There has been a conversation going on lately on a Listserv I am on. It centers around ghost writing for a blog. The conversation started out with someone asking if they should have a ghost writer for their blog. I chimed in as I often do and said no. If you are going to blog, you should blog. Blogging is more than posting. It is more than putting up a Web site structured as a blog and hoping someone will visit. Blogging is for all intense purposes, one of the best marketing tools you can use to market your law practice.

And blogging is more. Blogging is a conversation between you and your readers. A conversation between you and other bloggers. A conversations between you and your possible clients and/or customers. A conversation between you and the media. And, in my humble opinion, the first step in becoming involved in that conversation is putting up good relevant content.

However, you can’t just put up great content. You can put up award winning content and if no one sees it, big deal. Aaron Brazell of Technolsailor talked about the content/conversation concept today in a post called How Much Do People Talk About You?

As Kevin O’Keefe stated in a post today, “Aaron nails a common misconception in blogging - if you produce good content, people will come” And he is right. I have never said content is the only key thing to a successful blog. You have to get them there to read it. And Aaron goes on to give us just a few ways to do that.

When you write that great content, try to get that content in front of other SMEs (similarly minded experts). Find ways to market yourself. Give away your knowledge. Speak at industry events. Host meetups related to your industry. Be social and network. Go drink a beer with others in your industry. When an opinion is asked for, be aggressive and share your opinion in a succinct, well-spoken manner.

O’Keefe expands on Aaron’s idea a bit further when he suggest we should be social in our blogging.

• Comment on other blogs leaving your name, blog url, and email address.
• Reference other people’s blog content on your posts. You may get a trackback link and you’ll certainly be seen by the blogger whose content you referenced who may subscribe to your blog and blog about your content.
• Let reporters know you’ve blogged about their stories. It won’t be too long before you’ll be quoted in a publication which your clients and prospective clients read.
• Blog about conferences you want to present at. Let the conference coordinator know you blogged about them and your availability to speak on a niche topic.

“99% of bloggers don’t understand blogging is an art. Effective blogging to get people talking about you will put you light years ahead of your competition.“

They are both right. Don’t just throw up a post. Go further in your blogging. FIND the conversations that are out there in the area you are interested in. LISTEN to the conversations. ENGAGE in those conversations by commenting, leaving trackbacks, linking to and thanking those that comment on your blog. And EMPOWER your readers to do the same. Allow both comments and trackbacks on your blog. Use your blog as a communication tool that gets you involved in the conversation and gets you noticed.

Stay tuned for more!!

Kevin O’Keefe has just recently posted about Full or Partial Feeds and provided a great graphic from one of my favorite blogs, ProBlogger. This is what Darren Rowse found from a reader poll he conducted on his blog.

As many of you know I have posted about it here on Blawg for Profit and Home Office Lawyer.

It would appear there are more and more agreeing that a blog should provide full feeds for RSS.

We are nearly ready to launch our Blawg for Profit program.  But, until we do, I recently stumbled upon this great list from Daily Blog Tips.  Though some of these may be for the more technically minded, at a minimum it will help you identify issues to discuss with your web designer.

The Blog Squad had a great post today on their blog, Build a Better Blog called Great Blogs: What goes into them?

Their post points out 5 things that make a blog great, and they are:

1. Gets you found by the people who need you.
2. Establishes you as an expert in your niche
3. Builds credibility and trust with readers so they see you really know what you’re talking about
4. Develops and strenghens relationships with readers through interaction and conversation
5. Showcases your personality so readers feel they know you, your values, your passions

Michael and I talk about all of these points in the Blawg for Profit program. And they really are key. If you just throw up a blog and don’t keep it updated, or maintain it and make sure it is designed to show up correctly in all browsers, you will not be pleased. And if you don’t strive to achieve the 5 goals as set out above, you will not see results.

Drop us an email and we would be glad to answer any questions you might have.

Kevin O’Keefe at Real Lawyers :: Have Blogs had a post today concerning converting a newsletter into a blog.

I have had conversations often with lawyers who do a newsletter and just don’t get the benefits of a blog over a newsletter. Or who just don’t think they can give up the newsletter. What they forget is that a blog can become your firms newsletter that someone can subscribe to and receive updates as you do them. And what the lawyer also forgets is that the blog can be a newsletter that they update as often as they want without having to reprint it and have that added cost.

In his post, Kevin points out some of the benefits and results of a blog. First is client face-time, sharing legal information, and showcasing legal expertise. But it is more:

• Cost savings in reduced time and non recurring graphic & formating expense.
• Brief content made it easy and enjoyable for lawyers creating content.
• Content was distributed when done, rather than at monthly or quarterly intervals.
• Reduced marketing department time with lawyers posting content directly to blog.
• Content is indexed on search engines so content is now seen by broader audience than with newsletter.
• Content distributed by RSS and email, with users selecting their preference.
• RSS distribution gets content into Google Blog Search and Technorati so that Internet users monitoring content by keywords and key phrases will receive your relevant blog posts; especially key for media who regularly do this.
• Index by topic of archived content that’s fully searchable.

Newsletters do have a role. But don’t overlook what all you can accomplish with a well designed, well maintained and updated blog for you overall marketing efforts.

Small Business Computing has a post called Five Reasons to Start a Small Business Blog.

In the article, they point out 5 sound reasons to start a blog. They are:

All wonderful reasons to do a blog to market and promote your law firm. However, as the article points out, there is a downside to Blogging. “The biggest hurdle to blogging is the commitment to keep it going.” Writing a post is really as easy as sending an email. However, especially in the early days of your blog, you have to make a commitment to post at least two to three times every week. That is a minimum so that it maintains search engine growth and keeps bringing readers back to read more.

In the Blawg for Profit program, Michael and I will be showing you how you can make this all work as a great marketing tool. We will provide you with the tools to make sure your blog is successful.

Matt Cutts is a software engineer at Google.  As many of you know, Google is rather secretive about “the algorithm” and how to best get ranked on the search results page.  Matt recently gave a speech on some search engine optimization strategies.  A link to the video of that speech is here.  A summary of some of his most interesting revelations is here.

I was glad to see him say that Wordpress is good for search results right out of the box.  That is the platform this site as well as my lawforprofit site is based upon.  It is also the platform we are using for the customized blogs we are doing for clients here at BlawgforProfit.

A hat tip to Daily Blog Tips for the find.