What are the steps towards getting started with a company like LexBlog?

We at LexBlog take you all the way from starting up to fine-tuning how your blog is actually working for business development. We begin by consulting with you. You have to start with the end in mind.

The first questions we are going to ask you are, “What is the type of work you would like to be doing?” and “Who would you like to be doing it for?” With a blog you have to be careful what you wish for because you may get it.

The next thing we ask about is what type of content is already being published in your arena? Who is blogging on your subject? What is being written in the media? The content is what you may be tapping into share and to comment on by taking a block quote and adding your response on your blog.

Then we review they type of content that you are going to share. We talk about the design issues What is this going to look like? We want to complement the branding that you are already doing. If you have a website, we want to complement but not necessarily match the website. We want to make sure that there is linking from the blog back to the website and vice versa.

We also want to talk about the name of the blog. What is a good name for it. We do not want to pontificate more than about 15 minutes on the name because the number-one rule of Internet marketing is: Don’t make me think. When people come to your blog, they should know what it is. Don’t use some glib title that you thought would be neat.

We create a tag line that people read to know what your blog is about. Then we come up with a URL that works. We come up with a URL that works. We come up with a URL simply to complement the name. While we are designing your blog, we also train you to use it.

We initially set up your blog in a password-protected environment that is secure so it cannot be indexed by Google or seen by anybody else. During the month before your blog goes live, we work with you so you know what you are doing. The site is laid out clearly with titles, links, content, services and bio sections.

We teach you how to use an RSS reader so you understand how to subscribe to blogs, searches, and news stories. We set up feeds to come in on your blog publishing platform. They can be sent to folders you have designated. Let’s say you are Peoria, Illinois, and you monitor certain topics in and about that area. The search engine optimizes the site around the type of content you want to show up.

We continue to make sure everything is set up. For instance, we hook it up so that the RSS feeds are going to work through FeedBurner, a very reliable service for the management fee. We make it easier for people to subscribe on their own newsreaders.

Then we let your blog go live. At that point we do further search engine optimization of the site, and then we work with you on what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong. We take it further down the pike and work with you on client development issues, showing you to use the blog proactively as a tool for those purposes.

There are a lot of steps, so we do not want to overwhelm our clients the first day. We go from beginner to advanced beginner to intermediate to expert. Every lawyer moves at his or her own pace, but I find that lawyers do a really good job of taking control of the Internet market.