Legal Search Marketing Blog

SEO Doesn’t Guarantee Blog Visitor Loyalty

Good post from Andy Beal about how most traffic to your blog will come from the search engines, BUT that its not enough, you must provide quality content relevant to what people are seeking for your blog to really flourish.

***  Mixed blessings for SEM come from a Boston University study entitled Traffic Characteristics and Communication Patterns in the Blogosphere.

First, the good news: the majority of blog traffic comes from search engines. Search engines accounted for 43% of referral traffic in the blogosphere. Hurray for search engine marketers! Their diagram of referral traffic (below) does not include the 28% of blogosphere traffic without any referral data (probably bookmark or type-in traffic).

Now for the bad news: “Despite the intimacy between traffic and search, however, optimizing a blog for search engine algorithms does not win the blogs retention or popularity,” as MarketingVOX put it. Yep, all the rankings in the world don’t make your blog well read, popular or sticky. You have to do that.

SOURCE:  Marketing Pilgrim

Making Money with Your Blog from A to Z

Good post from Steve Rubel of Micro Persuasion about different ways to make money from your Blog.

First Amendment Applies to Internet

Great news for bloggers worldwide:

SAN FRANCISCO, May 26 — A California appeals court ruled Friday that online reporters are protected by the same confidentiality laws that protect traditional journalists, striking a blow to efforts by Apple Computer to identify people who leaked confidential company data.The three-judge panel in San Jose overturned a trial court's ruling last year that to protect its trade secrets, Apple was entitled to know the source of leaked data published online. The appeals court also ruled that a subpoena issued by Apple to obtain electronic communications and materials from an Internet service provider was unenforceable.

The 96 page PDF of the court's ruling is online here.

Updated Blog Design

Welcome to the updated version of the Legal Search Marketing Blog! Ive been away on business the last couple of weeks but did manage to update the design of the blog and will be making some updates over the next week related to law firm online marketing.

How To Setup Custom Domain Name For Blog

You can create a basic blog using most blogging services like Typepad or Blogger but your then stuck with a generic domain name.

If you want to use a customized domain name like www.legalsearchmarketing.com, you must first setup some advanced settings in the blogging software and then also with your web hosting or domain accounts. Here are the steps needed at Typepad to setup a customized domain name with your registar.

1)  Setup your blog with Typepad and then goto the control panel, choose "site access" and then "domain mapping". Then you need to run through the wizard to setup the domain.

2)  Setup your domain name with your registar like Godaddy.com and make sure the domain name is parked.

3)  At Godaddy.com, choose Total DNS Control and create a CNAME record and enter the information from the Godaddy wizard in step #1.

4)  Then once the CNAME record is setup, go back to the typepad blog and the domain mapping section and set the domaim name as "active".

That's it, now instead of having a long domain name with the typepad.com address, you can have a geographic specific keyword rich domain name like Chicago Estate Planning Law.

Not all registars will allow you to make advanced DNS changes and sometimes you might have a domain name that is already setup with a web hosting account, in that case you can usually make the same kind of edits with your web host.

Does Your Firm Have An Employee Blog Policy?

AlwaysOn network has some interesting survey data on employers' blog policies.

Web blogs are booming, even among lawyers and law firms. However the latest survey conducted by the Employment Law Alliance is reporting that while millions of workers – perhaps as many as 5% of the American work force -- are maintaining the online personal diaries, only about 15% of employers have specific policies addressing work-related blogging.

New Danny Sullivan Blog

Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch fame, announced the launch of his own personal web log.

Large Firms Discover New Marketing Tool: Blogs

Article from Law.com about how larger law firms are starting to use blogs as a marketing tool.

New Blog Search Engine Submission Site

I ran across a new free blog submission service at Feedshot, which submits your RSS feed to currently 17 different blog search engines. It doesnt cover the new Google blog search engine but it says it will be soon. It also sends you a report with the submission results and its free.

Media watchdog tells bloggers how to avoid censors

PARIS (Reuters) - A Paris-based media watchdog released a handbook on Thursday to help cyber-dissidents and bloggers avoid political censorship in countries as far apart as China, Vietnam and Cuba.

