By Geri L. Dreiling, Esq.

“How do I get my law firm’s website to show up on the first page of Google results?”

This is the question I am asked most often by clients who hire Legal Media Matters to create a law firm website or write content for their firm. Lawyers understand the importance of ranking high in search engine results, but the process of reaching that goal remains a mystery to many.

Traditional advertising and publicity methods were fairly straightforward: If a lawyer wanted to generate more phone calls, the law firm bought a bigger ad or even a cover ad in the telephone directory. Search engine optimization, though, is much more complex. There are many factors at work, and achieving a good ranking takes effort.

In previous posts, Legal Media Matters has highlighted the importance of conducting keyword research and having a website map or diagram, the premium placed by search engines on fresh content, the optimal length of a piece of content and how legal public relations can help build trustworthy links to your site.

This week, The Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan published an excellent infographic explaining search engine optimization visually. The SEO “periodic table” is notable for several reasons. First, it lists the numerous factors that play a part in SEO. Second, it ranks those factors in terms of importance. Third, it highlights on-the-page and off-the-page strategies. Finally, it does an excellent job of showing pitfalls that can not only hurt your website but even result in its being blocked by search engines.

3 tips for legal newsletter and blog content

By Geri L. Dreiling, Esq.

When I was a young associate, one of my job duties was writing the newsletter for the firm where I worked. Writing it wasn’t the biggest challenge. Coming up with topics our clients would find useful was the problem.

Back then, the newsletters were print versions sent by way of regular mail. Today law firms not only use the traditional newsletter but are also turning to e-newsletters and subscriber-based blogs as forms of law firm marketing.

Although the newsletter format has expanded, the fundamental problem of creating content remains. As a professional legal content writer, here are three of my tips to help you come up with content writing ideas for your law firm marketing newsletters.

1. Write answers to questions your clients ask.

Though it may seem fundamental, one of the best ways to create content is to first consider the questions your clients commonly ask. The initial client meeting can be a goldmine of content ideas. What are the concerns most clients raise? Are there basic legal fundamentals you often need to cover with the client during the initial client meeting?

Enlist the help of your receptionist, secretary and paralegal. These are typically the staff members who most often interact directly with your clients, whether it is on the phone, through e-mail or even as the initial contact through the firm’s website. Questions may range from substantive legal inquiries to queries about procedural matters involving a particular stage of litigation or the next step in the legal process.

Analyze your website’s analytics program. Your law firm’s website should have a program such as Google Analytics that provides not only traffic data but also search engine queries that are leading people to your firm. Those queries are often the questions to which prospective clients are seeking answers. Consider using a query as the starting point for your content.

2. Introduce your staff through your content writing.

While working as a legal journalist, I profiled a nationally known criminal defense lawyer. Although the article was published long ago, I can still remember a tip he gave me that explained how he managed his practice and kept his clients satisfied. The key, he said, was his legal secretary.

During the initial client meeting, he candidly explained to his clients that he was a trial lawyer, not a desk lawyer. That meant that he spent most of his day in court, not in his office, and if they called his office looking for him, it was likely that he would not be in. But, he explained, his legal secretary was a vital part of the representation team. Speaking to her was like speaking to him. He took it even further, formally introducing his secretary to the new client.

Most trial lawyers have a similar team approach in which the law firm staff plays a vital role in client communication. Why not take the opportunity in your newsletter to introduce the people in your firm to whom clients will be speaking on a regular basis?

3. Write content that contains practical courthouse tips.

It is easy to forget that many people live their entire lives without setting foot inside a courthouse. When someone does need to go to court, the experience may be a source of real anxiety. Where is the courthouse located? Where does one park? How much will it cost to park? How long does it take to get through the metal detector lines? How long will court last?

Just as it’s a good idea to know the latest rules regarding carry-ons and liquids before you go to the airport, having some idea of how to navigate the courthouse goes a long way toward reducing anxiety.

With the use of these three tips, you should be able to generate more than enough content ideas for your legal newsletter or blog. If finding the time to write the articles is still scarce, though, consider hiring a professional legal content writer. At Legal Media Matters, our professional writers are lawyers and journalists who provide quality content for your law firm’s marketing needs.

Contact Legal Media Matters for more information.

To ensure that you don’t miss out on these useful tips, subscribe to our regular e-mails or RSS feeds. You can also find Legal Media Matters on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Blawg content ideas and upcoming CLE offerings

By Geri L. Dreiling, Esq.

