Lawyer Blogs: More Powerful for Attorneys Than Websites

If you are an attorney who is trying to think of new ways to gain clients, make contacts, and otherwise make more money, then one aspect of Internet marketing that you may not have considered is to start your own blog. You have probably thought that it isn’t necessary to create a blog, particularly if you already have your own website. You may have thought that a blog and a website are the same thing. However, this isn’t the case. There are some distinct advantages that a blog can bring you that a website cannot. Let’s take a look at a few of the ways that it differs from a website and how they can help you better achieve your goals of gaining more clients.

The most important difference between a blog and a website is that a blog is typically much more dynamic. Your website probably provides some basic information about you and your practice. You probably have an About page, where you detail your credentials, your specialties, and how long you have been practicing law. You probably have another page where you list the services you provide and how much you charge for each service. Finally, you probably have a page where you let your potential clients know how they can contact you if they need representation in court. This website is definitely crucial to your online presence, and its importance shouldn’t be underestimated. However, it probably doesn’t get much traffic from the search engines on a regular basis. This is where a blog can be very powerful. The major search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo typically don’t favor static web pages that don’t ever get updated. Unless your educational background or your specialty changes, then there is little reason to update your website. Your blog, on the other hand, will be constantly updated. You can share different posts that put your expertise on display. Your blog is where your personality will really get to shine through. If you create a new post even once per month, then the search engines will take notice. They will see that yours gets regularly updated, so you will probably see a flood of traffic that you have heretofore never experienced. If you connect your blog to your website, then the two will complement each other. The contacts that you send to your website will be able to see your blog, and the free Internet traffic that you get from the search engines will be redirected to your website. You’ll instantly be able to notice a boost in the number of leads and new clients that you are able to acquire.

Another major benefit of a blog in comparison to a standard web site is that you will be able to interact much more intimately with your Internet visitors. Blogs are typically characterized by a comments section, where visitors to your blog can post their reaction to your blog post and usually they will pose a question to you. You will then have the opportunity to answer these questions by posting in the comments section yourself. This gives a blog a much more homely feeling compared to the rigid structure of a static web page. By regularly responding to the comments left by your visitors, you will be able to show everyone how knowledgeable and responsive you are. Your visitors will rightly draw the conclusion that this is representative of the type of service they could expect if they hire you as their attorney. You’ll probably also notice an up tick in the number of potential clients and fellow lawyers who contact you directly. Simply make sure that your email address is clearly visible on your blog so that your visitors will know how to contact you. The fellow lawyers who contact you may have blogs and websites of their own, and they will probably want to work out an arrangement with you which will be mutually beneficial to you both. For example, you can send each other traffic, or he may want to advertise his related service on your site.

You may be thinking that this will all be a tremendous amount of work in comparison to maintaining a website. It’s true that it does require a bit more time and effort, but it’s important to realize that it doesn’t necessarily need to be you who slaves away at the computer screen all day. There are many services available that can get your blog up and running in a snap. When you want a new post published, you can often hire a writer or a blog service to outsource the writing to. You can just give them the topic of the blog post, and they’ll take care of the rest.