The ability to express yourself through words has been around since well, your grandpa had a grandpa and that grandpa had a grandpa and his grandpa was praying to the thunder God Zeus!
These days our words can act like a fishing net, capturing a variety of audiences and eyes. Why not use that net to gain more authority for your business and website? That’s why I’m here. To help you with one simple task…START BLOGGING!
Blogging not only benefits the people that read it, but your website as well. Being able to produce exciting, new content will help you better engage your audience and provoke them to check out your site for more awesome content. Keeping your blog post to a minimum word count is important. You don’t want to make it too long where people are going to start to loose interest 2 minutes in and you definitely don’t make it short enough where the reader thinks after, “What did I read?? It seemed more like a brief note than a informative article!”
Make it a point to blog on a regular set schedule. Posting a blog on the 1st of the month and waiting 2 more months to make another post is not a good schedule to run off. You want to be remembered, not replaced!
Building authority and credibility for your website, especially with law firm website design, will come naturally with more new and interesting blog posts. An important reminder is the maintenance of your blog. MAKE SURE YOU’RE UPDATING YOUR BLOG WEEKLY IF NOT A COUPLE TIMES MONTHLY! Ideally, posting a blog weekly will keep your content fresh and let your audience know you’re staying up to date on the certain area you’re writing about. Try making 30 minutes to hour available weekly to produce your blog posts. Setting that time a side will allow you to clearly focus on what you’re wanting to blog on.
The last thing you should be worried about when trying to figure out the type of material to include in your blog post is, “Are people going to like this?” What you should concern yourself with is the freshness and relevancy you’re creating for your audience.
A blog is a great tactic to help position you as a leader in your specific areas of law practice. You’re ability to become a public expert in your field and also a trusted source will only build that strong bond between you and the reader.
Be Aware
DUPLICATE, DUPLICATE, DUPLICATE content is a killer! Make sure you’re using your OWN thoughts and also make sure you’re not copying and pasting content from your website or other sites. Make it real and make it new. Bots crawling your site will discover duplicate content and this could lead to possible penalties like Panda. And that could take a long while to get out of depending on the severity of the penalty.
Sharing case results is a touchy area. There have been instances where I’ve seen lawyers list case results on their site but never say they can get you the type of money you’re wanting or looking for. This depends on the state you’re working in. Make sure to check your state’s statutes and see if there are any guidelines to referencing case results. There are rules that prevent law firms from guaranteeing prospective clients a certain amount of money. An example of this would be a lawyer saying, “We promise our clients millions of dollars” or “We can get our clients (x) amount of dollars in these types of cases.” This gives a false impression that you will provide or you are going to get that customer a set amount of money. If every law firm was able to say this, prospective clients are automatically going to assume they’re going to get top dollar for their case. Each case is different in it’s own right.
Another great benefit with blogs is the ability to source your information to many social networks.
Social Status
Having fresh new content for sites like Google, Bing and Yahoo to crawl is also invaluable. Having them crawl that new content will not only help your site rank better and give your website the ability to rank better organically, it builds that trust you want to establish between you and the reader(s).
Take this fact into consideration. There are more than 320 million people currently living in the United States. Of those 320 million+, almost 70% of them have a Facebook page. 70% is an outrageous number!!! Having the ability to post your blogs on sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ only increase the importance of having a blog. Not only that, but the more you add blogs to your social media sites, the more people will like said media profile and will most likely visit your site or refer a friend or colleague to see if the awesome content they just got done reading is also available on your website.
Being able to submit your blog posts to these free social media sites is a way to get great content to your audiences. More importantly, those targeted audiences that really value what you have to write about or people who are specifically looking for what you’re writing about are going to appreciate it a lot more. Taking time out to really explain an item or topic builds trust (there I go using the word, trust), but trust really is a big KEY in the success your blogs will have. Having that extra visibility will only up the amount of visitors to your site and could bring solid inbound links to your site. Doesn’t this free advertising sound like a viable option now?
Don’t Be Scared
Make sure your content is engaging, update to date, and most importantly ORIGINAL! One last quote I want to leave you with by Hugh MacLeod. He said:
“Blogging requires passion and authority which leaves most people out.”
Remember, you’re not only trying to bring more visitors to your site, but also building that trust with your readers. Show attentiveness, show knowledge, and show trustworthiness.
Now sit down and start making magic…and money!!!
Mike Ramsey is the founder of Nifty. He is the author of Winning At Local Search and a former partner at LocalU, which provides beginner to advanced conferences in the realm of local search marketing. Mike founded Nifty in 2009 which has been recognized by Inc. as one of the fastest-growing companies in America.