If you need inspiration for your personal injury blog, here are a few recent news items that may help jump start the writing process:

• Rider Alert, a motorcycle safety program that originated in the United Kingdom, has been launched in Virginia. The program provides free ID cards that will help responders rapidly assist riders who have been hurt in accidents. http://bit.ly/eqywfm
• A man who claims he suffered a brain injury due to a botched dental procedure – the oxygen and nitrous oxide lines were allegedly crossed – receives a $50,000 settlement from the city of Lawrence, KS. http://bit.ly/gzZYYu
• A woman who claimed she suffered gastrointestinal damage as a result of taking the acne drug Accutane is awarded $2 million. http://bit.ly/hKpMcI
• Approximately 3,900 school buses are recalled because of a fire hazard. http://bit.ly/hxjD8C
• A former high school football player who suffered from brain trauma filed suit asserting that his coach and trainer improperly sent him back into games after violent collisions http://bit.ly/fT7E2l

Continuing Legal Education Seminars

For many U.S. lawyers, the deadline for accumulating continuing legal education hours is looming.  Here are just a few seminars being offered by our affiliate, Lorman Education Services:

• California Leave Law. This audio seminar aims to provide a clear understanding of the various medical leave laws. The seminar will be held on April 18. 
• Devising a policy for employees using mobile devices. This Webinar covers the practical aspects of mobile device management, data preservation and personal injury and workers compensation claims arising out of use of mobile devices. 85-minute, on-demand Webinar.

To find out about additional upcoming seminars, click here.

If you would like to know more about our legal PR and Web content writing services, you can reach Legal Media Matters via our online contact form.

]]> http://legalmediamatters.com/personal-injury-law-blog-content-ideas-%e2%80%93-april-14/feed/ 0 http://legalmediamatters.com/personal-injury-law-blog-content-ideas-%e2%80%93-april-4/ http://legalmediamatters.com/personal-injury-law-blog-content-ideas-%e2%80%93-april-4/#comments Fri, 05 Nov 2010 20:08:09 +0000 Geri L. Dreiling http://legalmediamatters.com/?p=2137 Blawg content writing topics and ideas

By Geri L. Dreiling, Esq.

Do you need a content jump start for your personal injury blog? Here are a few story ideas to help you get started writing this week’s PI blawg posts:

• The DePuy ASR hip implant that is the subject of several lawsuits didn't have clinical safety trials. Read more.
• After several deadly truck crashes, a recent industry truck show emphasizes safety. Read more.
• A Michigan town will receive a $26.5 million settlement over water supply contaminated by a DDT byproduct. Read more.
• A wrongful death lawsuit has been filed against ex-beer baron August Busch IV involving drug overdose death of his girlfriend. Read more.
• Fair Labor Standards Act claims filed in federal court jumped from 1,562 in 1998 to 6,073 in 2009. The Federal Lawyer Vol. 58 No. 3 p. 14.
• The head of the National Transportation Safety Board details how technology could thwart bus accidents and increase odds of surviving a crash. Read more.

This Week’s Continuing Legal Education Webinars for Lawyers and Paralegals

For many U.S. lawyers, the deadline for completing continuing legal education hours is only a few months away. If you prefer to squeeze in an hour or two over lunch, here are just a few of the webinars from our affiliate, Lorman Education Services that may interest you:

• Medicare's secondary payer act and protecting Medicare's interests in insurance settlements will be held on April 6.
• Mental illness and the Americans with Disability Act will be held on April 8.

For more information about these webinars and other upcoming CLE seminars of interest to lawyers and paralegals, visit our Legal Media Matters seminar affiliate page.

If you would like to know more about our legal PR and Web content writing services, you can reach Legal Media Matters via our online contact form.

]]> http://legalmediamatters.com/personal-injury-law-blog-content-ideas-%e2%80%93-april-4/feed/ 0 http://legalmediamatters.com/copyedits-legal-marketing-materials/ http://legalmediamatters.com/copyedits-legal-marketing-materials/#comments Tue, 02 Nov 2010 12:20:09 +0000 Geri L. Dreiling http://legalmediamatters.com/?p=1872 Don’t lose the respect of your audience with error-laden legal content

By Geri L. Dreiling, Esq.

