Since our last post — How Blogging Helps Solos Beat the Big Firms (and How Firms Make it So Easy) — was about solos, I thought I’d write something beneficial for firms this time. This isn’t a solos vs. firms thing, it’s just that firms need different strategies and tactics when it comes to marketing with blogs and in general online.

You’re Doing it Wrong

Having said that, most firms’ website are horrifying. Yes, they need to use different strategies and tactics, but by that of course I mean the right ones. Here are some mistakes many law firms make with their website:

• It looks like it was made in the mid-90s and never changed
• It’s filled with stuffy, pretentious legal-speak gobbledy-gook marketing lingo
• Other than pronouncing how great the firm is, no other real information is provided
• Each page in the site has the same title tag as all the other pages
• Graphical links are used instead of text links
• The content of the pages offers no compelling reason to justify retaining the firm
• Other than the name of the firm may be a string of partner names, there is no indication that human beings work in the firm, who they are or their practice area

If all the other law firm sites were like this, too, nobody would notice. But more and more, blogs and social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are being used successfully to market law firms. These blogging law firms appear in search results when consumers research online to find an attorney (and make no mistake about it: that’s exactly what they’re doing–consumers turn to Google and the yellow pages are dead).

Law Firm Blog Marketing

A solo setting up a blog as the main site for a practice makes perfect sense, but how should a firm do it? Should there be one blog, or many? What domains should be used? There are many questions. Without giving away all the best stuff on the inside of Blawging Lawyers, here are some tips for firms that wish to redesign their marketing methods:

• If a firm covers more than one area, each area should have its own blog and domain or subdomain of the firm’s domain. For example: criminaldefense.lawfirmname.com. Google loves subdomains.
• For firms that cover multiple practice areas, the attorneys for these areas will blog for the practice area blogs (if a firm has several family law attorneys, they will all write on the family law blog, for example).
• If a firm specializes in just one area, the blog should replace the previous site entirely, and each attorney will contribute articles to the blog
• Multiple practice area firm blogs need to point back to the firm’s main site like spokes in a wheel point to the hub.
• Clearly placed contact forms and information need to placed at the top of each blog (preferably top right).

As you can see, the biggest hurdle to get over is simply that it is the attorneys themselves who do the marketing (certainly ghostwriters may be used, but it’s preferable to be as “real” about this as possible).

Advantages

The advantages of the above tactics are:

• SEO - If a firm can’t be found via search for keywords related to the firm’s practice areas (not the name of the firm, which nobody will search for) then it may as well not exist on the web. The tactics I’ve outlined above will greatly increase the chances that the firm’s online properties, both singly and collectively, will have higher search rankings. This starts a cascade of other benefits, such as…
• Greater traffic to the site, which means higher conversion rates.
• Far more convincing and persuasive marketing information, which will greatly increase conversions.
• The firm will be more prepared to attract, hire, and retain the next generation of attorneys, who will be much more web-savvy.

On the Inside

The above is barely the roughest of overviews for this subject. We cover the details of strategy and implementation inside the members area of Blawging Lawyers. If you really want your firm’s marketing to succeed and thrive by taking advantage of change (instead of just merely suffering it), then we invite you to join us in Blawging Lawyers.

When you’re new to blogging, you just can’t imagine what the heck you’re going to write about all the time! But you will be amazed at the wealth of sources for terrific blog posts that are attractive to client searches. We’ve got a great list below that will provide you with a never-ending supply of blog posts for your law practice blog.

Objectives

• How to use your clients’ and prospects’ questions as blog posts to grab internet searches by potential clients.
• How to turn state capital legislative events into blog posts to stay on top of your own area and demonstrate authority.
• How to get blog post ideas from a source you may not have considered: CLE seminars!
• How to properly use your own cases as inspiration for blog posts.
• How to use higher court case decisions to show your prospective clients you know how these decisions are going to affect them.
• How to use the national and local news to get search traffic and show your knowledge in your practice area.
• How to use other law blogs for greater search rankings, more traffic, and to raise your status among your peers and your clients.

Questions

One of the easiest and most prolific sources of blog posts you will ever run across is questions that your clients and prospects ask of you.

You are constantly bombarded with the same questions over and over… and occasionally, you get that “doozy” from out of left field!

Questions people ask are an easy and super-effective way to have blog post topics. Why? Because they reveal to you what people want to know–and that reveals what they are searching for online. You simply cannot do better than to follow this simple two-step process:

1. Make the question the headline of your blog post.
2. Answer the question when you write the post.

That’s it!

Here are some tips to make the most of this technique:

• Use the exact words the person who asked uses–don’t be tempted to substitute their way of speaking for yours (remember: don’t write like a lawyer on your blog!).
• Repeat the use of those words throughout your post as you answer the question.
• Pay special attention to what people ask you before they hire you, as these questions will be the most potent in attracting clients to your practice.
• Keep a notebook or a computer file handy at all times to write down questions people ask of you, so you have a stash of ideas ready to go at a moment’s notice.

What’s Happening in Your State Capital

To stay on top of your own practice area and demonstrate authority to your potential clients, cover what’s happening in your state capital on your blog.

When the legislature is in session, what happens there affects your practice and the lives of your clients. Bills are being handed down, votes are being cast, public hearings may be taking place. By writing about this, you actually become a better, more well-informed attorney. Writing about the goings on in your state capital will show your clients that you know what’s happening and how it’s going to affect them. When you can demonstrate this to them, they are much more likely to want to retain your legal services.

What Grant did when he ran his practice was have a “Legislative Update” once every week. People grew to expect it and his law blog actually became a source of news around town (listen to the audio discussion below for more on this).

Tips for Using State Legislative Events in Your Blog

• Do it according to a regular schedule once a week.
• If nothing happens in a week, write a post that says there are no new legislative events and link back to three or five previous such posts.
• Let your local media contacts know about these posts so they will use them as sources for their stories.
• Do an end-of-session round-up when the legislative session is over for the year.

CLE Seminars

Since all attorneys must accrue Continuing Legal Education Credits, you may as well use this as a source of material for blog posts. Remember to always write with the understanding of how what you have learned will have a benefit for your clients or for people in general.

Attorneys take their continuing legal education for granted, and do not even consider this as something to tell clients about. But your prospective clients are not lawyers, and most of them have no idea you have to get CLE credits! If you write about what you’re learning in a CLE seminar on your blog and the “other guy” in town doesn’t, guess who looks like the smarter, better lawyer? Especially if the other guy doesn’t even have a blog?

That’s right: you do.

