AttorneySync Blog

Frequently Adding Content Is Crucial

I wrote a post recently highlighting the benefits of blogging for your firm. We hear “the experts” tell us all the time that we need a blog. I know plenty of lawyers that have set one up. They blog for awhile, get too busy, and before they know it, the blog hasn’t been updated in 4 months.

Actively Blogging Is The Key

So what can creating new content, ie: active blogging, do for you? Here is a convincing study from HubSpot:

A study of 2,168 HubSpot customers shows that businesses that published at least 5 blog articles in the last 7 days draw 6.9 times more organic search traffic and 1.12 times more referral traffic than those who don’t blog at all.

Active blogs are associated with and likely have an impact on site traffic. This finding coincides with common sense: out of large chunks of business-relevant content (1 post per weekday), blog readers will likely find something engaging and proceed to learn more about a company.

How do companies that already blog compare to each other? Does the frequency of blogging affect the number of site visitors?

The answer is yes. Among companies that blog, organic search and referrals traffic are high for those who published more blog articles up to date.

If content is king, consistency is queen. It isn’t enough just to “start a blog” and then add nothing to it. The key to having your law firm blog work for you is to make sure there is consistent and continuous content being written. The more worthwhile content you can add to your blog, the more outlets you are creating for potential clients to interact.

Photo by Seth1492

Free Guide: Writing Content For Your Law Firm’s Website Want to learn how writing content for your firm’s site can help bring in business? Download AttorneySync’s Free Guide On Writing Web Content For Lawyers.

Continue Reading

Very interesting post from our friends over at Hubspot explaining what blogging can do for your business. I am an analytical person and always enjoy some empirical data to back up an argument. All too often, I think that blogging is pushed onto the legal community as something that needs to be done, but lawyers without a lot of online marketing experience don’t understand why.

Here are some numbers from Hubspot’s study to convince you why your firm needs to be actively involved with blogging:

A study of 2,300 HubSpot customers revealed that businesses that blog witness their monthly leads rise by 126% more than those who don’t.

We compared leads last month with leads two months ago for 6 consecutive months, and the result shows that blogging businesses, whether or not they use the HubSpot platform, experience a 165% lead growth, a much larger increase than that of non-blogging businesses, which experience a 73% lead growth.

The more contacts and leads your site generates, the more clients you will retain, and the more revenue your online presence will generate for you.

Hubspot admits that factors such as a clean landing page, strong keywords, and active presence on social media sites all influence lead generation and conversion rates. However, the fact still remains that blogging is an extremely effective way to market your practice and grow your firm’s client base.

Other Added Benefits of Blogging:

• Blogging helps build your reputation as a thought leader in your practice area
• Frequent blogging helps to grow your footprint on the web, creating more outlets where potential clients can find you
• It creates a forum where potential clients, professional contacts, etc. can interact with you (this is crucial for converting traffic to your site into contacts and leads)
• It attracts links from other sites, increasing the authority and importance of your own blog in the eyes of search engines
• It provides you with new content to share and publicize through social media outlets

Only having a static website for your law firm isn’t going to cut it anymore. It is important that you have a web presence that is dynamic, growing, and evolving. A blog is one of the best ways to achieve this.

Photo by Kristina B

Free Guide: Guest Blogging For Lawyers Want to learn how guest blogging can help build relationships and bring more business for your firm? Download AttorneySync’s Free Guide: Guest Blogging For Lawyers.

Continue Reading

We discuss the importance of getting more interaction when a visitor arrives on your legal blog all the time with our clients.  I think sometimes lawyers overlook this aspect since there is so much focus on getting found in the search engines and generating traffic.  But who cares if you are generating traffic and most of the visitors choose to leave your site before they interact?  We want them to call, fill out web forms, download guides and e-books, leave comments on your blog posts, etc.  I recently came across a couple of great articles that can help with this:

13 Types of Posts that Always Get Lots of Comments

This is a great article highlighting some of the different types of posts that generate a lot of comments and interaction with your audience.

7 Tips for Effective Calls to Action

Great post from our friends at Hubspot on how to create effective calls to action on your blog or website.

Free Guide: Guest Blogging For Lawyers Want to learn how guest blogging can help build relationships and bring more business for your firm? Download AttorneySync’s Free Guide: Guest Blogging For Lawyers.

Continue Reading

Don’t take our word for it, see what Matt Cutts from Google had to say about WordPress at WordCamp 2009:
[wpvideo lAZUouJF]

We are excited to release the newest guide for our library: AttorneySync’s Guide To Wordpress Blogs For Lawyers.