When I was a young associate, a partner in my firm sent out a letter urging fellow lawyers to support a particular attorney’s candidacy in an upcoming state bar election. The missive recited the candidate’s strengths and contained several reasons explaining that a vote for him would be good for the bar as a whole. In a gesture that would make most law marketing types happy, the letter even included a call to action.

Unfortunately, it went something like this:  “When your ballet arrives, please check yes.”

As a result, a few hundred lawyers were left wondering whether a dance troupe or a stack of papers would be arriving at the office.

Despite the fact that the letter had been read and proofread by both the partner who dictated it and the legal secretary who transcribed it, the unfortunate typo was overlooked.

It isn’t just harried lawyers and legal secretaries, stretched too thin, to whom seemingly obvious errors — errors that a fresh-eyed arm’s-length review would catch — are invisible, either.

According to a story on National Public Radio, even Jane Austen had her less-than-perfect moments, submitting manuscripts with grammatical, spelling and punctuation errors. But, it seems, Austen had someone who saved her from embarrassing mistakes: a skilled editor.

Legal Content Copyedits

As a professional writer, I understand the difference a good copyedit makes. That’s why Legal Media Matters relies on copy editor Kerry Bailey to review the work we produce on behalf of clients, whether it’s a press release, legal content for a law firm’s website or marketing materials such as brochures and fliers. At times, it may seem to a client that we’re being overly picky or just causing a delay when we insist that newly drafted content be reviewed by our firm’s copy editor — but we understand that there’s more at stake than just a red face.

It‘s better to discover grammar errors before you spend several hundred dollars on 500 full-color brochures. You definitely want to catch the fact that a founding partner’s name is being printed with the wrong middle initial before you place 1,000 new business cards on the partner’s desk. After spending a few – or several thousand – dollars developing and launching a website, you don’t want clients pointing out spelling errors on the home page. Errors like these can cost your firm the trust and respect of clients and potential clients. After all, if you can’t get the name of a founding partner right, what else are you getting wrong?

A good copyedit also helps search engine optimized text flow more naturally for a reader. Achieving the perfect balance between good search engine performance and readability is difficult. Though artificial, keyword-stuffed and possibly grammatically incorrect text may generate visitors, you’ll have a harder time converting them into actual clients.

In an earlier blog post, “Editing Web Content for Law Firms,” we shared seven tips for copy-editing your content. The items we listed are a good start toward ensuring clean, accurate copy.

Of course, you could also turn your copy over to an editor for review to ensure that your legal marketing materials are polished and professional and convey the message you intended — instead of evoking, say, an image of leaping dancers in tights and tutus.

To ensure that you don’t miss out on these useful tips, subscribe to our regular e-mails or RSS feeds. You can also find Legal Media Matters on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Do you need a professional copyedit or help writing legal content? Contact Legal Media Matters and learn more about our website development and content writing services.

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A guest post from Enrique Serrano

The Internet has changed the way in which we work and think. As Samuel Johnson once said: "Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it." With such a huge volume of information at our fingertips, the potential for finding and gathering knowledge seems endless.

Search engines play a vital role in the information-gathering process and, ultimately, in client development.  Every day around the world, an Internet user types a query, finds an answer to her needs on a website, and eventually becomes a new client.

If you want your legal website to get new clients through this procedure, you need to consider two important subjects:

• Search engine optimization, often shortened to SEO, is a process aimed at appearing in an easily visible position in a search engine’s results. If you aren't listed near the top position, your legal website runs the risk of being nearly invisible.
• User experience, describes the process that allows your users to find exactly what they are looking for in an easy way. If a user fails to find exactly what she needs, she will quickly leave the site dissatisfied.

The solution for a great-performing legal website in this very competitive environment is to have a lot of high-quality content, easily crawled by search engines and easily browsed by your potential clients. If your pages aren't easily read by search engines or aren’t delivered in a way that makes it easy for your clients to find them, the site won't succeed —- no matter how good your text is.

That's why determining how to arrange and link the pages of your website is so important. And that's where a website map comes into play.

What is a website map or web structure diagram

A website map is a graph of the pages that make up your site, depicting the links between them as connections. Each link provides a way for a user to reach a new page and distributes the importance that search engines assign to each page.

Website maps are site diagrams, readable by human beings, that structure development. They shouldn't be confused with the XML sitemaps used by search engines to find all of your content or with on-site maps that include in a single webpage HTML links to all of the other pages in your site.

Website maps as diagrams are a powerful tool, providing an easy way to determine what you need to write and where you need to place it in your main site structure.