The guide, published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) with the backing of the French government, identifies bloggers as the "new heralds of free expression" and offers advice on how to set up a blog and run it anonymously.

Source: Yahoo News

Google Launches New Blog Search Engine

Google has launched a brand new blog search engine engine that is just focused on blogs. This shows just how big blogs have become and another reason why most lawyers should consider one as part of the online Internet marketing strategy.

INFORMATION FROM THE GOOGLE WEB SITE:

Google is a strong believer in the self-publishing phenomenon represented by blogging, and we hope Blog Search will help our users to explore the blogging universe more effectively, and perhaps inspire many to join the revolution themselves.

1. How do I use Blog Search?

   Just type the word(s) you want to search for in the text box and click "Search." That's all there is to it!

   If you want more control over your search, click the "Advanced Search" link to the right of the search button. There you'll find options to specify titles, authors, languages and more. Once you get your search results, there will be an additional link that allows you to switch between displaying the results with either the most relevant or recent results at the top.

   In the Blogger version of the interface, there is an extra "use search options" link beneath the search box. This will show a few of the most common advanced options, such as a specific blog or a date range to search within.

2. Which blogs are included in Blog Search?

   The goal of Blog Search is to include every blog that publishes a site feed (either RSS or Atom). It is not restricted to Blogger blogs, or blogs from any other service.

3. How do I get my blog listed?

   If your blog publishes a site feed in any format and automatically pings an updating service (such as Weblogs.com), we should be able to find and list it. Also, we will soon be providing a form that you can use to manually add your blog to our index, in case we haven't picked it up automatically. Stay tuned for more information on this.

Read more about the Google Blog Search

Legal Web Site & Blog Marketing Tips

Law firm marketing guru Larry Bodine had a good post last week with tips from top blogging expert, Kevin O'Keefe about getting more traffic to your legal web site. 

I would say I agree with most everyone of these tips and suggestions from Kevin and have listed them below with some comments. These are great ideas for any law firm interested in Internet Marketing, search engine optimization or legal blogs, which should be every law firm!

-  People don't trust sponsored links.  Those are the paid ads at the side and top of Google search results.

:: (I think to some point this is true and I know personally I will always check the organic results before the sponsored results but they can work for some law firms and they will produce more traffic overall and can no doubt result in more clients. The key though is that you should be most concerned about your law firms organic or free listings at Google and the other search engines.

Getting your current legal web site optimized for the search engines or creating a new legal blog are the best ways to long term organic success at Google, MSN and Yahoo.)

-  A site map will help raise your search engine results, because it's a page of links to your site.

:: (This is very true and its key to have a site map on any web site because it serves a dual purpose by giving the search engine spider a place to index all of the pages in your site, and it also gives the visitor an easy way to find things within your site.)

-  Nobody reads your calendar on your blog.  You might as well get rid of it, because people will search your blog by topic but not by the date you posted something.

:: (I never thought of that and its true, people would usually not click on a date, they would click on either a recent post or a category within your blog. I'm taking all calendars off my blogs, thanks Kevin!) -- two paragraphs and two sentences each, maximum.  No one will read anything longer. (I guess I violated this rule right here!)

-  A blog post should be short

:: (I tend to violate that as well as I'm doing now but I think it usually makes sense to just have a short post with a link to further information.)

-  Just quote and refer other blogs and you can get huge traffic to your own blog.  That's what Kevin does, and his blog has a Google ranking of 8 out of 10 (this is very high). Kevin says he does no original writing on his own blog, and instead has created a clearing house for information from others. "You get the viral marketing buzz by quoting other bloggers," he said.

-  Put content in the <title> tags on your site.  Most home page title tags say "Welcome to our site," when they should instead describe the services of the firm instead, improving search engine results.  Most lawyer bio pages are titled "lawyer bio," which is a mistake.  Instead, each bio title tag should have the lawyer's name, industries and skills.

:: (This is VERY key for any law firm web site. The TITLE tag is the most important part of search engine optimization. If you don't have unique titles on each of the different pages, your not going to get as good of exposure and will never be ranked in the top 10 for your firms main geographic and/or practice area keywords.)

-  Start using RSS.  This method of syndication will be built into the next version of Windows, known as "Vista."  RSS will be built into Internet Explorer, Word and Outlook.

