previous posts.  Without further ado, here's a bunch of quick follow up tips from around the blogosphere:

1. Be Careful Whom You Hire As  a Marketer  A few months ago, I asked whether you should hire a legal marketer and warned about some of the potential red flags to avoid in choosing a marketing consultant.  At least one unfortunate attorney failed to read my advice, and now, she's found herself the brunt of serious criticism around the blogosphere. 

Colin Samuels' Infamy and Praise Round Tuit 2 provides the best summary of the sordid affair.  Apparently, a California attorney retained a marketing consultant (well, actually, she bartered for his services) who chose to build her online presence by scraping content from other blogs, including Houston criminal defense lawyer's Mark Bennett's Defending People.  The consultant also set up a number of alias Twitter accounts under the California attorney's name in a lame effort to boost her SEO.  Mark Bennett took the consultant to task  here and here, with the end result of spreading the story around the blogosphere, damaging the attorney's representation in the process.  Two lessons here:  (1) bad publicity isn't necessarily better than good publicity and (2) DON'T outsource your marketing efforts.  Hopefully, this attorney will read my earlier post on guarding your reputation online so that she can minimize the negative commentary.

2.  Recyle and Re-purpose for a Successful Blog In my post on ebooks, I described how you can recycle or re-purpose content you've created for blogs or other publications to include in the ebook. However, the concept of re-purposing or multi-purposing is also useful to understand if you're trying to build a successful blog, a topic I've covered here. Over at Blog for Profit,  California Defamation Law Blogger Adrianos Facchetti describes how he multi-purposed his blog content to gain visibility in his niche of Internet defamation in just six months time.  Facchetti explains:

This is the "hub and spoke" strategy.  This is how it works.  Let's say I write a really great post and I want to make sure a lot of people read it. The first thing I would do is to upload it to as many websites as possible. So, I would upload the post to several bookmarking sites like social median and digg. Then I would upload it to JDSupra. Then I would tweet about it.

I also made sure that my blog posts updated automatically to my LinkedIN profile and to my Facebook profile via RSS feed.
My goal was to get my content in as many different places as I possibly could, which I did.  Use this strategy. It works.

There's similar advice over at the Baby Boomer Entrepreneur, which in addition to Facchetti's suggestions recommends (1) recording blog posts for podcasts or videos and (2) circulating blog posts to Ezinearticles.com, a heavily trafficked site which will rock your SEO.

 

To date, I've penned eighteen entries for Nolo's Legal Marketing Blawg, covering marketing tools ranging from eBooks to article archiving to listservs and more.  But so far, I've omitted one rather conspicuous topic: blogging.

In part, my omission derives from the fact that there are already so many resources on blogging available online.  For example, consider Grant Griffiths' (a recovering-lawyer turned blogger) twelve-part-and-still-growing-series on how to build a successful blog that will generate clients.  Likewise, Kevin O'Keefe of Lexblog maintains an archive crammed with blogging basics.  As for me, I've penned my share of articles on blogging, including a now-five-year-old piece, It's A Blog World After All (surprisingly, only the info on tech is dated) and a GP Solo article, Get Your Blog Rolling, which offers hints on guerrilla blogging tactics that will let you get the most bang from your time.  I also authored a form-follows-substance blog-based presentation on blogging, that you can click through here.  This piece too is five years old, but except for some technology changes, the concepts remain the same.

And yet... in spite of the fact that lawyer blogging has been around for more than five years and generates a huge volume of coverage, only two percent of lawyers are blogging.  That's the statistic from the 2008 ABA Technology Survey, which also found that 8 percent of law firms are blogging.  You might conclude that the paucity of lawyer-bloggers means that blogging is a waste of time, but in fact, the opposite is true:  Few lawyers blogging means that the door's wide open for you to get in on the ground floor.

Moreover, even though social media is the marketing tool with all the buzz, it's blogs that have both the staying power and the impact.  Just last week, the influential women's web hub Blogher.org released the results of this study, which concluded that:

Women are nearly twice as likely to use blogs than social networking sites as a source of information (64%), advice and recommendations (43%) and opinion-sharing (55%)...

In short, when it comes to gathering substantive information, women are relying on blogs -- and if you're a lawyer with a blog, you become a trusted source.

Blogs are also a proven source of generating clients. Greatest American Lawyer Enricho Schaefer discusses the success of his firm, which he attributes to his findability from the organic search terms embedded in his blog.

By now, I've probably overwhelmed you, but at the same time, I have hopefully piqued your interest in starting a blog.  For now, I'll lay out a couple of of preliminary steps to getting started and, in the following weeks, I'll share some best practices and details.  So here are a few first steps:

1.  Register a couple of domain names.  Yes, I know it sounds crazy to invest money in domain names before you get your blog set up.  But the domain name is critical -- because each time you update your blog, that domain name will get a boost in the results returned by search engines.  So by giving your blog a topical name that's relevant to your practice area -- such as NebraskaCollectionLaw.com for a Lincoln-based collections attorney -- you're organically boosting your search engine visibility. 

Don't despair if your first choice of domain name isn't available -- many great domain names are still out there.  If you serve a specific jurisdiction, location, or city, you may want to include that location in your domain name. Most prospective clients hope to find attorneys within a locality -- and by including a city or county within your domain name, you increase your findability -- e.g., BethesdaMarylandDivorceLawyer.com.   Sure, those terms are narrow, but you can purchase a couple of domain names and aim them all at the same site.  So go run some searches and see what's available.

2.  Start reading other blogs.  Spend some time reading blogs -- you can find a universal list at the ABA Blawg Directory and Justia's Blawg Search.  Take a look at how those blogs are set up and which features you like (or don't like).  Are there particular styles that you favor?  Certain topics or writing style?  Keep a list of your preferences.

3.  Set up a news reader or sign up for Twitter.  One way to come up with material for blog posts is by staying informed.  You can do this by signing up to use a News Reader where you can read streams of posts from blogs and news sites all in one place.  Or, you can hop on Twitter to see what kinds of news items those you follow are posting.  Current stories and news events are a great source of information for posts and will help you generate traffic.

4.  What would you want to hear?  In addition to staying on top of news streams, put yourself in a client's shoes.  If you were a prospective client searching for a [bankruptcy or immigration or family or special education or fill-in-the-blank] lawyer, what kinds of questions would you have?  What information would you want to know?  And what would you hope to learn about your lawyer?  More than anything, imagining your audience is the secret to an effective blog, as well as one that's personally satisfying.

Email me at elefant@myshingle.com with any other questions about blogging.  I'll pick up this series over the next few weeks.