Your goal is to improve your website’s user experience and SEO. Whether you plan to develop a new legal website for your firm or improve an existing one, creating a website map or website structure diagram is the first step toward making the most of your Web content.

The hierarchical structure of a website map

Website maps are usually depicted as hierarchical structure diagrams:

• Your homepage should be at the top, as the only tier 1 page. The homepage serves as a quick introduction of who you are and what you do.
• Tier 2 pages usually contain listings, or your main content categories, and provide an easy way to find the kind of information you were looking for.
• Tier 3 pages, the most numerous, provide a good way to access detailed, specific information.

If it takes too many clicks for a user to get to your target content, your site will be inefficient and visitors will probably abandon it before finding what they were looking for. To ensure a good user experience, make sure that important content is never more than a couple of clicks away.

A website structure diagram optimized for legal web sites

Any law firm could consider the following ideas when developing a legal website.

First, your homepage is your most important page. It is given high relevance by search engines and has the potential to draw many new visitors.

That's why your homepage should be simple and clear with just a few links that:

• Distribute the importance of link juice from search engines to your other pages.
• Allow users understand who you are and what you offer. The homepage should serve as a clean way to let them navigate to the relevant tier 2 page.

These tier 2 pages should mostly include listings of your main legal categories:

• Your main general practice areas (e.g., Auto Accidents.) This is the first step that a new user would take in refining her search.
• Listings of recent verdicts and press releases. This is a sign of healthy activity at any law firm.
• Listing of client testimonials. Again, this is an important way to build trust. (However, be sure to check first with your state bar to determine whether testimonials are permitted.)
• The categories of your articles, a listing of your main articles/FAQs or your legal blog. This kind of legal website content is essential to get good search engine performance. Including listings at this level of the map will prevent a cluttered navigation structure with too many articles as tier 2 sections while keeping your contents easily reachable for search engines.
• Your contact form. You need to provide an easy way for your users to call, visit and hire you, because that's your main goal.
• An About Us section. People need to feel reassured about the firm they are making contact with.

The tier 3 pages should be mostly focused on specific legal articles on very specific topics. You may cross-link the relevant tier 3 articles between them if they feel related. So tier 3 pages could include:

• Your specific practice areas (e.g.: Auto Accidents > Frontal Impact Collisions)
• A detailed verdict or press release per page.
• An article, FAQ or blog post per page. If you aren't sure about what to include in your blog, here are some legal blog ideas.
• A detailed client testimonial or case study.
• Your contact form should still be easy to reach from any of the previous pages.

Investing time and effort to write a complete piece of legal web content at each tier 3 page will prove being extremely effective getting search engine traffic and converting visitors, since it will contain exactly what they where looking for with enough amount of detail.

Writing a legal website map will let you organize all your content, identify what to include, highlight new ideas and ensure good SEO and usability properties.

Do you need to identify the best structure to improve your legal website? Contact Legal Media Matters and learn more about our website development and content writing services.

Enrique Serrano is a telecommunications engineer expert in online marketing and website development.

To ensure that you don’t miss out on these useful tips, subscribe to our regular e-mails or RSS feeds. You can also find Legal Media Matters on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Do you need to identify the best structure to improve your legal website? Contact Legal Media Matters and learn more about our website development and content writing services.

Your public speaking engagements and presentations are a blog content goldmine

By Geri L. Dreiling, Esq.

One recent morning I met two lawyers for coffee. They had established an innovative law firm that embraced Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogging. The struggle, they had found, was keeping up with their legal social media marketing efforts – especially the blog.

It wasn’t that they lacked ideas; they had a host of topic ideas. The real issue? Time. As their business expanded and demand for their services increased over the summer months, the blog stalled.

At the same time, the lawyers had been guest speakers for a number of business, creative and social networking groups. Additional speaking engagements had already been scheduled well into the fall.

In addition to urging them to scale back on the length and breadth of the blog entries — aiming for tightly focused 500-word pieces rather than wide-ranging entries of several thousand words — I suggested using their public speaking engagements as blogging fodder.

Here are just a few ways make the most of your speaking engagements when it comes to legal marketing and social media outreach.

1. Use a section of your outline to write a short blog entry.

Accustomed to extemporaneous speaking, most lawyers rely on outlines or note cards for speaking engagements. Even though the presentation may not be in paragraph form, the basic structure is already present.

