I’m going green for earth day.
Why bLAWg? Reason 2: Marketing
I read lots of ABA materials about how blogs can be used to generate business. Invariably the advice goes something like this:
- Register a blog with a domain name like www.ctfamilylawyerblog.com (I think it’s an available URL);
- Write about 1 area of law and 1 area of law only;
- Post links to other blogs on your website; and
- Lace your entries with keywords that people are likely to search.
I do none of those things. If you want your blog to generate a ton of business for you – do not use this blog as a template.
If this blog were music it would be jazz.
Here’s a shameless attempt to lace this post with searchwords: Sometimes, I write about areas of law that I practice (personal injury, family law, probate, elder law, housing law, conservatorships, collections, child custody child support, real estate, home improvement law). I could never write about just 1 area of law because I don’t practice just 1 area of law.
Sometimes, I write about seaweed law. Sometimes, I write about John Trautwein.
This blog is a box of chocolates – you never know what you are going to get from entry to entry. I never know what I’m going to write about.
I don’t have a long blogroll because I don’t like clutter. Blogs with too many links distract me. When I read something in a blog that I like, I link to it in my entry.
For example, I really enjoy www.apublicdefender.com and Norm Pattis’ blog. I’ve mentioned before that the godfather of this blog is: www.connecticutemploymentlawblog.com. Susan Cartier Liebel’s blog is a great resource for small firm attorneys. Enough with the shameless linking.
You see, when someone links to my blog, I receive notification that they have linked to me. The idea or so I read is to market your blog to other bloggers who will in turn blog about your blog.
Anyhow, the total number of clients that I can trace directly to this blog is: zero!!!
This month alone, I’ve had 64 hits from the Slovak Republic! Hello to my Slovakian readers.
I’ve also had hits from China, Japan, the Netherlands, Kuwait, Australia, Singapore, Germany, Poland, Brazil, Thailand, Hong Kong, South Korea, Great Britain, Switzerland, and a place that shows up only as: European Country (France, I’m looking at you). Who knows, maybe I can one day achieve a “Johnny Drama in Viking Quest” like popularity overseas.
I could and perhaps should do a better job at marketing this blog and “optimizing it for google” but that’s not me. I’m not a lawyer who is comfortable with my face on the side of a bus or a billboard or on the back of your phone book. That works for some attorneys but it’s not for me.
For me this blog works as a marketing tool in a very different way. What I want is someone to get my name from an existing client or some other referral source and then “google” my name. What I hope that person will find is a nice website about Connecticut law. Maybe, I’ll have written about an issue that is important to that person.
I also hope the prospective client will get a sense of who I am as a person. I try to keep things light in this blog (e.g. Don’t Dye the Easter Bunny). I write about baseball because I like baseball. I post links to local events that I enjoy.
This blog is for you, the Slovakian guy, logging into this site at 3 a.m. eastern standard time, and reading about John Trautwein.