Be more than a blip in the legal blogosphere

The Washington Post’s Dan Zak offers some advice for becoming more than a blip in the blogosphere. Thought a few of his tips, with my comments, would help you as a blogging lawyer.

• Create a voice for yourself. Find your niche area of the law and develop a style that causes people to remember you. You’re not going to be as snarky as a sex advice blog, being a lawyer requires professionalism. But loosen up a bit.
• Make your blog easy to read and aestheticly pleasing. Don’t clutter your blog with meaningless junk you’ve see on other blogs. Have high profile links to pages about you, your services and how to contact you. Reporters and other bloggers need those links as much, if not more, than prospective clients.
• Create an effective blogroll – the list of links to other blogs that appears on your blog. When you find a blog you like, click on the links on the blogger’s sidebar. You are bound to find at least another site or two that are interesting to you. Link the blogs you like and visit them regularly by clicking on the links on your blogroll.
• Comment early and often.’Spend about twice as much time commenting on other blogs as you do writing on your own,’ says Capitol Hill resident Janet Daly. Though Daly is social blogger, her advice applies equally to blogging lawyers. Commenting at other relevant blogs gets you seen, leads to networking opportunities, and draws traffic to your own blog.
• Post with verve and consistency.’People are only going to read if you are passionate about what you write about,’ says Dan Silverman. Not a lawyer, but Silverman is dead on. As a lawyer, blog on area of law you’re passionate about. Passion attracts readers and you’ll post more often.

Blogging is an art learned over time. Any idiot can throw up a law blog. But drawing traffic to your blog and enhancing your reputation as a reliable and trusted authority in your niche is a skill.