Focus on one idea, one section or even one subsection of the topic. Sit down at your desk and set aside 30 minutes to expand on, in written form, the subject you’ve already been discussing with your audience. You can even begin with a vignette drawn from your presentation – perhaps someone in the audience related a story on this very topic.

Because it is a topic you already know, and because you’re beginning with a narrow focus, you’ll be surprised at how quickly you can fill up the screen with 500 words. Set the entry aside and edit it the next day.

2. If you have a PowerPoint presentation, turn it into a YouTube video.

Another option, though it takes slightly longer, involves PowerPoint. If you use PowerPoint as part of your speaking engagement, you can turn your presentations into YouTube videos similar to the one we produced.

For more on how to turn your PowerPoint presentation into a YouTube video, watch this helpful YouTube video.

3. Address audience questions and use the occasion to increase traffic.

Audience questions are another legal blog content mother lode. Each question can form the basis of a blog entry. Unanswered questions can be taken up on the blog and audience members encouraged to e-mail questions.

The process serves two purposes. First, it enables you to prepare a blog entry. Second, attendees will be more likely to visit your blog, thus boosting your site’s traffic.

These are just a few ways to use speaking engagements as blog content fodder. What are your favorite ways to turn a guest-speaking gig into content?

Do you like the Legal Media Matters blog? Do you find our content useful? If so, let the ABA Journal know. The ABA Journal is compiling a list of the 100 best legal blawgs and they want advice on which ones to include. I would be pleased as punch if you would fill out this form by Oct. 1 to cast your vote for the Legal Media Matters blog.

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Jumpstart your content writing by leveraging these free resources

By Geri L. Dreiling, Esq.

On Tuesday, I highlighted three approaches I use when I’m feeling stuck and can’t seem to come up with content ideas for my own blog or the blawgs of my clients.

To get the ideas flowing once again, I discussed:

• Listing frequently asked questions
• Using keywords identified by Google Analytics
• Setting up Google Alerts

Here are three more free research and intelligence-gathering tools you can use to guide your legal blog content writing efforts and boost your traffic.

1.  Use Wordtracker to identify keyword questions

Wordtracker''s Keyword Questions is a nifty tool. Enter a single or short keyword phrase and you’ll receive a list of questions that people type into search engines. Use those questions to come up with blog topics. You’ll also want to use the question in your headlines.

For example, I typed in the search term “personal injury.” The questions Wordtracker identified included:

• Is a personal injury settlement community property?
• What is the average personal injury settlement?
• What to expect in personal injury mediation?
• What personal injury attorney handles dog bites in Tucson area?

2. Use Google Insights for Search to identify breakout searches.

Google Insights is a tool that allows you to look at search trends over time, then highlights predictions for the future. It allows you to track newspaper headlines and identifies not only the top search queries related to your keywords but also rising or breakout searches. It’s not unlike enjoying a great new restaurant before the rave reviews are printed: The breakout terms allow you to avoid the rush of the crowd and get the best seat in a soon-to-be-popular venue.

Once again, I typed in the search term “personal injury.” I limited the query to the state of Georgia. It identified seven breakout searches, including:

• Atlanta injury lawyer
• Personal injury cases
• Personal injury claims
• Personal injury settlements

3.  Use Google Sets to identify lists of words related to your practice area

Google Sets allows you to create a list of words related to your keywords. You can use the list generated as a word-association game to get the creative process going. Once again, you’ll have new words that you’ll want to incorporate into the post to make it more likely that prospective clients will find you.

I entered the following terms:  “personal,” “injury,” “lawyer,” and “attorney.”

The expanded list of Google Sets predictions included:

• Probate
• Legal services
• DUI
• Auto
• Car
• Truck
• Trial
• Insurance law
• Wrongful death

Of course, these tips are all helpful for Web content writing, too.

To ensure that you don’t miss out on this valuable information, subscribe to our regular e-mails or RSS feeds. You can also find Legal Media Matters on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

At Legal Media Matters, we provide legal public relations, law firm marketing and attorney website content writing services.

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Feeling blocked? Follow these steps when content ideas are scarce.

By Geri L. Dreiling, Esq.

In addition to writing for my own blog, I help law firms keep up with the demands of their own blogs. That might mean anything from planning a blogging calendar to create content that conforms to their legal PR aims to writing drafts of blog content.

But even as a professional legal content writer there are occasions when I find myself blocked as I’m trying to come up with content ideas.

Here are three approaches that help me get unstuck and back on the writing track.