Here are three tips for using CLE seminars as blog post material:

• Say what the seminar or class is about, like an overview.
• List the main general points (your goal is not to deliver the same course through your blog, just to give the highlights in order to impress).
• Say why knowing these things matters to your practice and how it’s going to benefit your clients.

Your Own Cases

There is a wealth of blog post material in your own cases. Using your own cases as material presents a golden opportunity, because you get to show your prospective clients how you take care of your current clients. People want to see that you will take good care of them, and the best way they have of knowing that is by seeing how you treat your current clients. And the only ways they’re going to know that is if they talk to one of your clients or if you tell them on your blog.

Tips for Using Your Own Cases

• Don’t use real names of clients or let slip any personally identifying information about a client.
• Find the relevant nuggets that show what a good attorney you are and use those.
• Tell it like a story (a very short story, not a novel!).
• If your practice area involves winning cases, be sure to mention you won the case. Clients want to hire winning lawyers.
• Always mention that the result of the case was to the client’s satisfaction. A “story” needs to have a happy ending! And that’s precisely the kind of happy ending clients are looking for.

Higher Court Cases

When higher courts hand down an opinion, that is news that affects your practice and the lives of your clients, so make sure you are writing about these on your blog. Nearly all higher courts have some form of online notification nowadays, whether it is an email list or an RSS feed that goes out. Make sure you are receiving this information. As with several of these methods, doing this actually makes you a better, more well-informed attorney–the kind of attorney clients want.

Tips for Using Higher Court Cases

• Create a folder in your feed reader or email client for court information so you can refer to it quickly when you need to write a post.
• Translate the “legalese” into everyday words people can understand.
• Communicate what the court decision means to your practice, your clients, and to the public.
• Avoid taking sides politically.
• When you write this kind of post, contact your allies in the local media and let them know in case they can use it.

News

You should be on top of news that’s happening which relates to your practice area. Simply regurgitating this news on your law practice blog, however, is unacceptable. It makes you look lazy and cheap, and it’s not why people read your blog.

Tips for Using the News as Post Content

• Relate the news in terms of how you’re going to win cases for your clients.
• Relate the news in terms of how people’s lives are going to be affected in the legal arena.  Say what it means for your clients.
• Focus on local and state news over national news.
• Develop contacts with local media so you can call them and get additional information no one else will have to incorporate into your posts.

Other Law Blogs

Other law blogs in your practice area (and in some cases, related areas) are a great source for your own blog posts. How? You can always take what someone else has written for their state and write something along the same lines for your state. Linking to other law blogs increases the likelihood that they will link to you, and, as you know from studying search engine optimization here on Blawging Lawyers, links are good. Give of them freely. Remember, you’re not in competition with lawyers from other regions, so help each other out!

Tips for Using Other Law Blogs

• Always link to the other blog early in the post, and use relevant anchor text to help boost the other attorney’s search engine authority.
• Explaining how a situation is in your region is a good basic idea for this kind of post, but…
• You can also do a compare/contrast style of post, comparing your state or situation to another’s.
• Do a “link round up” of other law blogs for your practice area once a week or so.

Summary

• Use your clients’ and prospects’ questions as blog posts to grab internet searches by potential clients.
• Tturn state capital legislative events into blog posts to stay on top of your own area and demonstrate authority.
• CLE seminars are a great source of blog post ideas you may not have considered.
• Use your own cases as inspiration for blog posts.
• Write about higher court case decisions to show your prospective clients you know how these decisions are going to affect them.
• Use the national and local news to get search traffic and show your knowledge in your practice area–but do not just repeat the news, offer your take on it.
• Link to other law blogs for greater search rankings, more traffic, and to raise your status among your peers and your clients.

Conclusion

As you can see, there is plenty of “idea food” out there for blog posts! In fact you will never have to worry again about what you’re going to write about.

Keep in mind that it’s OK to repeat yourself and cover the exact same topic several different times… or more! Just make sure that when you do, that you link back to your old posts on the same topic. This builds search engine authority and ranking for your blog. At the same time, it provides your prospective clients with a wealth of information that leads them to decide to go with you. Why? Because now you’re the “go to” person with all the information!

In the last lesson, we covered some basics for law practice blogging SEO. In this lesson, we’re going to talk more specifically about one of the more mysterious aspects of SEO, figuring out what keywords to target. We’ll also cover the specifics of what are called “off-page factors” in SEO, such as links.

Objectives

• Understand how to find keywords
• What to do with keywords once you collect them
• How to get links back to your blog (backlilnks)
• Know the value of getting listed in Google Local

Finding Keywords

Finding keywords shouldn’t be a guessing game, and it doesn’t have to be, thanks to all the tools on the web to help you discover keywords. Let’s go over some keyword-finding tools.

Google search

No kidding, right? We’re used to using Google in order to conduct a search, but most of us aren’t used to using it as an SEO research tool. Here’s how to use Google search for keyword research:

1. Make sure you are not logged in to any Google accounts you may have, such as Gmail or Google Reader. You don’t want your own personal search history to color the results.
2. Do a search for the broadest possible keyword that relates to your practice, such as divorce, estate planning, or bankruptcy. As you are typing in your search terms, notice what Google is suggesting in the drop-down list that appears as you type.
3. Write down what you see in these drop-down lists, even the keywords that aren’t directly related to finding a lawyer, because you will still want to write blog posts about your practice area as news within it occurs in the world. Note that the placement of a keyword in the list is more important than the number of results. Higher-placed keywords are searched for more frequently than lower-placed keywords.

Check out the screen captures below that illustrate a few examples of using only Google search as a keyword research tool.

Google search suggestions for the keyword “divorce”

Notice here that divorce laws is higher on the list than divorce lawyers. Now, when someone is looking only for a divorce lawyer, then divorce lawyer is the term to go for, but what if a lawyer shows up in the search results for someone who is contemplating divorce? If that lawyer provides good information, you can bet that lawyer has a good chance of being hired by the searcher down the road.

After divorce laws comes divorce process. If this was your area of practice, writing on your blog about the process of divorce, using these exact keywords, would be beneficial to your client acquisition efforts via blog marketing.

Google Search results for location-specific keywords

Here we see a test involving a location keyword. Again, note the keywords that come in above lawyers. Also notice that lawyers comes before attorneys, but there are more results for attorneys than lawyers. This shows a mismatch between what attorneys are doing and how people really search. But you won’t make that mistake, because you’re a member of Blawging Lawyers, and you know that people search using the word lawyer.

Another Google Search example with a location keyword

Not much to say about this one, other than it is an example of what we’re talking about using a keyword other than divorce.

Google AdWords Keyword Tool

The Google AdWords Keyword Tool can also be a great keyword research tool. This tool is normally used to find out what kind of search and search advertising activity exists around a keyword. Below are results for the keyword florida criminal defense.

