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Getting good legal work from your blog doesn’t require calls to action to your readers

Interesting discussion this week on the need for bold calls to action on your legal blog in order for your blog to generate good legal work.

Began with Attorney Jay Fleischman’s post that lawyers need to place calls to action on their blog (phone numbers and intake forms at top, requests to act/get more info at bottom of each post) and continued with my post that such calls to action were salesy and counterproductive. My post then drew some commentary from both sides.

One comment which blogging lawyers ought to take note of is from Attorney Dan Harris, long time publisher of the China Law Blog.

I have been blogging for more than three years and I have never once suggested on my blog that people contact me or my firm. And yet we get work from the blog all the time. I am actually convinced that asking people to contact you at the end of your posts or in any other way making them think that you are blogging simply to get business is actually counterproductive. I truly believe the best way to use blogging to get business is by simply doing your utmost day in and day out to create a blog that people want to read. In fact, I think that is the only way to get business from blogging.

You’re familiar with the term lawyer’s lawyer, Dan’s one when it comes to international law, especially on matters relating to China. Dan’s also a blogger’s blogger.

He’s a prolific blogger who’s extended his influence as a thought leader geometrically as a result of China Law Blog. Dan’s cited by blogs and reporters around the world. When the question arises of who’s a good lawyer on Chinese legal matters or who’s one of the better law bloggers, Dan’s name is top of mind.

Blogging that provides value to your readers week in and week out, blogging that further enhances your reputation as a thought leader in your field, and blogging that engages your target audience so as to build meaningful relationships with them is the type of blogging that results in getting legal work.

Blog like Dan and other leading legal bloggers and you need not cheapen your blog with calls to action soliciting work.

  • http://www.pluggedinlawyer.com Tracy Thrower Conyers

    Hmmm, I think this falls squarely within the “sometimes yes, sometimes no” school of thought. Maybe I would skip the preformatted, salesy footer on every post, but even as I think about this, I’m reminded that Lawyerist opens every post with a call to action to subscribe, and I think this is ok for a blog (even good). Yes, this is different than a call to do business, but it’s parallel.
    I’m also reminded that people are busy and generally want to be told what to do, so they don’t have to think. My personal bottomline opinion is that you have to consider what you want from your blogging efforts and how it will be received by your intended audience, and proceed from there. And the answer may not be the same for every post.

  • http://www.legalpracticepro.com Jay S. Fleischman

    This has been a fascinating thread. Thanks for fostering such a wonderful discussion.
    You say that, “I’m just saying on this one, that a lot of very, very successful lawyers, Dan Harris included, are experiencing client development success with their blogs without putting call to action shout outs around their blog and at the bottom of blog posts as Jay advises.”
    I don’t doubt Dan’s prowess as a business generator, and I seldom disagree with your advice on this blog. In this case, I think we’re both in agreement once again.
    On Dan’s blog he has pages for “About Us” and “Contact” on the upper right-side of the page. Those would be consistent with my suggestion #2, “Put your contact information in the header itself.” Not totally on point because it forces people to click a button in order to get the information, but it’s close.
    Dan has a button to invite people to subscribe to his blog by RSS feed, as well as a Twitter follow button on top. He continues his calls to action by providing an email sign-up box on his sidebar, which is right below his call to action with respect to subscribing in a variety of RSS readers.
    All calls to action. Tastefully done, to be sure – but calls nonetheless.
    This general feel seems to be repeated on many LexBlog client sites. Why? Because it’s the right thing to do from a marketing and business perspective.
    I can’t understand why you might think that my suggestion to put a call to action at the end of each post is too much for your taste. In fact, you mentioned in your response to one comment that you do it on this blog. You’ve got a “Send To A Friend,” as well as “Email This,” “Share Link,” and the signup box to become a LexBlog client. All of these are calls to action consistent with my suggestion #4, “At the end of each blog post, tell the reader what you’d like them to do next.”
    It seems as if you and are I doing the same thing.
    On my blogs, the call to action at the end of each post is a lot softer than yours. In fact, I use “Subscribe Remind” for WordPress, which contains nothing more than a simple reminder to subscribe to the RSS feed – it doesn’t get less tacky than that as far as a call to action. I also use Tweetmeme to make it easier for people to tweet my posts.
    As to suggestion #3, “Add a page to your blog and title it something along the lines of, ‘Work With Me,’ or, “’Become My Client,’” this is the same tactic used by Chris Brogan, and noted in his blog post of October 16, 2009. Chris has one of the highest-ranking social media blogs out there, has a New York Times bestseller of a book (an excellent one, by the way), and is a noted thought leader worldwide. I don’t think anyone would accuse Chris of being cheesy, slimy, or otherwise less than a consummate professional in the online space. So I’m going with his suggestion on that one.
    Your main problem seems to be with the Joe Isuzu huckster who uses his or her blog to scream, “Call Now! Operators Are Standing By To Sell Sell Sell!” In that respect, we agree 100%.
    Bloggers of all stripes – lawyers included – should remember that the goal of this medium is to foster communication, trust and the exchange of information. When we come out with garish and underhanded tactics in marketing our blogs or ourselves, we undermine the trustworthiness we seek to ensure our business success.
    This is not to say, however, that a call to action in a blog is a bad idea. It’s all in the way you do it.
    Keep up your terrific stream of excellent information! I’ll be in Seattle on Friday, October 30 for a speaking engagement and would love the chance to sit down over coffee (or your beverage of choice) and chat. In fact, I think it would be a terrific idea for a podcast. Let me know, and I’ll be glad to come to your office. In the alternative, you’re welcome to swing by the hotel for a chat (I’m staying a bit closer to Pike Place Market).

  • http://lifeatthebar.com/ Julie A. Fleming

    As a reader of both of your blogs, I’ve enjoyed following this conversation. I do think that there is a compromise between treating your blog like an infomercial, and avoiding being a salesmen so much that readers aren’t aware that you offer a service.
    Your blog is a sales tool, and it needs to be treated as such. This certainly doesn’t mean that every blog should only discuss what you or your company can do for potential clients or that there should be a flashing “Purchase Services Here” sign above the header–in truth, neither of these techniques would have good results–but it does mean that you need to have your contact info and an explanation of what services you offer easily accessible. The majority of internet users have extremely short attention spans. The more steps you put between them reading your blog and them successfully contacting you, the more likely it is that they’ll wander away before completing the process.
    Take for example the difference between having a form in the contact section and having an image with your email address in the header. For the former, potential clients can click on contact, fill out the form, and click send, and they’ve already successfully contacted you. For the latter, they need to open another window and reach their e-mail system (which is often a multi-step process), open a new message, type out your email address, then type the message, and press send. The latter is significantly more steps, and unless potential clients need someone’s help immediately, they may decide to just get to it later, and then never actually do it.
    There are of course many different ways to arrange your site and offer your contact information, and you should consider what works best for you and your company. I generally find that offering multiple options is best as each client has different preferences–and there are many ways to do this without it seeming like an infomercial.