1. List Frequently Asked Questions

When I speak to prospective clients about law firm website writing, blog writing or legal PR work, the questions I’m asked tend to be similar despite differences in practice areas and geographical locations.

When a lawyer meets with a client or conducts an initial telephone consultation, the concerns raised are rarely novel. Clients want to know about their legal rights and options, legal procedures, the scope of the representation and the law firm’s fee structures.

I find it helpful to make a list of questions frequently raised in the initial consultation and use them to plan upcoming blog posts. Try writing down the initial questions a client raises during the meeting.  If you use  your client's terminology to frame your questions, you may improve the chances that a search engine query will lead to your blog post.

2. Use Keywords Identified by Google Analytics

Everyone should have his or her law firm’s website or blog configured with a program that measures traffic. One of the most popular free programs is Google Analytics. (In “How to install Google Analytics to measure your marketing campaigns,” Enrique Serrano provides step-by-step instructions explaining the process. )

Review the keyword phrases that are bringing visitors to your website. You can sort the phrases in a number of ways — for instance, identifying the most frequently used phrases that bring people to your site and the phrases that have received the most page views on your website. Consider writing a blog post that capitalizes on those keyword phrases.

3.  Set Up Google Alerts

If you scour the Internet in search of mainstream and legal media articles highlighting the latest news touching on your practice area, let Google Alerts do your Web surfing for you. You can enter your search parameters into Google Alerts, another free service, and receive a daily or weekly update highlighting the latest Google results on the basis of your topic or search terms.

The e-mail roundup is an efficient alert that pulls together late-breaking news and recent legal developments. Because you’re able to find out about it early, you can use the opportunity to weigh in or explain the debate on your legal blog.

These are just a few of my tried-and-true methods. Do you have any suggestions for overcoming legal content writing block? If so, I’d love to hear about them. Feel free to leave a comment to this blog post or email me at geri@legalmediamatters.com.

For our follow-up post on additional ways to generate story ideas, read "Blawg Topics: 3 More Brainstorming Tools."

To ensure that you don’t miss out on this valuable information, subscribe to our regular e-mails or RSS feeds. You can also find Legal Media Matters on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

At Legal Media Matters, we provide legal public relations, law firm marketing and attorney website content writing services.

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The site’s purpose, the use of fresh content and tone often play a role in distinguishing between the two

By Geri L. Dreiling, Esq.

Last week a lawyer sent me an e-mail asking me to explain the difference between a blog and a website.

The answer is not as simple as it might seem. As methods of communicating information by way of the Internet evolve, differentiating between a website and a blog is sometimes difficult.

Here are some of the traditional distinctions between the two.

Law Firm Website

Generally a law firm’s website contains static sections with descriptions of the types of legal services offered. It includes basic information explaining who your firm is and what it does:

• A home page introducing the firm to potential clients
• A practice areas page listing the types of cases the firm handles. The website may also contain several subpages that explain the types of cases in further detail
• An attorney page containing the biographical information of members of the firm
• A contact page with the firm’s telephone number and address and an online contact form

Law Firm Blog

A blog is generally an easy-to-update collection of short articles known as posts.  Blogs are updated frequently, and visitors tend to read the newest posts. Common topics on law blogs, or blawgs, include:

• New or recent court decisions or rulings that affect the firm’s practice area
• Current events that involve the firm’s practice area
• Answers to clients’ frequently asked questions
• Legislative developments
• Opinion or editorial comments about legal news or trends

The Blurring Line Between Blogs and Websites

Increasingly firms are embedding blogs in their websites under the same domain. An embedded blog helps keep a law firm’s website supplied with fresh content, which provides some search engine advantages.

Firms are also using blog engines, or content management systems, as the skeleton on which a website is built. Content management systems such as WordPress and Joomla! are user friendly; when they are adapted for use on a law firm’s website, updating the website becomes much easier.

Choosing the Best Option for Your Firm

For firms on a limited financial budget or with limited human resources to devote to maintaining a blog, a website should be the priority. It will allow potential clients to gather more information about your firm and provide quick access to contact information. An outdated blog that does not have any recent posts could undermine your firm's legal marketing efforts.

To ensure that you don’t miss out on this valuable information, subscribe to our regular e-mails or RSS feeds. You can also find Legal Media Matters on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

At Legal Media Matters, we provide legal public relations, law firm marketing and attorney website content writing services.

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