You’re not really concerned with advertiser competition, except if there is advertiser competition, that means there is activity around that keyword.

Google offers plenty of help on how to use this more complex tool, so be sure to check out the help on it.

Wordtracker Free Keyword Tool

Wordtracker offers both a paid and a free version of their keyword tool. The paid tool is very good for an internet marketer or professional SEO who needs to research a variety of keywords for clients. The free version is perfectly adequate for independent business owners, including solo and small firm attorneys.

Wordtracker returns the average number of searches per day for the previous 90-day period. It also uses other search engines in addition to Google, so that you get a more complete picture of search volume around a keyword.

The trick with Wordtracker is to enter in the biggest, broadest keyword you have that relates to your practice area. You will get location-based results if there are enough searches for them, but if you enter in location keywords you may find no results are returned. If this happens, revert back to broader keywords.

Let’s see some examples of Wordtracker in action.

Wordtracker search for the keyword “estate planning”

Wordtracker search for the keyword “dui”

Remember that these numbers are searches per day, so on average, florida dui lawyer receives 2,460 searches per month.

Each result is also a link to a more refined breakdown of related results if you want to drill down further.

What to Do with Keywords Once You have Them

So, once you collect keywords for your blog, what do you actually do with them? We suggest you make a spreadsheet of them. List them as 1st tier, 2nd tier, and 3rd tier keywords. Take all the number one and two position keywords you’ve found and put them in a column called 1st tier. Take the number three and four position keywords and put them in a column called 2nd tier. Place the number five and six position keywords in the 3rd tier column. Exclude keywords which are obviously not related (Wordtracker will do this because you’re entering in such broad keywords).

Use this spreadsheet as a way to choose keywords when naming your blog and writing blog posts.

Keep an Eye on Your Analytics

When you use keywords and SEO the smart way, you also then want to keep an eye on how your blog visitors are finding you through search. Using a visitor statisics package like Google Analytics can help you see how search traffic is finding your blog. This will help you adjust your SEO and content strategy.

Off-Page Factors: Backlinks and Listings

Backlinks

Being found because you have the right words on a web page is one thing, but what is also important to Google is what kind of an authority a web page is for a keyword. One of the primary ways it understands this is by how many other web pages link back to it. We call these links backlinks, and they are vitally important.

Getting backlinks is easy for a blog! When you write blog posts, you should always look for opportunities to link out to other law bloggers. We strongly encourage you to do this with your fellow Blawging Lawyers members. Link out to others in your blog posts and in the sidebar links many blogs have called a blogroll. The blogroll can be important because it is on the blog’s home page, which is often the page on the site with the most authority.

The more you link out to others, the more they will link to you. The human psychological force of reciprocity will come into play.

However, one of the best ways to get a links is to simply ask for one by contacting the site owner.

Guest posts and media articles are also great ways to get authoritative backlinks.

Listings

Another way to get links is to have your blog listed in the right places online. You absolutely must create your local search profile in Google Local (also called Google Maps). One quick look at the picture below will help you understand why:

Also, note the results all have “Write a review” links. People definitely read these, so getting your clients to write them is of paramount importance. Getting your clients to do this is no big deal. Simply write them an email with a link ask them to do it. Say, “If you would recommend me to your friends in conversation, then please recommend me online, too.”

Make sure you fill out your Google Local profile as thoroughly as possible. The more you do with this, the more you will be rewarded for it with search traffic and new clients.

Get a Google Local profile.

Conclusion

Making the connection between understanding, finding, and using keywords effectively has always been kept a deliberately mysterious process. But between the previous lesson, this lesson, and your bonus copy of WordPress SEO Secrets, you are now armed with a wealth of blogging SEO knowledge.

You now possess an incredibly unfair advantage! You are not only among a small group of attorneys who blogs at all, you are also among an even smaller set who truly understands SEO and you will dominate your market because of it.

Summary

• Use the Google Search suggest feature to help you narrow down keywords
• Use the Google AdWords Keyword Tool to help understand what kind of activity takes place around keywords
• Use Wordtracker to understand what kind of search volume exists for high level keywords
• Collect keywords into a spreadsheet and rank them by 1st, 2nd, and 3rd tiers
• Use your site analytics to watch how your blog is found via search
• Get listed in Google Maps and Google Local

If you’re an attorney, you would have to be living under a rock if you hadn’t heard of Black Thursday, when many of the U.S.A.’s largest and most prestigious law firms went on a pink slip rampage. Nobody knows for sure how many bodies were thrown overboard, but estimates are anywhere from 800 to over 1,000 attorneys lost their positions.

What’s even more unsettling are the whispered rumors that this is just the beginning.

It’s not hyperbole to say we are living in extraordinary times.

I’m not saying any of this to scare you. Note the positive headline for this blog post. We feel that now is the time for unprecedented opportunity–for those brave enough to reach out and take it.

You know there are plenty of “solos” out there. Single attorney law practices have existed forever, but they were never able to really compete with the big firms.

Until now, that is.

Extraordinary Times, New Opportunities

There are two forces that work in favor of the solo practitioner, now: the rapid rise of technology and because of that, a sea-change in consumer behavior.

It used to be that a solo just couldn’t muster the kind of marketing money and muscle a big firm could. And that’s still true, in a sense. But what is also true is that it doesn’t matter, anymore, precisely because technology and consumer behavior are changing.

A solo does not beat the big firms by doing the same things they do. A solo beats them by doing things they could never do. Let me tell you a story as an example:

A woman (let’s call her Sarah) is beginning to think she needs to acquire the services of an estate planning and elder care attorney. Where do you think is the first place she is likely to begin her search?

If you guessed the internet, give yourself a gold star, you are correct. Sarah goes to Google and types some words into the search box. What words do you think she types in?

I’m not going to answer that here, but keep that thought in mind as we take a look at the strategies employed the Big Firm and the Solo.

The Big Firm

The Big Firm is as “old school” as it gets: posh offices, senior partners and partners up to the rafters, and a website that hasn’t changed in over five years. After all, to their thinking, what is a website but simply an online brochure? There is no need to change it: their services haven’t changed, nor has their phone number. If you could transform a stuffed shirt into a website, the Big Firm has managed to do so. The Big Firm can afford to spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars a month to pay a marketing firm to run a Google AdWords PPC campaign to keep that phone ringing.

Almost none of the people in the firm know what AdWords is. Every little technological advancement is fought tooth and nail, and most of the firm’s senior partners can barely use email. The younger attorneys have their Blackberries super-glued to their hands, and they seem “with it,” but beyond email and FindLaw, they’re nearly hopeless.

