In the Blawg for Profit program, to which this blog is a companion, we discuss directory submissions and which directories you should consider submitting your blog to in order to help your search engine rankings.

As we discuss in detail in the program, some directory sites our free and some are not. Some are worth submitting to (and paying for) and some are not. You can get our recommendations in the program. But, here is a post I recently found in which another blogger suggests directory sites he thinks are worth paying for. He includes the Yahoo paid directory, which I also recommend.

How many times have you gone to a blog looking for post on a certain topic or category?  It happens.  When a blog is first designed and made public, make sure you include a section called categories or topics.  This may depend on your blogging platform.  For me, I use Typepad, Moveable Type and Wordpress and we have a section called Categories.

This section is very important.  This is the index to your blog.  This is where all those post you are doing are index by topic or category so your readers can find them.  It is also my understanding the categories section can even be picked up as a tag on that post by Technorati and others.

When you first design your blog, come up with as many of the categories as you can think of.  But, don’t worry.  If you create a new category with a post, just go into your blogging platform and add another category.

I love it when I get my posting ideas from my readers. Had an email sometime back from Lisa Solomon at Question of Law and The Billable Hour. We were exchanging thoughts on Permalinks and linking between blogs. Lisa pointed out to me that some blogs don’t provide a Permalink. I was actually shocked. I never really noticed this and began to ponder the issue. As Lisa and I further discussed this, I remembered that some blogging platforms provide the permalink within the title of the post. Problogger and others do that. My blogs all have a permalink “link” at the end of every post. What I came up with is why. Why would you not provide a permalink in your blog. As I have mentioned a number of times in my tips, linking to other blogs is one of the best ways to drive traffic to your own blog. The more links you have to your blog, the more the search engines love you. Linking is one of the items that make blogs move up so fast in the search engines. It makes it very hard to link to a particular post on a blog if there is no permalink. In fact, Problogger has a great post on linking at the link I just provided. He states in part:

Blogs and links are the perfect couple. Of course, everyone knows that. You don’t have to be a hopeless romantic or some SEO techie type to figure that one out.

In addition:

Blog links have search engine power for several reasons. One of which is the different types of linking featured on blogs. All blog links are not the same, and that is part of their secret search engine rankings power. Different types of links provide different rankings boosts, in several different ways. In the end, the links add up to your blog being placed highly, for your most important keywords, in Google, Yahoo, and MSN Search.

Take my advice. Provide a permalink to your post. If you do, you will see your search engine ranking increase.

I have read a lot about what is being called “linkbaiting.” The Search Engine Journal defined Linkbaiting this way:

Linkbaiting is one of the most universally effective tactics for promoting a site, both for search engine rankings and short-term traffic boosts.

Blog SEO defined it this way:

Linkbaiting is a habit of writing good content with the sole purpose of getting linked to it.

Good content will get you incoming links. Writing good content will get you incoming links. I considered my own habit of linking to other blogger’s post. And it is the content of that post that catches my eye. Not who else has linked to it. Not the tags they use. It is the content. For example, take the two links above. I used those links for the content of those post. Nothing more, nothing less. The Search Engine Journal gave some guidelines on what content to write about to get those link backs.

Understanding what content, features, and subjects are “in” with the technorati (the web-literate individuals, not the blog aggregation site) is a subjective, but important piece of the linkbait creation puzzle.

There’s that word again, CONTENT. The Blog SEO provided 2 ways to be good linkbaiters. The first hint is:

Know what’s up You need to know what’s going on on the Web and know what’s hot. A good way of finding out is checking out the popular searches on Technorati.

Taking the first hint, let me expand. One of the blogs I do is the Kansas Family Law Blog. I am providing a professional service on that blog. It is not my goal on that blog to generate traffic for ads, as you won’t see Chitika ads on that blog. One of the ways I decide what content to provide is to know what is going on. But not by checking out the popular searches on Technorati. What I do check out, are the searches I find my readers are doing by checking the stats of my blog. While checking those stats I can determine what actual searches are being typed into Google or Yahoo. I take those search requests and make them into post. In checking my stats nightly over a short period of time, I can usually see a pattern of what questions are being asked. Taking those questions and doing a post gets me traffic to my blog. It is not linkbaiting, but it does get me traffic, which is our goal. I am also following the first hint mentioned above, I am keeping up on what is hot and writing content to match what is hot. The second hint is:

Promote your article If you feel that you’ve created something link-worthy, the next obvious step is promotion. Things become easy when you are a well established blogger with thousands of readers, but what if you’re not. SearchEngine Journal recommends that you contact a few well known bloggers in your niche and ask them to critique your article. Please don’t ask for a link because your request will most likely be ignored. When you get an e-mail back with some criticism, be ready to make changes and e-mail them back thanking them and announcing that you’ve made some adjustments. Most likely they will talk about it to their readers.

