Real Lawyers Have Blogs : Law Blogs, Social Media, Twitter

Darren Rowse at ProBlogger had an excellent post this morning on the importance of building trust for blogging success.

..[I]f you're looking to build influence, to build a brand that is respected and you want a site that is authoritative - you're going to have a lot better chance if people actually trust you.

Yes with some clever copywriting and good positioning in search engines you can probably convince people to buy certain products - but in order to build lasting influence - trust is going to need to play a part.

On the flip side - many businesses today have seen the way that a lack of trust or even worse, broken trust can hurt a business, destroy reputations and ruin years of hard work.

The lawyers on the LexBlog Network who have achieved extraordinary success through blogging have done it by establishing trust with their readership. I've done the same.

How do you build trust? Here's Darren's four principals of building trust online, with a little added commentary from me.

• Trust usually takes time to build. Unless you've established trust with a large audience offline before blogging, you're not going to turn your blog on and have trusting followers. Like all things worth having, you need to work at it.
• Trust is earned. You need to help folks week after week by offering worthwhile and authoritative information and commentary. Look for ways to improve the personal and professional lives of your readers.
• The recommendations of others are important. Positive words of others carry more weight than you promoting yourself. By building relationships with your readers and the writers of content online (bloggers and reporters), you'll get people talking about you and your blog content in a positive way.
• Be yourself. Be something you're not and you'll get no where online. Blogging is all about transparency. If you're not the leading authority on a subject, that's okay. Blog things from your perspective. If you make a mistake, admit it. We're all human. Seeing a lawyer willing to be themselves (a real person) is a breath of fresh to the public. It'll serve you well.

Too many lawyers think successful blogging is all about getting content on the net so the lawyer can be seen on search engines. That's so short sighted and fleeting.

Blog success is all about establishing yourself as a respected and reliable authority in your area of practice. Just like getting clients, that requires getting folks to trust you.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Darren Rowse, a heck of a nice guy who's taught hundreds of thousands the ins and outs of blogging via his blog, ProBlogger, has launched a new blog, TwiTip.

From Darren:

TwiTip is a blog about Twitter. It’s a place that I’ll be posting tips, news and reviews of tools for those wanting to improve their use of Twitter whether it be using it for personal reasons, to expand their personal brand, to promote their business etc.

TwiTip is going to be chock full of useful tips and ideas on how lawyers can use Twitter for PR, reputation enhancement, and business development.

Add the feed to your RSS reader today.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Darren Rowse at Problogger asked that question of his readers last week.

Asked another way, should you just do what makes by far the most sense to me, should you you key in your name in the comment field labeled 'name?'

People leaving keywords such as the name of their blog, which is full of keywords itself, such as Russia Law Blog or Missouri Injury Lawyer, is a real turn off to me as a blog publisher. Shows me the commenter is more concerned about getting SEO for their blog than leaving a comment of value to the discussion.

Looks like I am not alone in my feelings. Here's a sample of comments to Darren's post.

• If you leave keywords instead of your name, it looks like all you’re interested in is improving your search rankings instead of contributing to a discussion.
• It immediately turns off the reader from reading your wonderful prose and insightful analysis. Although it might increase viewership, it’s unnecessary and in my opinion unwanted.
• I can’t see any difference from SPAM comments and leaving a keyword in the name field.
• To leave keywords is the closest way to say: 'Hello! don’t read my comment, I’m just another spammer!'
• As a webmaster that immediately comes off as spam to me, even if the comment is good or even insightful. I usually end up editing or deleting those types of comments.
• Comments are supposed to be for user contribution and opinion. There are plenty of places to build links, but spamming comments with keywords is not one of them. I hand edit the majority of my keyword-spammed comments, and believe everyone else should too.

Don't be lame. Leave your name.

And from now on, no more comment spam by keywords in the name field around here. I'll edit to insert your name, if I know it, or delete the comment if I don't.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Darren Rowse of Problogger asked his readers publishing blogs where they got their biggest levels of traffic. The results are displayed below.

I find it pretty interesting, like Darren, that social media sites are the number 1 source of traffic for 15% of bloggers. I also agree with Darren that if he asked the same question 18 months ago social media sites would have barely registered on the results.

We're always a little lagging in the legal industry. I am finding some blog traffic coming from social media sites such as Twitter and Stumbleupon, but I'd guess it's only 5 or 10% of my traffic. Most of my traffic comes from people coming directly and by others mentioning a post of mine in their blog or online publication.

Where does most of your blog traffic come from?

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Lawyers and law firms obsess over blog and website stats. How many page views? How many visitors to my blog? How many subscribers do we have? How does this compare to other law blogs?

But page views, visitors, and subscribers aren't measures of success for law blogs. An enhanced reputation in your niche area of the law, growth in business, and a greater sense of professional & personnel worth are the goals - they're the measures of success.

Darren Rowse, a leading blog consultant and publisher, asked yesterday, 'Who Cares How Many Subscribers You’ve Got?' Darren used this diagram of web of relationships between the different determiners which lead to the outcomes that you're really looking for. As lawyers, substitute enhanced reputation and business growth for ad revenue.

I'm in agreement with Darren on what to focus on.

• Quality of content. Share your insight and commentary with a view on what's valuable to your target audience.


• Community interaction. Interact with leading bloggers and reporters in your niche by citing their content in your blog posts and adding your commentary. Interact with your readers by asking them questions and responding to their emails and comments. Add those you interact with to social networks ala LinkedIn.


• SE0. No brainer, but often overlooked or wrongly assumed things will take care of themselves. Your blog's software architecture, blog titles, blog formats, and tagging are all things you control. All heavily impact getting your content seen by those searching on Google. Too many lawyers publish content never found on search.


• Content quantity or effort. Post once a week minimum. Two or three times a week to begin for SEO and to attract readers.

As in all things, worry about what you can control. Forget about those things you do not control.

I've never had a lawyer or law firm hire LexBlog because they wanted stats. They wanted things more real and substantial - an enhanced reputation, growth in business, and a greater sense of professional & personnel worth. To achieve those things through blogging focus on quality content, interaction, SEO, and effort.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (5)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link