The Big Firm still spends a considerable sum of money every year on Yellow Pages advertising and print ads in the local paper (which is filing for bankruptcy).

The Solo

The Solo, on the other hand, (let’s call her Amanda) works out of her home office. Amanda’s website is a blog. Every other day or so, she writes a new article and posts it, adding to her already considerable archive of previous posts–all about the same topics: elder care law and estate planning.

Other law blogs and even regular news sites link to her blog, sending her traffic. Reporters call her and email her to get her opinion on a proposed change in nursing home regulations in the area. Other lawyers and even judges in the area read her blog.

Amanda gets an email from the contact form on her blog. Sarah has written to her, saying she did a search online and Amanda’s blog came up number one. Sarah tells Amanda she spent a lot of time reading Amanda’s posts and they have already helped her make some important decisions regarding her parents. Because of this, Sarah would like to set up an appointment to meet with Amanda to discuss the possibility of engaging her legal services.

The Solo’s Secret Weapon

When Amanda first set up her solo practice, she did all the things she thought she was supposed to do… and it nearly put her out of business. Her “brochureware” website brought in no clients. Nobody found her online when they did a Google search. Nobody looked at the Yellow Pages and saw her expensive ad.

Luckily, a friend of hers who was into “techie stuff” told her about blogs and how single-person and small businesses were using them to market themselves. Amanda looked into it and soon found Blawging Lawyers.

At first, she didn’t know a lot about blogging or how to market a law practice with one, but with the educational materials and support from the instructors and her fellow Blawging Lawyers members, Amanda got up to speed in only a few months.

Now, she’s even using social media networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, which she’s using to send potential clients who also use these services to her blog. Amanda can hardly believe it. The country is slipping into a recession, but she’s doing better than ever.

Meanwhile, the Big Firm is thinking another round of layoffs will be necessary. The senior partners are discussing it.

We invite you to learn more about Blawging Lawyers.

In this lesson, we’re going to cover the basics you need to understand about how SEO fits into your overall blog marketing strategy. Some of the things we’ve suggested in previous lessons about names and strategies will make more sense after you learn a little more about SEO.

SEO need not be technical or complicated. At its heart, it is a content strategy, whereby you want to create content which people who need your services are searching for.

Lesson Objectives

• Understand the role SEO plays in getting clients via blogging.
• Know what search engines look for and what they “weigh” when determining search rankings.
• Know several strategies and tactics for improving your search engine rankings.
• Have step-by-step instructions on how to optimize your blog overall.

Why SEO?

We’ve been bringing up SEO (search engine optimization) in nearly every lesson here on Blawging Lawyers, because it is integral to your overall strategy online. Anybody can slap up a free blog and beat out words on a keyboard. You’re not creating a blog to hear yourself talk, you’re doing it to get clients. And how are these clients going to come to you?

Increasingly, they are finding you (or not) on the web, via Google search. But the legal profession in general has not realized this very important sea-change in consumer behavior. Their loss is your gain.

By having a blog, and then, further, by engaging in some smart SEO, you will be able to accomplish the core mission of Blawging Lawyers: getting traffic, getting clicks, getting clients, and, finally, getting paid. By the time more attorneys and firms figure out what’s going on in the future, you will already be well-entrenched in search engine results.

Is SEO Ethical?

The SEO we’re going to show you is not “voodoo,” nor is it the least bit unethical. There is a lot of misinformation and ignorance on the web about SEO. Here inside Blawging Lawyers, you are getting the straight dope, the real deal. There certainly are techniques (commonly referred to as “black hat”) that are not illegal but which may displease the search giant Google. Everything we’re going to show you here is just common-sense “white hat” techniques anyone may employ to improve their search engine rankings.

Bonus Content: WordPress SEO Secrets

As an extra bonus, included with this lesson is the entire PDF ebook to Michael Martine’s WordPress SEO Secrets, a course he sells online to WordPress bloggers. See the download links below the lesson.

It All Starts with Keywords

Keywords are words that people type in the little search box on Google or other search engines. Eighty percent of what you need to know about SEO can be summed up in the following sentence:

Put the words your clients are using to search for legal services into your blog content.

That is as simple–and as complex–as it gets. It should seem obvious, right? But attorneys often think they have to write something that reads like a legal brief and which does nothing to attract clients or media attention. In short, they forget (or never even knew) who they’re writing for, and what this audience wants.

Let’s break this down.

“The Words Your Clients Are Using”

In previous lessons, we have discussed the importance of using the same words your clients use (”lawyer” instead of “attorney,” for example). This is a keyword issue. If a prospective client is looking for the region’s best elder-care attorney, and that’s you, but your blog is called something like YourNameHereLaw.com, then that prospect is not going to find you.

Clients can’t be your clients if they can’t find you. If you can’t be found, you can’t get hired and get paid.

Not only do you want to use these words in the name and URL of your blog, you want to use them in almost everything you write on your blog. The reasons why search engines love blogs is because new material is constantly created which contains relevant information to searchers. “Normal” websites just sit there: nothing new is added. There is no reason for new visitors to come to it.

“Put Them Into Your Blog Content”

The primary and secondary keywords your clients are using in their searches need to appear in your blog posts. There are several important places in a blog post this information should go. Enough needs to be said about them to give them their own sections below.

Places in Blog Posts to Put Keywords

Post Titles/Headlines

What you write for your post headline also becomes its title. The title (also called the title tag, because that’s exactly what it is in the code of an HTML document) is the text which appears at the top of the browser window when a visitor is on a web page. It also appears in the tabs of the newer browsers which offer multiple tabs (web pages) in a single window.

Google and other search engines place an immense amount of “weight” to this text, because it’s an accurate indicator of what kind of content is on a web page for which a visitor may be searching.

What you should do:

• Use your major and minor keywords in post headlines, preferably as the first word or words (keywords can actually be more than one word–they can be a phrase). Think about the words you want the post to be found for in a search which a non-lawyer would use.

Post Subheadlines

When you’re writing content for the web, writing in giant, neverending run-on paragraphs is a no-no. People like to skim and scan the contents. Luckily for us, subheadlines throughout a post not only make a post more easily scannable, they are also good for search engines.

What you should do when writing a post:

• Click on the “Kitchen Sink” button in your WordPress post writing toolbar (it looks like a bunch of tiny little squares, like buttons on toolbars). When you click this button, a new row of buttons appears in WordPress.
• Click the first thing on this new second row. It is a drop-down which says Paragraph or Format (it changes depending on what you’re doing). When it opens up, you’ll see things in there like Heading 2, Heading 3, Heading 4, etc.
• It’s likely that your post title will be a heading 1 or a heading 2. Your subheadings should be the next higher number (the higher the number, the smaller the heading). Think of using headings the same way you’d work with levels in an outline. For example, if your blog post headlines are heading 2, then your subheads should be heading 3.