:: (RSS is very important and creating a weblog or BLOG for your law firm will give you an RSS feed, which others can then use and subscribe to your blog and see your posts.)

-  Kevin uses Netnewswire to follow 200 news feeds.  He sees the title, sources and when the post went online.  He organizes them by category and decides which to put on his own blog.

-  He uses Newsgator to search for certain words, like "marketing," his own name and his company name.

-  Major law firms are launching blogs, including Davis Wright Tremaine's Telecom Law Blog, Sheppard Mullin's Antitrust Law Blog -- one of 7 blogs the firm publishes in place of its newsletters and PDF files -- and Preston Gates & Ellis's Electronic Discovery Blog.

:: (This is no surprise and it would make sense that all law firms develop some kind of blog presence in the future. They can do very well in the search engines and can be a very good complement to your existing legal web site.)

If your law firm needs any assistance with your existing legal web site or have any questions on creating a legal blog, contact me.

Blogging Becoming A Corporate Job

Good post from The Wall Street Journal on how blogging is becoming a corporate job. A growing number of businesses are hiring people to write blogs, otherwise known as Web logs.

Companies are looking for candidates who can write in a conversational style about timely topics that would appeal to customers, clients and potential recruits.

Blogging as a job has emerged as companies of all stripes increasingly see the Web as an important communications venue. Blogs allow firms to assume a natural tone rather than the public-relations speak typical of some static Web pages, and readers are often invited to post comments. While some companies are hiring full-time bloggers, others are adding blogging duties to existing marketing or Web-editing positions.

Currently only 4% of major U.S. corporations have blogs available to the public, according to a recent survey by eMarketer, a New York research company. But ads for blogging jobs are popping up on online job boards in recent months. "Blogging jobs are growing in popularity," says Jennifer Sullivan, spokeswoman for CareerBuilder Inc.'s CareerBuilder.com, based in Chicago.

Blogs Can Enhance Your Reputation As a Reliable Authority

All lawyers who are serious about Internet Marketing should have a web site and make sure its optimized for keywords related to the firms practice but they also should seriously consider starting a weblog or Blog.

A legal blog is affordable, can help with your search engine rankings and best of all your law blog enhances your reputation as a trusted and reliable authority in your area of the law.

I am working with Lexblog in helping some of my existing clients who want to expand their online marketing efforts.  Some lawyers have expressed concern to me about keeping the blog updated and fresh. Yet I assure them that its a very easy process and that with the right training, its pretty simple.

Yet some lawyers just don't have the time to blog and for those attorneys, my company is offering blog management services, including blog maintenance, advanced search engine optimization and content creation assistance.

Track Your Firms Key Information Via RSS Feeds

Great Post from Kevin O'Keefe at LexBlog about BlogPulse offering RSS search feeds and how you can use these to track information about your firms name, top partners, etc.

---> RSS search feeds allow lawyers and legal marketing professionals to track key words and phrases. Firms should be tracking, among other things:

• Their lawyers' names and firm name to see what people are saying about them
  
• Names of competitors
  
• Nature of work they are looking to grow
  
• Subjects relevant to litigation and transactional work

I was surprised at the LMA national conference this last week that no one but me, was talking about, or for that matter even heard of, the ability to do this.

I'm with you Kevin. I'm also amazed that more lawyers and law firms aren't taking advantage of things like this.  Blogs and RSS Feeds are the future.

Intelliseek Announces BlogPulse 2.0

Intelliseek, a marketing intelligence firm specializing in real-time analysis of online buzz and consumer-generated media, today announced a major upgrade to its popular BlogPulse.com portal (http://www.blogpulse.com), including a boost in coverage to 9.3 million blogs.

BlogPulse 2.0 provides faster data retrieval, a six-month index of blog posts and data, a  daily count of blog activity and analysis, and the ability to create customized graphs that track themes and issues appearing in the Blogosphere.

White House Approves Pass for Blogger

New York Times story about Garrett M. Graff, who writes a blog about the news media in Washington may be the first blogger in the short history of the medium to be granted a daily White House pass for the specific purpose of writing a blog, or Web log.

A White House spokesman said yesterday that he believed Mr. Graff was the first blogger to be given credentials.