Wordpress is one of the most widely used platforms for blogging and websites.  We have put together this guide to help you learn about blogging for your firm with Wordpress including:

• What Is A Blog & Why You Should Have One
• Getting Started With Wordpress
• Wordpress.org vs Wordpress.com
• Wordpress Essentials
• Your Wordpress Blog & Social Media
• Wordpress Plugins & Resources

You can download the Guide To Wordpress Blogs For Lawyers here.

Continue Reading

Your reputation is so important.  This is especially true in the legal community where your name and reputation are synonymous with your brand.  It’s important that you are monitoring what is being said about you and your firm as it’s happening online.  Fortunately it’s easy to do, and the best part is it’s free.

1. Google Alerts:

This free tool from Google let’s you enter in keywords you want to watch..  It will then scour the internet looking for new instances when they appear.  The results are emailed to you or you can sign up to receive them through an RSS reader such as GoogleReader.  I monitor my name, the name of my company, any product or service names we have, and so forth.  This way you can get a handle on what people are saying about you and your firm, delivered in real time.

2. Twitter (via TweetDeck):

I am assuming you’ve setup a Twitter account.  First, you’ll want to download a twitter desktop client.  I use TweetDeck, but there are a host of other options.  Once installed, click the magnifying glass to set up search columns.  Enter your Twitter user name, your company name, your competitor’s name, etc. This is a great way to view tweets about specific topics and more importantly, keep track of what is being said about you and your firm in the Twittersphere.

Twitter Guide For Lawyers Want to learn more about using Twitter for your practice? Download AttorneySync’s Free Twitter For Lawyers Guide.

Continue Reading

AttorneySync is excited to be releasing a new guide today, AttorneySync’s Guide To Guest Blogging For Lawyers.

Just like newspapers and magazines have “guest-authors” or “guest-contributors”, blawgs have guest-blawggers. But finding good guest-blawggers and becoming a good guest-blawgger yourself, can be a little challenging.

The following guide outlines some simple things to keep in mind when you’re considering being a guest-blawgger or posting guest-blawgger posts on your own blawg. We also layout benefits including:

• Exposure To New Readership
• Building Authority For Your Own Blawg
• Forming Relationships With Other Lawyers and Blawggers
• Assistance With New Content
• Fresh Perspectives and New Ideas For Your Readers

We will break down these benefits and show you how to successfully go about guest blawgging.

Download the Guide To Guest Blogging For Lawyers Here!

Continue Reading

So you finally took the plunge and started a legal blog for your firm or you’ve been happily blogging for awhile. Either way, your legal blog is an important part of developing your law firm’s brand. It’s crucial that you come across professional and actually convey a sense of understanding how to put together a cohesive blog. Here is a list of 5 mistakes that legal bloggers should avoid:

1. Erratic posting. This is an easy mistake to slip into, especially for busy lawyers. Post one day, then nothing for a month. Then write three posts in two days and nothing for another five weeks. It’s important to be consistent with your blogging. Whether it’s a post or week or better yet, two to three posts a week. Take some time to plan out a few ideas for posts. Write several when you get the time and then publish them in steady intervals. The key here is being consistent so your readers stay engaged.

2. Creating a category for every post. Categories are meant to represent broader themes that your blog is about. The categories for your blog should be thought about ahead of time, they are the basis for the material you publish in your blog. It is a mistake to create a new category for each post.

3. Using post titles that don’t let readers know what the post is about. I’ve blogged in the past about writing good titles for your legal blog. Your title should convey to the reader the material they will read about in the post. Take a look at the story titles on CNN or in a newspaper. They are usually intriguing, sometimes creative, but they always let you know what the lead is. This is important for your blog as well. You want to entice readers to check out your article, but at least give them a taste of what the material is about.

4. Spreading yourself thin with your blog material. It’s important to have a focus with your blog. The best legal blogs represent a writer’s expertise in a niche of the legal world. This is what helps brand you as a thought leader in that niche. Trying to cover absolutely every practice area you have ever dealt with, every legal news topic, etc. makes your blog appear unfocused and disorganized. It’s better to appeal to your small segment of devoted readers than to a large swath of people across many topics.

5. Have your blog residing on a generic blogging domain name. You are putting in the time (which you have very little of) to write and maintain a legal blog. You want the blog to come across as professional and put together. Spend the extra couple of dollars and get an original domain name for your firm’s blog. Having your legal blog reside on yourfirm.typepad.com or yourfirm.wordpress.com isn’t nearly as professional as www.yourfirm.com.