Post Text Content

Using keywords in the content of your post is a must. You want to continue the theme you started with the post title by including keywords liberally in your post content. There is no magic formula to this, but generally, you don’t want to overdo it. If you read your post out loud and it sounds unnaturally repetitive, you’re over-stuffing keywords.

The percentage of keywords within written content is referred to as keyword density. There are tools for measuring this, but really the best way to make sure it’s correct is that it reads naturally.

What you should do:

• Use your main keywords for the post as early in the first sentence of the post as possible. Repeat them in the first paragraph if you can manage to make it sound natural.
• Use your main keywords several more times throughout the post in the regular “flow” of text, but using them in other places is also effective (see the following points).
• Use keywords in bulleted and numbered lists.
• Use keywords in boldface or italics type.
• Use keywords in blockquotes when you’re quoting source material.
• Use keywords in hyperlinks. This is vital, in fact. Long story short, link to your own blog posts as much as you can. Google doesn’t care about your site, it only cares if content on a page is a match for a search. Google thinks in terms of pages, not sites.

Conclusion

The most significant aspect of blog SEO is knowing how your prospective clients think and what words they use to search for you, then you should use those words in your blog. A lot.

As we’ve said earlier, anyone can have a blog. What really matters is: are people who are looking for your services finding  you? That’s completely up to you, and how you create your blog’s content. The strategies and tactics we employ to be more easily found in search are SEO.

Summary

• If you can’t be found you can’t be hired. Since more and more, legal services consumers are searching online, SEO is a necessity for the blogging lawyer.
• Know what your primary and secondary keywords are (if you’re not sure, we’ll discuss how to find out in the next lesson).
• Use those words in strategic places throughout your blog content: titles/headlines, subheads, blog post content, and links.

In How to Get Noticed — After the Launch, we take a look at the kinds of activities you need to continue to do and start doing after your blog launches. You don’t want to silently hang out your shingle, you want to have the whole neighborhood stopping by. Having a systematic approach to getting the word out about your “blawg” helps, and that’s what we have for you in this lesson, based on hard-won experience from the trenches. Grant and I have launched many blogs for our blogging clients over the years. We know what works and we’re sharing that with you in this lesson.

Lesson Objectives

• Have an overview of post launch activities
• Understand the importance and reasons for having prewritten blog content
• How to shift your social media strategies after you launch
• How to take advantage of guest-posting on other blogs and having guest posts on your own blog

Post-Launch Activities: An Overview

In the previous lesson on How to Get Noticed — Before the Launch, we covered such things as social media strategies and networking with others. The idea behind this is to build up as much good will and “relationship capital” as you can, so that when you launch, you’ve got an army of friendly folks you can call upon to help spread the word for you.

Your goal in promotion is to drive traffic and links to your blog from both potential clients and your colleagues. Links and status from your peers is vital in both the short and long term, so you want to start with the biggest bang possible.

After your blog goes live, you’re going to continue some of these strategies and also bring in some new tactics. Here’s the blow-by-blow list:

• Continue to build value and grow your audience in social media. Using social media is a great way to have an audience “ready to go” as soon as you open the doors on your blog. But once you launch, you don’t stop doing this. It’s essential that you continue to provide value and engage with people.
• Continue to be the same person you were before in forums. Keep providing value. Don’t stop or let up in your posting and keep posting the same kinds of information you did before. If you change your patterns, people will think you’re a sell-out or that you don’t have time for them anymore.
• Continue to email people and strengthen your relationships with them after your blog launches. Personally email blog commenters and thank them for commenting.
• Continue to comment on blogs, but now you can leave your bog URL.
• Start weaving announcements of new blog posts into your social media activities.
• Start guest-posting on other blogs and inviting guest posts on your own blog.

The Importance of Prewritten Blog Content

During this time, you should be spending most of the time you set aside in your daily schedule for marketing on blog promotion activities. You want to spend your time promoting and networking, not writing content for your blog. If you spend all your time trying to stay caught up on writing posts, you have no time for spreading the word about your blog, and so you’re doing a lot of work for very little return. Far better to spend your time on promotion right now.

Having about three weeks worth of blog posts “in the can” ready to publish automatically is ideal. Don’t forget you also want to already have published posts (at least four). Writing the posts in advance is ideal because the time pressures aren’t there. In WordPress, you can set post to publish automatically in the future.

How to Post-Date a Blog Post in WordPress

1. At the top right of the write post page, click the “Edit” link after the “Published on” date.
2. Enter the date in the future when you’d like the post to be published (use 24-hour “military” time).
3. The “Publish” button changes to the “Schedule” button. Click to schedule your post to be published at the specified date and time.

Social Media Strategies for After the Launch

One of the most powerful strategies you can employ for a successful blog launch is to use social media before the blog launches. This gives you a ready-made audience for your blog. Basically, it’s instant traffic, because all you have to do when the blog launches is make the announcement.

But what happens after the blog launches? Well, not much! Or, rather, not much that’s different. You’ll want to continue what you were already doing based on what we told you in the previous lesson. What’s new in this is to begin adding in announcements that you have new blog posts published.

One of your best friends in the blog marketing realm is Twitter. Grant and I both are very bullish on Twitter, and for good reason: it works like you wouldn’t believe! It sends you a ton of traffic and allows you to meet and network with others.

There are special online tools that help you maximize your time by automating some of the repetitious “heavy lifting.” There are tools that automatically post your blog posts to Twitter and tools that let you write tweets in advance to go out whenever you like later. Three such tools are listed below:

• Easy Tweets lets you do it all: post-dated tweets, multiple Twiter accounts, automated tweets, and is a paid service.
• TweetLater allows you to employ several kinds of automation to Twitter, such as automatic new follower greetings, automatic following of those who follow you. post-dated tweets, and much more.
• HootSuite also lets you use multiple Twitter accounts, post-date your tweets, and monitor links in your tweets.

Don’t Over-Promote

The one change in your social media activities is that you’ll now be sharing your new blog posts with the world. But remember that providing value in an overall sense is actually the best way to promote yourself in social media. A good ratio of social media posts that help others vs. that help yourself (i.e., self-promotional) is ten to one: ten “other-promotional” social media posts to one “self-promotional” post.

In the audio discussion (link below) for this lesson, you’ll hear the story from Grant about how he observed a law firm on Twitter doing everything wrong!

