Never write a law blog for the search engines

A lot of lawyers publish blogs for the sole reason of achieving high search engine rankings. Their blogs show it.

You’ve seen these blogs – or maybe you haven’t as word of such tasteless marketing doesn’t spread across the net or generate links as is the case with well done law blogs.

They’re the blogs with post titles with keyword spam repeating the lawyer’s area of practice and location. They’ll have categories repeating the same keywords over and over. And the posts, rather than serving up something worthwhile look like the lawyer is trying to one up the next worse lawyer.

No one’s told those lawyers what Lorelle VanFossen at Blog Herald is preaching, that being that viewers come to your blog for 3 reasons.

• Search Engines
• Links
• Word of Mouth

Lorelle explains:

Google ain’t the only game in town. We know that, though many are still staking their business and reputations on the old Google Game thinking. You have to mix things up in order to cover the more important part of building traffic and encouraging readers to return – and bring their friends with them.

You have to write for your audience. You have to write to, for, and with your readers. It is the power they hold over you to link to you and spread the word about your site that makes or breaks your blog.

Visitors come from three sources:

If you wrote for search engines only, then you would only be paying attention to one out of three.

And I agree with Lorelle as to which of the three is most important.

Word of Mouth is the most powerful form of marketing, even more powerful now than ever in history. We have the capacity to reach thousands of people within seconds. If our message is clear and viral, worth spreading around, those thousands tell their friends and their friends tell their friends, and they all descend upon your blog.

Blogs written for search engines stick out like a sore thumb. Power users of content, thought leaders in the field who are blogging and reporters, are totally turned off by such blogs.

Law blogs engaging in an ongoing conversation among such thought leaders and reporters get plenty of subscribers. Word of mouth and links are generated thereby.

Lawyers who think blogs are all about the search engines and blog for the search engines are misguided. Anyone coaching lawyers to write blog posts for the search engines is giving bum advice.

Good bloggers write for their audience.