Photo by Lady Madonna

Free Guide: Guest Blogging For Lawyers Want to learn how guest blogging can help build relationships and bring more business for your firm? Download AttorneySync’s Free Guide: Guest Blogging For Lawyers.

Continue Reading

Hot off the Law.com newswire, Richard Lavinthal CEO of PRforLAW, discusses a great concept in law firm internet marketing, a case site legal blog.  The idea is that when a law firm takes on a case of some special interest, a site dedicated to tracking the case is launched.  Obviously, there are privacy issues to be considered when developing such a site.

According to Lavinthal:

“Case-specific Web sites must avoid overt law firm marketing. It is appropriate to identify the attorneys of record along with their bios, but don’t include a form for potential clients to fill out. All-out marketing should remain on the firm’s legacy site.

A plaintiff’s case yet to be filed presents the best opportunity for developing a litigation Web site because the firm can control the filing date. It can electronically file the complaint after midnight; edit the domain record so the site is found globally; and, later in the morning, issue a professionally prepared news release that sends reporters and the public to the new Web site.

Defense firms have a different challenge. When the prosecutor or the plaintiff controls the timing, the Web site for the defense must stand ready for immediate launch once the first shoe is dropped. Filed documents not posted at launch need to be added as soon as possible.

For a litigation Web site to serve as a true reference, all filed documents should be uploaded, linked and available as soon as possible. When the law firm issues a news release that announces a new filing or acknowledges the other side’s civil or criminal charges, it should reference the litigation Web site so the media can easily and fairly report on the case.”

The internet is uncannily adept at communicating information quickly to a vast audience. One of the many advantages of launching a case site legal blog is that an effective implementation can be accomplished with a small investment.  Due to their informational nature, flash graphics and other aesthetic features are not necessary for these web solutions to add great value to a firm’s web presence.

A case site legal blog can be an affordable and effective way for smaller firms to grow attention to their practices and demonstrate their expertise on a particular subject or aspect of the law.

Free Guide: Guest Blogging For Lawyers Want to learn how guest blogging can help build relationships and bring more business for your firm? Download AttorneySync’s Free Guide: Guest Blogging For Lawyers.

Continue Reading

I got a lot of positive responses regarding a previous post I wrote called “A Law Firm Website Done Right – A Real World Example”.  I want to follow it up with a list of 5 things to consider PRIOR to investing and creating a new website or blog for your law firm.

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – This aspect of your website is often overlooked until AFTER your legal website is up and running.  The problem is that many of the important aspects of SEO need to be handled ahead of time and integrated with your website or blog.  Attempting to properly implement good SEO for your site after the fact can be difficult depending on how your site is structured.  Often web site design firms are not SEO specialists.  They can make an attractive site, but it may not be optimized and search engine friendly.  The time to hire an SEO specialist is DURING your website or blog design and creation, not after the fact.

2. Is The Backend User Friendly For You – Most blog and website software these days is setup in a way that makes it easy for you to update your site or write new posts.  This is important because updating your site or blog often is important for developing your online reputation and getting found in search engines.  The days of getting ranked while having a static site are over, especially in a field as competitive as the legal industry.  You want to make sure that your site is easy to update for you.

3. How Much Support Is Provided For You – This is a big deal when you are investing in a new site or blog.  Most times, you get what you pay for.  There are plenty of free solutions out there for you and many are excellent depending on how comfortable you are setting things up on your own.  However, as is always the case, there are distinct advantages in going with a paid solution even for a simple blog.  Writing and maintaining a blog is difficult and doesn’t come naturally to everyone.  Having support available for technical aspects as well as marketing aspects can be the difference between success and failure.

4. What Are Your Goals For The Site – I think often times firms invest in a website or blog because they think they have to or because everyone else is doing it.  The truth is that you need to consider what your goals are with the investment you are making.  Don’t be under the illusion that simply putting up a website or blog will get you found.  It isn’t that simple.  How do you plan on marketing the site?  What is the site’s purpose?  Is it purely for information?  Are you using it as a pamphlet more or less to show interested, potential clients?  Do you simply want to put it on your business card?  Do you want to establish yourself as a thought leader in your legal niche?  Do you want new clients to find you through the site?  All of these factors should be considered when setting up your legal site or blog.  The structure of the site, the style, and investments you make towards marketing it will be affected by your answers to the previous questions.  Don’t cheat yourself by neglecting to establish your goals for the site ahead of time.