Your Ultimate Post-Launch Secret Weapon: Guest Posting

Guest posting is when you write on someone else’s blog as a guest. Guest posting is by far one of the most potent tactics you can employ for gaining traffic for your blog. If you’ve been following our plan so far, then you will have built up good relationships with other attorneys in your practice area (best if they are not in your geographic region in this case). You can contact them (and you should already be familiar to them and have already been in contact with them) and ask for a guest post.

Let the other attorney know that you’re starting a blog and want to see it off to a great start. You are offering to write a post for their blog as a way to gain exposure. If you already have a topic idea, present it. If you have already written a post, let the other attorney know this. Make sure guest posts are your best possible writing.

When guest posting, it’s customary to have a short “bio” of the author, with a link back to the guest writer’s blog. This is how you get more traffic and new subscribers.

Naturally, you will want to promote your own guest post on the other blog, too. One of the reasons why the other attorney would want to accept your guest post is that you will send your readers to her blog. You see, the traffic gains go both ways! You should let your readers and social media friends know that you’ve written a guest post on your own blog and in social media. Link to that guest post on your blog and in social media to send traffic to it. Encourage others to subscribe to the blog where you wrote your guest post.

This strategy works well enough with other attorneys in your practice area (not your geographic area), but it really works wonders with non-legal blogs. A lot of blogs and press websites are starving for legal experts to write articles. The presence of your articles and links back to your blog on these cannot be underestimated. Not only does this help with traffic, it helps with your search rankings and link authority (more on this in the next lesson on search engine optimziation).

Conclusion

If you continue the same winning strategies you were already using and introduce some new ones, your blog will be off to the successful beginning!

Summary

• Your post-launch strategies pretty much continue, but now you’re adding in announcements of new posts on your blog. Automation tools for social media help with this.
• Having pre-written posts set to publish in the future for about three weeks after launch is one of the smartest things you can do, because you really need to spend most of your time networking immediately upon launch.
• Employ guest posting, it’s one of the most effective tactics available for driving traffic and building authority, especially on non-legal blogs.

But then something like this happens and what are we supposed to do? Pretend it didn’t happen? Play it down?

Heck, no! This is exactly what happens when you market your law practice the Blawging Lawyers way. You get clients. You get attention. Here is a quote from one of our members (some information omitted to protect privacy, emphasis mine).

Thought that I would share some good results that I am beginning to experience from my new bankruptcy blog. I started the blog several weeks ago and have been doing my best to implement the instructions and suggestions of Grant, Michael and the other members here at Blawging Lawyers.

So far this week, I have been contacted by 5 individuals who found me directly from the blog. And what’s even better, 2 of these individuals have become paying clients! I also received a call from a local TV reporter last week who read one of my blog posts on foreclosures and he came right out and interviewed me for that evening’s newscast. I received quite a few calls and emails from friends, family and business associates who saw the news story, so that was some great free PR.

I am very pleased with these results since my blog is so new and still very much a work in progress.

I think that when attorneys read what I say about how blogging is a potent marketing tool that practically lands clients right in their laps, they must think I’m exaggerating.

As you can see, I’m not.

Results like these (while not guaranteed) are not uncommon when legal marketing blogs are done the Blawging Lawyers way. We teach you how to plan, set up, and manage your online legal marketing for maximum effect. Our methods work.

If you’re interested in discovering how a blog can attract clients for you, sign up for your free Blawging Lawyers Report.

Not even a month has gone by after we opened the doors, and new members are joining every week now that word has gotten out. Grant and I couldn’t be more pleased, but what’s even more important is that the members on the inside are thrilled.

Members are thrilled!

One surprise has been the number of attorneys joining who already have blogs and are already in fact doing well with them, pulling in clients left and right, like this person:

I’ve been out on my own for just over 5 months now and the blog has been an amazing tool for my solo practice. I’ve been able to achieve first page Google, Yahoo and MSN results for search terms that potential clients might actually use when looking for a criminal defense attorney. In Southern California, where you can’t swing a BMW key without hitting a lawyer, that’s not to shabby. I have to attribute it to the blogging. More importantly in these economic times, website traffic has translated into paying clients.

I’m really looking forward to the upcoming lessons & interactions in order to take things to the next level.

In order to protect the privacy of our members, we can’t tell you his name, but we were thrilled to read this in our member support forums (members get all the help they could ever want in the private forums). We knew attorneys who didn’t yet have blogs would join, but it makes sense that the ones who already blog would join in an effort to make a good thing even better.

You may still be skeptical…

But we know that a lot of you may still be skeptical about whether blogging can work for you. Perhaps Grant’s runaway success with his family law practice was a fluke. Perhaps the gentleman above in the quote is just “lucky.”

Perhaps… but we don’t think so. Successful blogs by lawyers are not a fluke. They are becoming more and more commonplace, which means that there isn’t a better time than right now to start yours (translation: it’s a first-mover’s advantage). That’s what we do here at Blawging Lawyers: teach attorneys how to make blogging work for them.

Here’s Proof Blogging Works for Law Practices

You can listen to Leanna Hamill’s story on the Blawging Lawyers home page, how she gets 50% of her clients from her blog. It’s a great interview if you haven’t yet heard it.

But…

Grant and I talked it over and we wanted to offer even more proof that blogging is killer marketing for law practices. We don’t have to worry about “giving the farm away” because there is a wealth of material inside Blawging Lawyers (and new material is produced every week).

We can freely share this with everyone as a demonstration of the power of blogging for a law practice.

What we have for you is an interview Grant conducted with D. Todd Smith.

Listen to how one attorney gained clients, unexpected media attention, and the respect of his peers

D. Todd Smith is an appellate specialist based in Austin, Texas.  He opened his practice in 2006 after spending nearly a decade with the international law firm of Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P., where he was a member of the appellate and litigation practice groups.  Before joining Fulbright, Todd served a two-year clerkship with Texas Supreme Court Justice Raul A. Gonzalez (ret.).

Todd is a solo attorney who uses his blog as one of his main marketing tools.  Not only does Todd obtain actual clients from his blog, but you are also going to hear how his blog has gained him exposure with the media, attorneys and even Appellate Judges.

If the great benefits Todd talks about happened to him, they can happen to you too. Getting started on the road to blogging to market your practice can be tricky, and that’s why we created Blawging Lawyers: to help you begin, profit, and prosper.

What to do now

Convinced that learning how to blog to market your practice is the smart move? You’re invited to enroll now and join your fellow attorneys on the inside of the Blawging Lawyers membership area:

Enroll Now in Blawging Lawyers

Still not quite convinced? That’s okay, we understand. You should check out our free Blawging Lawyers Report by opting in on the home page. Simply enter your information into the form and get your free report (your address is safe with us).

