Law Blog title and blog entry titles must describe content
I was communicating with large law firm customer of ours this evening about the title of their first practice area blog to be published by an individual lawyer in their firm. Reminded me of the number one rule in Web site and blog design – “Do not make me think.” It’s also the title of a leading book on Web design by Steve Krug.
“Don’t make me think” first means using a title and/or tagline that clearly describes what your law blog is about. Two, it means using titles that clearly define the subject of each blog entry. This is critical for getting new readers, high search engine rankings and ease of use by readers receiving RSS feeds.
Law Blog Title
You will often see glib blog titles that do not describe what the blog is about. It’s like lawyers have decided they have gone from being a lawyer to publisher of The New Yorker. C’mon, we’re using a blog for marketing your practice not to showcase your extraordinary publishing & editorial skills. As much as you may want a new career, it’s unlikely to happen as a result of your blog – though publishing a blog may make it more fun to be a lawyer
Title the blog with a name that describes what you are writing about. If it is New Hampshire Insurance Defense – title it that. If it’s Denver IP law – title it that.
If you are going to use a name that does not fully describe the content, use a tag line that very clearly defines what you are writing about. The tag line should be no longer than 5 to 7 words. Write it out and then delete the unnecessary words. Remember, it often takes longer to write something shorter.
My blog is a good example. I began using a blog title Real Lawyers :: Have Blogs. Problem is it left people with a “so what” after reading the title. What was my blog about? So I added the tagline Using Blogs to Market Your Law Firm. Pretty clear what I am writing about.
Law Blog Posts or Entries
Again you will see catchy and glib titles to blog entries (individual posts or articles). Why do you want people to guess what you have written about? Unless people just love your writing and have to have it like a latte each morning, people do not have the time to read everything they come across.
Help people decide if your blog entry is something of interest to them. If it is, they will open it up and read the entry. It’s okay if the entry is not of interest and they do not read your blog that day. If you get people reading 10 or 20% of your law blog entries on a regular basis, you have hit a home run.
Clear titles are important for getting readers. We are bombarded with information every day. A blog is one way to help filter news and information for people – you follow the news & information on a niche topic and filter it for your readers. But to first get those readers you need to tell them what news and information you are filtering for them. That’s done in the title and tagline. Search engines index by titles of pages. The titles are set forth in the Web site or blog site title tags. Many times law blogs will default to the blog name as the title tag for the main page of the blog site. Each entry or title page will include a title tag with the blog entry’s title.
Use a glib title and your blog and it’s individual pages are going to be indexed by that glib name – not by the subject you are writing about. People do not do searches in the search engines by typing in glib names. People key in words about the subject they are interested in.
An example would be a lawyer doing DUI & traffic cases in Los Angeles. The lawyer titles their new blog Driving Smart. Google places the blog in its index under “Driving Smart” – great for people doing a search for “driving smart,” – not so great for people doing a search for “Los Angeles DUI lawyer” better title Los Angeles DUI Lawyer Blog would have got it indexed by Google under Los Angeles DUI Lawyer.
Same thing for law blog entries. Google indexes each entry separately. Help Google index your blog entry properly by titling the entry with a name which describes the content.
RSS feeds on news aggregators list the title of each entry. In the near future RSS feeds will be the way people receive their news and information via the Internet – not Web sites and email.
News aggregators on people’s computers allow Internet users to subscribe to multiple sources of news and information ranging from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times to law blogs.
Rather than browse their Web site or get email updates, readers are delivered, via RSS to their news aggregator, titles of stories or posts for the section of the paper or blog they have subscribed to. If the title and short excerpt included in the feed are of interest, the reader then clicks on the title and is taken to the whole story on the site or blog.
News aggregators or ‘news readers’ will display the latest titles from all the feeds one subscribes to. There could be a few hundred titles to quickly scroll down – it only takes a couple minutes. If your title is not clear, readers will never read what may have been valuable information.
Some times it’s tough to ‘dummy down’ titles to law blogs and blog entries. Heck, I am a guilty as the the next person of not remembering to do so. But remembering “Don’t make me think” will serve you well when publishing a law blog for marketing your legal practice.