The second hint is a good one, but it all goes back to content. If you provide good content, you will get noticed. And those that notice you will link to your blog. Let me take my professional service blog again for an example. When you do a blog that is really a niche marketing blog, you end up developing a so called network of other professional service blogs. We take advantage of RSS and have our news-readers set to catch ever new post our professional service blogging friends do. If there is something there that catches our eye, we post about it and of course give them credit. For me, I know those that I follow provide good content. You can tell by their blog design and of course the posting they do. Take a look at some of them: Alabama Family Law Blog South Carolina Family Law Blog In my humble opinion (again), if you are doing a blog that is a niche blog, you will develop a following of others in that niche. And, by default, you will get incoming links from those fellow niche bloggers. Of course, remember them and do some outgoing linking to them. There has also been a lot of talk lately about asking for links. Let me just state, I get emails each week asking me to link with someone. I read everyone of those emails. And if the blog provides GOOD CONTENT, I link to them. Remember this, the results you get will be directly reflective of the work you want to put in. This will not be easy and it will take some work. If you are just starting a new blog, the work in the beginning is more than you will do down the road. You will need to post and post and post early in your blogs life. But you will get noticed and it will pay off. CONTENT is the key, not baiting others with slick tricks or spamming. Related Linking Articles: • Law Blogs work when you get links to your law blog.

Daily Blog Tips had a post today about creating a functional footer for your blog. If you take a look at my practice blog, Kansas Family Law Blog you will see this in action on a law related blog. Here are the items suggested and also, a list of what appears on my own blog.A functional footer for a blog should have at least two links:

• a link to the homepage
• a link to the RSS feed

You can also consider adding the following:

• an email subscription box
• a link to the Archives
• a link to the ‘About’ page
• a link to the ‘Contact’� page
• the recent posts
• the popular posts

Source for Post: Daily Blog Tips.

A well done blog is a great source of information for its readers. However, one area I have seen lawyers forget when doing their blog is the importance of the category list. Under the three blogging platforms I use, TypePad, Moveable Type, and WordPress, categories are used for the post. The category list is important for two big reasons.

When you have readers come to your blog, it is the category list where they tend to go to find information on your blog. In designing your blog, you should try to limit your categories to no more than 20. And you should place the category list as close to the top of the page as possible. Don’t make your reader hunt for the “index” to your blog. Once you get them there, your goal should be to keep them there as long as possible.

If you don’t have Trackbacks and Comments enabled on your blog, do it. I allow Trackbacks and Comments on all my blogs. I do however moderate them to keep out spam.

Not only should you allow them on your own blog. You should do Trackbacks as often as possible and you should Comment on other other post as often as you can.

A Trackback is the method of informing a blogger that you are linking to and using information from his post. Both Trackbacks and Comments are just one tool to also help you with your SEO.

The following are additional reasons from Problogger why you should be doing Trackbacks and Comments.

• Leaving a comment or two makes your name familiar and lets the blogger know that you read his or blog. You become a person, a person who is interested and interesting. Leaving a trackback before you ever comment can look like you are standoffish or too busy to comment.
• Leaving a trackback on the same post where you’ve left a comment can work really well, if you are truly interested in the dialogue and the topic. Think of it as a real conversation, that you might have had with a fairly new friend. If you were truly engaged and thought of a new point on your way home, you might shoot him an email or IM to pass it along.
• The track post that you write shows that you took the conversation at the original blog one step further. Almost everyone would think that’s a compliment, sending a trackback is a lot like saying ‘You’ve got me thinking, and I’m telling others good things about you.’ Who wouldn’t like to hear that?

Good advice to follow. So, go forth and Comment and do Trackbacks and increase your own traffic.

I for one have always favored full-text RSS feeds. And quite frankly when others don’t use them, I rarely visit the rest of the post by clicking through from my newsreader. I am a newsreader blog surfer. And if you aren’t using full-text feeds, you are not getting the readership you deserve.

Kevin O’Keefe has finally seen the light and is a convert himself.

I’m a convert to full-text RSS feeds. Being the small minded lawyer I am, I began blogging with excerpt feeds wanting users to come to blog. My logic was that readers would read more about me and what I did - like they cared.