Get Your Free Report

In this lesson, you’re going to get specific steps you can take to execute an action plan for successfully launching your practice’s blog. Successfully launching your blog means that you have traffic to the blog immediately upon launch, and you have an “army” of friends and associates online who will help spread the word about it.

Lesson Objectives

• Understand why the usual way people launch blogs is counterproductive
• Become familiar with the Blawging Lawyers method of launching a blog
• List specific steps to follow before the blog launch, and why

Shine Brightly

Since blogging began, people have been starting new blogs. Most of them do it with no forethought or planning. Most blogs are born like stars: it takes a very long time before their light ever reaches our eyes.

For attorneys who want to market their practice and get clients, we suggest the Blawging Lawyers way of starting a blog. You’ll notice we use the term launch. There’s a reason for that. Starting a blog can be like throwing a switch, but it shouldn’t. It should be like the blast off of a powerful rocket–a launch. You want to make a big noise and get attention. More importantly, you want to get traffic and clients.

In order to launch a blog successfully, planning is necessary. I’m going to tell you all the steps, but first, let’s discuss the usual way people launch blogs, and why it’s not optimal.

The Usual Yadda Yadda

The way most attorneys start blogs goes like this:

1. Blog gets designed by hired developer/designer.
2. If there’s any advice or coaching on what to blog about, it’s probably provided after the blog is created, probably for additional fees.
3. Attorney is pretty much left on her own to write posts and try to do promotion.

The result is that the attorney probably ends up at blogging how-to sites like Problogger or Remarkablogger. Information specific to legal blog marketing is practically non-existant (that’s why you’ve made the smart choice to join Blawging Lawyers).  But it’s actually worse than that, because the way most bloggers launch–regardless of industry or niche–is backwards.

You didn’t become a lawyer first, and then go to law school, right? But that’s what most people do with their blogs: they start the blog, realize they have no audience, and then they enroll… in the school of hard knocks! And all the while the clock is ticking they could be getting clients with their blog. But instead, they’re stumbling and bumbling in the dark as they desperately feel around for information.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

You can launch your blog with a big bang, provided you plan ahead and take the right steps in advance.

The Blawging Lawyers Pre-Launch Checklist

What follows is the series of steps you should take, in the order you should take them, and with explanations why.

Build Up Social Media Numbers Before the Launch

As far in advance as you can–long before you have a blog, if possible–start your social media campaign. You’ll learn much more about social media elsewhere in Blawging Lawyers (especially look for our expert interview with John Haydon, a social media expert who advises people and organizations on how to effectively implement social media strategies).

Since you don’t have a blog, yet, make the most of your time by joining:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• StumbleUpon
• Forums (Bulletin Boards)
• Email listservs

Win Friends and Influence People

Your purpose in joining these is not just to “infiltrate” them so that you can “push” your self-promotional garbage on them after your blog launches. No, your purpose is to genuinely meet people of like interests and form mutually beneficial relationships with them–network with them, in other words.

The tools and the times may have changed, but good networking never changes: provide value, engage with other people, and be helpful. You’re not there to push anything or present some kind of sales message. If you did, you would quickly find yourself talking to an empty room.

Do this the right way, and when it’s time for your blog to go live, all you need do is make an announcement.

Write, Write, Write!

Before your blog launches, write posts in advance. You don’t want to send people to an empty blog, and only one post doesn’t really provide enough value to make the trip worth anyone’s time to visit. You should have at least four posts already written and published before you start telling people your blog exists. Ask some close friends or colleagues to leave comments on the fledgling posts so your new visitors see a blog which already has “action.”

Not only do you want posts written in advance, you want posts in the chute ready to auto-publish. In WordPress, you can set posts to publish at any point in the future. The only thing you should be worrying about or taking time on (besides your usual work load) is being as active as you can be with your network of online friends, so you can drive as much traffic as you possibly can to your new blog.

What you should be writing about is a topic for a future lesson.

Become a Comment Junkie

Now, before your blog launches, is the time to begin to form relationships with other legal bloggers. Not only can you do this through social media, as I explain above, you can also do it by leaving comments on other blogs.

Commenting on other blogs gets your name out there, so that when you ask to write a guest post on another blog, that blog’s owner already knows you and has a favorable impression of you.

Once you know the URL (uniform resource locator, otherwise known as your web address) of your blog, you can use it in the comment URL field (box you type in). Even if you don’t know your blog URL just yet, use the URL from your Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn profile page.

Start Blogging Before You Have a Blog

You can even begin blogging before you have a blog. How? By writing posts on other blogs. This is known as guest blogging, and it’s an incredibly potent traffic driver. If you’ve been following along this far, you know that you should have been cultivating relationships with other legal bloggers through blog commenting and social media.

Near the time of your blog’s launch, make a list of every blog you think would be a great blog to guest post on, no matter how “big” the blog seems. Begin emailing the blog owners, introducing yourself (even if you think they already know you). Give them some indication you’ve been paying attention to their blog: tell them you’ve been reading and commenting. Tell them you’re a subscriber and that you really get a lot of value out of their blog (never say anything that isn’t true, of course, so take these as suggestions that you should be doing these things).

Then make an offer to write a guest post for them. Suggest a topic that fits their blog and your expertise. Let them know you appreciate how busy they are, and that maybe publishing your guest post will give them a much-needed break. Ask them what way they would like the post sent to them (in an email, as a text file, as a word processor document, or whatever).

Although it may sound odd to suggest that you should guest post on blogs run by your “competition,” the truth is that you still want to have friendly, professional relationships with other attorneys. You’ll need someone to refer your excess clients to (which will place them in your debt). It also makes it less likely that prospective clients will try and play you off each other.

One super-important source of blogs to guest post on are news blogs or sites related to your practice area. For example, a family law attorney could write an article as a legal expert for a blog on parenting or relationships. Business and employment attorneys can write articles for business sites. Criminal defense attorneys can write for crime news sites. Remember, the whole point of what we’re teaching you here at Blawging Lawyers is how to use blogging to get clients like a river continuously overflowing its banks. Being the legal expert who writes the occasional article public news site is an important key in totally dominating your location for your practice area.

Conclusion

Don’t wait until you already have a blog. Launch your exposure blitz now. You can’t have too many friends to help you spread the word when launch day comes. You dont want a dim light bulb flickering and sputtering on. You want a mighty rocket blasting off into the stratosphere.

Summary

• The manner in which blogs are usually launched is highly unsuccessful.
• Begin your exposure campaign long before the blog launches by gathering as many friends as you can on social media.
• Comment on other blogs in your practice area or related areas.
• Engage in multiple guest posts in other legal blogs and news blogs/sites.

