Social media more powerful than SEO for drawing traffic to law blog?
I'm coming to believe that social media performance is more important in drawing traffic to your law blog than any search engine optimization (SEO) you may do. Traffic drawn via social media is also better traffic for you.
Two reasons. One, you draw more traffic to your law blog through the effective use of social media than SEO. Two, traffic drawn to your blog through social media is more preferrable.
I've been blogging less than the mad 2 or 3 posts I've done in the past. However, traffic to my blog for this month is the highest ever.
Why? Because of social media. By social media I mean people passing on to others what I say via a blog post or something I say on Twitter. Plus I've been more active on Twitter.
When I tweet about a blog post of mine, I share word of the post on Twitter. People following me on Twitter, retweet word of my blog post. Through this network I wouldn't be surprised if within an hour of my tweeting about a blog post 25,000 or 30,000 people receive word of my post through Twitter. That's a powerful network.
Without even linking to a blog post of mine, my using Twitter in general draws traffic to my blog. I'm a notorious sharer of news via Twitter. I'll share links to news and blog posts offering my brief commentary. I'll retweet what someone I'm following may have tweeted - so long as it's of interest to my followers. I'll also offer brief commentary without a link or a retweet on various subjects of interest to my followers.
In each case, whether it be a follower of mine on Twitter or a follower of someone who has retweeted what I've said, people look at my Twitter profile. That profile includes a link to my blog. And a lot of people click on that link to find out more about me.
Traffic to a law blog drawn via social media brings higher quality traffic than SEO. Good lawyers get their best work via word of mouth and people doing research on the lawyer. Doesn't matter whether the word of mouth is generated or the research is done offline or online.
Social media traffic drawn to your blog comes because someone else, more likely than not a thought leader in your field, blogged about what you've blogged about or retweeted about something you said or shared on Twitter.
Someone else sharing what you've said is a tacit endorsement of you as an authority. Why else would someone share what you've said with their friends and followers unless they thought enough about you or what you said? People are drawn to look up more about you when you have received a tacit endorsement. Those people end up at your blog.
Take it a step further and realize that these people who see your content via social media and then look you up are more apt to have a keen interest in what you're saying, what you do or about you personally. They're also a tad more advanced than someone, who previously went to the yellow pages, who goes to the Internet and keys in New York City bankruptcy lawyer. You want that kind of traffic to your blog.
Speaking in Toronto yesterday to law firm management professionals with medium and large law firms, I felt very comfortable telling them that social media through blogging was more important than any sort of search engine optimization of their law firms' websites or blogs.
Sure, you want your blog and website optimized by having the right title tags. You also want to have incoming links to your blog and website from other relevant sites. Social media and blogging will get you all the links you need.
But at the end of the day, I just wonder if social media, which includes effective blogging, is not a more powerful way to draw traffic to your blog than search engine optimization?
In comments on this blog and throughout the blogosphere FindLaw cronies have been denying misconduct in the FindLaw selling links debacle. When the cronies realize they're on the short end of the argument, they just fall back on 'you're just bloggers, you spread rumors, this is why few bloggers are trusted, there's no proof...' 
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