5. How Much Do You Want To Invest In Your Web Marketing? – You wouldn’t be reading this post if you didn’t have an interest in investing in your legal internet marketing.  There are so many options out there to choose from ranging in price from free to thousands of dollars.  It is best if you consider your goals, prices, and what you want back in return BEFORE you begin searching for a company to provide you a solution.  It can be overwhelming to begin your search without thinking about your plan ahead of time.  Take the time to do some research and put together a plan of attack prior to speaking with companies offering solutions.  This will help narrow down your choices ahead of time and make your search more efficient and effective.

If you are currently looking for a solution for your legal website or blog project, AttorneySync can help.  We’d be happy to talk with you about what you are looking for and see if we can help design a solution that will work for your firm.  Contact us today for a free consultation on your law firm website or blog project.

Free Guide: Guest Blogging For Lawyers Want to learn how guest blogging can help build relationships and bring more business for your firm? Download AttorneySync’s Free Guide: Guest Blogging For Lawyers.

Continue Reading

Are You Feeling Stuck?

A blog should be one of the cornerstones of you lawyer marketing efforts.   A well written blog takes a lot of time and energy.  One of the most difficult things is constantly coming up with interesting ideas for your legal blog posts.  I have made a list of 10 ideas to get the ball rolling when you’re feeling short on ideas.

1.  Make A List – People on the web love to read lists. The short concise bullets are easy to digest and fit perfectly with the way content on the web is consumed. Build a list around your expertise and don’t forget to let people know you created a list in your title (you’ll get more click through’s this way).

2.  Share Good Links – Finding good content on the web isn’t as easy as it may seem. Just because a search engine algorithm returns it doesn’t mean it’s great content. Your readers will appreciate a list of links to articles, resources, stories, etc. that you found compelling, interesting, or useful. They are reading your blog because they like your ideas, it would only make sense they will have interest in other resources you found useful.

3. Tell A Story - There is nothing more compelling than a great story. Writing about an experience you had with an anonymous client, a personal life event, or otherwise is great blog material. It gives your blog a voice and shows your human side. People identify with that and are more likely to engage (which is the whole point of the blog in the first place!)

4. Share Your Legal Expertise - You have put in the blood, sweat, and tears to gain the legal expertise you have today. Leverage that into informational posts. People have questions about your legal services, your firm, etc. Try answering these questions in a public forum. Obviously you want to be careful with regards to giving any legal advice, but there are plenty of general questions and knowledge you can safely and effectively put out there.

5.  Read Other Legal Blogs – Subscribe to other industry blogs and stay current on the posts. It’s a great way to get a feel for the popular legal industry topics as well as injecting new ideas for your own posts.

6.  Have A Guest Blogger – Are you as busy as the rest of us? Can’t find the time to blog this week? Try utilizing a guest blogger. It’s a great way to build relationships with other bloggers. Offer them a link back to their own blog or website for the effort. This can be a great way to change up the voice of your blog for a day and inject some fresh ideas and content.

7.  Write A Follow Up To Your Most Popular Posts – Take a look back at your traffic statistics and write a follow up to your most popular posts. The great thing about the internet is how trackable everything is. You can find out what your audience liked most and then give them more of it. Expand on the ideas or topics you previously laid out.

8.  Attend A Webinar - There are plenty of excellent, legal webinars you can attend for free. Explore topics you are interested in and leverage what you learn to write new posts. I found this to be extremely helpful for my own blog.

9.  Give Your Take On Hot Legal Stories – I don’t mean that you should be writing only about the latest celebrity criminal case. There are plenty of legal stories that are much closer to home or of interest to your particular niche of the legal world. Analyze the story and give your unique voice, opinion, and spin to it. Think as if you are writing an op-ed on a particular event. Your readers care what you have to say….take the time to throw your opinion out there on a big issue.

10.  Read A Book Or Article That Is Completely Unrelated – I find that sometimes it’s nice just to step away from your area of expertise and immerse yourself in a different world. Often this gives me some of my best blog post ideas. It helps to take a break once in awhile and often when you aren’t desparately trying to be creative and write…..the perfect post idea will strike you.

Photo by Mike D’Angelo

Free Guide: Writing Content For Your Law Firm’s Website Want to learn how writing content for your firm’s site can help bring in business? Download AttorneySync’s Free Guide On Writing Web Content For Lawyers.

Continue Reading