P.S.

I know, this is a lesson, not a letter, but I felt that this needed a “P.S.” because I wanted to mention how to benefit from this information if you have already launched your blog. If you already have a blog, don’t think that you missed the boat and you “did everything wrong.” It’s not your fault you didn’t have this kind of information before, because it doesn’t exist on the web.

But if you already have a blog, that’s okay. Using these strategies and tactics any time will still help a great deal. Plus, you can always redesign and relaunch your blog. Yes, it’s true. In fact, this is a common occurence. As I write this, for example, I’m currently working on a redesign of my blog, and it will not be the first. You can do the same.

Purpose

Feed readers and RSS (Real Simple Syndication) are a vital staple in the life of anyone who blogs. The purpose of this lesson is to help you become familiar with what RSS is and to understand its benefits.

Objectives

• Understand what RSS is
• Understand what feed readers are
• Know what the benefits are of using RSS and feed readers
• Realize how RSS feeds are “built-in” to blogs
• Have an overview of different types of feed readers
• Acquire tips for consuming RSS content effectively

What is RSS?

Real Simple Syndication is a web technology that broadcasts new content to subscribers. It’s different than subscribing to an email list, because no information has to be given by the subscriber. RSS uses the XML  language (eXtensible Markup Language), which is sort of a “cousin” to HTML, the language web pages are made of.

The “engine” that makes RSS work is built into blogging software. Every blog produces RSS data automatically. This RSS information comes in the form of a “feed.” Subscribing to feeds is practically effortless: oftentimes just the click of a button is all that’s required.

Check out this video to get a “plain English” explanation of RSS:

Another explanation of RSS can be found here on a blog called Back in Skinny Jeans, and it’s called How to Explain RSS the Oprah Way.

Feed Readers

A subscriber receives website content via RSS  and consumes it in a feed reader. A feed reader is either desktop software or a web-based service used to subscribe to, organize, and consume web content broadcast via RSS.

Desktop Feed Readers

There are a variety of desktop software feed readers available, though more people now favor web-based readers. The Common Craft video above makes it seem as though web-based readers are the only kind by omitting any mention of desktop reader software. Metacentric has a thorough list of desktop feed readers. If you use Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007, and/or Outlook Web Access, you can subscribe to and view RSS feeds in Outlook.

NetNewsWire is the reader for the Mac OS X operating system Grant mentions in our discussion (see the audio below).

Another kind of deskop reader is your web browser. Newer web browsers, such as Firefox 2 and up or Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 and up have built-in feed readers. In addition, Firefox can be extended via Add-ons and there are many reader add-ons available.

Web-based Feed Readers

Web-based feed readers are rapidly replacing desktop readers, simply because their use isn’t tied down to a single computer. The most popular of these is now Google Reader. Here is a list of other web-based feed readers.

Personal Home Pages

A personal home page (also sometimes called a personal start page) offers RSS feed reading in a highly customizable layout. Most readers display information in a “river of news” style, which is simply a list of headlines.

Personal home pages often display subscriptions as boxes which the user can drag to move and otherwise customize. The three well-known personal home page sites are iGoogle, NetVibes, and PageFlakes.

How Feed Readers Work

The way feed readers work is that they constantly “listen” for a broadcast of the RSS feed. When new content is available through a feed, the reader indicates this to you much the same way your email inbox does: through bold type.

You click on a headline (like you would open an email based on its subject line) and then read the article in the reader–you don’t have to go any place else. Back in the old days of the web, you would have to bookmark every site and spend redundant effort and time repeatedly visiting each site to check for updates.

Now, with RSS, the updates come to you. This makes it possible to consume hundreds of feeds in a very short period of time. It’s difficult to adequately describe the benefits of RSS if you’ve never used it. But once they try it, most people never go back to life without it.

Once you’ve read an article, it’s marked as read, just an email is in your inbox. When a new article is available, it appears in your reader. You can always visit the article or blog post directly from the link in the reader.

Full vs. Partial Feeds

One thing you may notice is that some sites publish full feeds, which means you can read the entire article or post in your reader without ever visiting the site. Other site publish partial feeds, which only let you read a small amount of content in the reader. To read the remainder, you have to click on a link and visit the site directly.

How to Subscribe to an RSS Feed

In any feed reader, there is a method for adding a new feed subscription. Go into your reader’s help menu or pages to find out how to do it. All you need is the main site’s URL (uniform resource locator or “web address”) and the feed reader will fetch the feed for you.

Also, when you are on a blog or a web page that has a feed, look for the orange RSS icon that has a symbol representing the idea of a broadcast or syndication on it (like waves radiating out from a dot). You will notice this icon is almost always highly visible on a blog. The picture at the top of this lesson is of that icon.

All Blogs Broadcast RSS Feeds

Every blog platform broadcasts at least one RSS feed. When you’re visiting another blog, you don’t need to wonder whether or not it has an RSS feed: it does. You don’t have to wonder if your blog broadcasts an RSS feed: it does. Many news sites, which are not technically blogs, also have RSS feeds available.

How to Get the Most Out of RSS Feeds

To really get the most out of RSS feeds, you need to learn your way around the workings of your feed reader program or service. Spend a few minutes in the help pages for it or do a Google search for the name of your reader plus “tutorial” or, better yet, “video tutorial.”

Beyond that, we recommend the following:

• Find the top blogs in your practice area and subscribe to them. They will show you how others are blogging in your practice area and help you get a feel for what you can do (and probably do better than them) on your own blog. Not only that, but you will want to cultivate relationships with the other blogging attorneys in your practice area.
• Find the top news sites for your practice area and subscribe to them. Staying on top of practice-relevant news should be par for the course. When you know what’s going on, you can make better, smarter, more profitable decisions. Current news can also help you with content for your own blog.
• Regularly cull feeds that aren’t providing value. It’s easy to over-subscribe and have far more feeds than you can really follow (RSS feeds can be kind of addicting). This produces anxiety and stress because you’ll get that feeling that you’re behind schedule. If you can’t get through all your feeds in an hour or less (including time spent reading) you have too many feeds. If you like to comment on other blogs as part of your reading, add another hour onto that. But any more than two hours a day is too much. You still have a practice to run and plenty of work to do (thanks to your blog).
• You should always subscribe to your own blog’s feed, so that you know it’s working properly.

Summary

When you’re entering into the world of blog marketing for your law practice, you need to keep up with news and information the way bloggers do, by using RSS feeds and a feed reader program or service.

The benefit of this is that you can more easily network with others, take advantage of opportunities as they come up, and find ideas for your own blogging.