When I switched to full text RSS feeds more people read my blog posts and more people, other bloggers and the media, cited my blog posts in their writings. My reputation as an authority on lawyer blogs grew and LexBlog’s business increased.

LexBlog’s law firm clients, thinking traffic and stats is the goal, want people coming to their blog to read their posts. However, I’m going to advise full text feeds going forward. Stats is not the goal - enhancing one’s reputation as an authority in a niche practice area and a growth in business are the real goals.

In addition, the Feedburner weblog mentions full-text feeds too.

Dennis Kennedy touches on this subject also. Dennis states:

There’s long been a debate over whether to distribute your RSS feed as an excerpt feed or a full-text feed.

I started out with an excerpt feed because I enjoyed writing a customized “excerpt” as a teaser. I didn’t use the standard automatic “first 20 or 50 words” excerpt that people commonly use today. I switched to a full-text feed because I preferred full-text feeds from other blogs and sites. And because I sometimes spent more time on writing the excerpt than the full post.

There are good reasons that you might choose to distribute a full-text or an excerpt feed. Excerpt feeds require that a reader click-through and visit your blog. Full-text feeds let your readers read the full post without going to your blog.

Over the years, people who use newsreaders to consume RSS feeds often reach a point where they feel that they have subscribed to WAY TOO MANY feeds. They then decide to prune their list of feeds. Historically, one of the easiest ways to cut the feeds you subscribe to is to delete those that offer only excerpts of posts.

The reason should be apparent. You save yourself the time and effort of clicking through to see the rest of the post. If you read feeds offline with a stand-alone reader, as I often do, then you will prefer full-text feeds because you can read everything in the post.

So, if you are blogging and not doing full-text feeds, stop it. Do full-text feeds. I have been doing them since almost the beginning of my blogging. It has not harmed my traffic one little bit.

New York attorney Nicole Black, a lawyer blogger, shares 10 tips for generating traffic to legal blogs.

1. Decide why you’re starting a legal blog–Is it to generate new business, establish your expertise in a particular area of practice, provide you with a web presence and/or more visibility, or is it simply an outlet that allows you to express yourself?
2. Determine who your target readers are–Are they potential clients, lawyers who practice in the same area of law as you do, lawyers located in the same geographic area as you or some other type of professional? This will help craft your content.
3. Create a blogroll–Your blogroll should serve two purposes: it should assist your readers in locating interesting content and it should alert other bloggers to your newfound blog’s existence.Send an email to the bloggers on your blogroll and let them know that because you enjoy their blog, you’ve added it to your blogroll–and a reciprocal link would be greatly appreciated, but is certainly not necessary.
4. Consider adding a link to Evan Schaeffer’s Legal Underground–This blog is a high traffic blog and he regularly acknowledges those blogs that have linked to his own.
5. Make sure that Tom Mighell is aware of your blog–Drop him an email so that he knows that your blog exists. His well known blog, Inter Alia, regularly features new legal blogs, and by letting him know about yours, he may mention your new blog more quickly.
6. Add your blog the legal blog directories listed on Nicole’s blog.
7. Submit blog posts to Blawg Review–Each week Blawg Review features blawg content from the past week. Consider signing up to host Blawg Review.
8. Read Kevin O’Keefe’s blog–His business is law blogs, and his blog always provides helpful tips for both new and experienced bloggers.
9. Regularly link to other blogs in your posts–Other bloggers will notice and appreciate it, and may reciprocate in kind.
10. Submit relevant comments to law blogs somewhat similar to your own–Make sure that your name is linked to your blog, so that anyone who clicks on it will be directed to your blog.

One tip that I would provide a bit of caution on however is the blogroll. While I agree, you should have a blogroll on your blog. Be careful to provide relevant links. Especially if your legal blog is a niche blog. Remember your target audience.

Jamie Spencer at the Austin Criminal Defense Lawyer had a great post sometime back called Getting other lawyers to link to your blog. My fellow blogger Jamie, gives two main ways to accomplish this. And I could not agree more.

1. Content, Content, Content.
2. Link out to other people who are writing on similar topics. Basically, to get them to notice that you exist in the first place, the easiest thing to do is to cut and paste from something they wrote (while, of course, acknowledging them and linking back to them), and then comment on what they wrote.

And as he says, “nothing, and I mean nothing will beat good content.” Something I have been preaching for over two years now. And as Kevin O’Keefe stated, “no reason to expand, its as simple as that.” I too would be glad to discuss blogging with anyone that wants to visit. Drop me a call at 785-632-6612 or an email at gdgrifflaw@mac.com