It used to be you just added a .com to what you did as a lawyer and you had a domain name for your blog. But with four new law blogs coming online each day, that’s easier said than done these days. Not to worry.

Doug Shuman, Senior Vice President of Customer Marketing at Register.com, offers a few tips at the Small Business Advice Blog on picking a domain name in times of increasing scarcity. With my added commentary, here you go:

Continue Reading Choosing a domain name for your law blog when domain names are scarce

I’ve come to the conclusion that there are three basic blog layout types. This, after twelve years and several thousand blogs designed. Fixed width, Full width, and a Hybrid layout that combines elements from the first two. Each layout type has its advantages.

A Fixed Width layout is very traditional with all content framed in nice and tidy like. An excellent choice for those of us who are a bit OCD. Like a pinstripe shirt they never go out of style.

The Full Width layout is all the rage and for good reason. Your main navigation and masthead span edge to edge allowing for more content and impactful imagery up top. Beautiful to behold on desktop displays and nice and clean when viewed on a mobile device.

Finally the Hybrid layout which takes its cues from the first two. The navigation and mast are wide-open. This allows for the use of some nice graphics or textures. The post area is framed in. Pulling your eye right where it needs to go…the content.

Of the three, Hybrid is my favorite. What’s yours?

A law blogger publishes an awful lot of content. They put in a lot of time. But is anyone listening? Is the insight you’re sharing helpful?

Until someone walks up to you at a conference and says they really liked a post of yours, often a post from a while ago, you don’t really know. And man it feels good to get a request to connect on LinkedIn along with a personal note letting you know the person asking to connect reads your blog all the time.

Allison Volk, who specializes in creating authority and visibility for businesses, suggests, in a piece in The Huffington Post, to slow down and listen to your audience:

“[I]f someone mentions your blog or comments to you in person, pay attention. We’re generally so overwhelmed with prompts to comment, like and share that we shut it off after a while. How many times have you trolled through your Facebook feed without liking, sharing or commenting? You might even see something you like that gets you thinking and not participate—but it doesn’t mean it hasn’t made an impact on you.”

The bottom line is that we all have an impact on our world. We do influence the people around us, and people are listening, especially if we’re truly sharing something authentic.

If you want to find out whether anyone is listening and to find out from those who are listening how you’re doing, just ask. Talk with your audience.

Continue Reading Is your law blog having an impact? Ask your audience

Law blogs published by practicing lawyers, particularly blogs published on niches, improve people’s access to legal services.

“People” refers to any and all of us—consumers, small business people, executive directors, corporate executives and in-house counsel.

I’ve never talked with a lawyer publishing a good law blog who hasn’t found that many of the people who contact her or him felt more comfortable doing so because of the lawyer’s blog.

Makes all the sense in the world.

Imagine looking for doctor in a speciality for a relative in another city. Google the city and the speciality. You’re apt to get hospital and clinic websites done by marketing people.

Areas of Expertise: Dr. B’s expertise includes clinical cardiology, interventional cardiology, echocardiography and nuclear cardiology.
Special Interests: Dr. B has special interest in coronary artery disease and peripheral vascular disease.
Personal Information: Dr. B enjoys literature, arts and the outdoors.

Really, I am supposed to make a decision on a doctor based on that info or maybe by calling another doctor who will say Dr. B is a good guy and does a nice job in surgery.

Now imagine a doctor who blogged, maybe on their approach to working with patients or on topics advancing the treatment of coronary heart disease by referencing the writings of other doctors in the field, nation and worldwide.

Imagine that doctor’s blog posts being cited by doctors and shared on social media. It happens, even in the most complicated fields.

What do you know in your search for a doctor? This doctor stays up to speed in their field, they’re widely respected by peers, they are a giving person—not only to the medical profession, but to patients and the public.

Who do you trust? Who is more approachable?

Continue Reading Law blogs improve access to legal services

Syndication as we’ve come to known it is akin to the TV show Seinfeld. When the show ended in 1998, folks like me saw it for the first time in reruns on various stations other than NBC, where it originally ran.

In a nice piece on content syndication and blogs, Brendan Barron explains the basics largely applied by LexBlog as we build a legal news and information network by curating/syndicating legal blogs worldwide:

“[S]omeone makes a copy of content that was originally published elsewhere and then uses it on their own WordPress website. So, for your purposes, content syndication could mean that you import someone else’s content into your site (which is probably what most of you will do). It also means that you could loan out your own content to others.”

When Seinfeld gives Seattle’s Channel 11 permission to run his shows in syndication, there’s no copyright infringement. Same for blogs.

“When someone willingly grants permission for others to use their blog posts in syndication, and proper attribution is provided to the original author and source, there shouldn’t be any problems with violating copyright law.”

For bloggers, Barron says content syndication is greatly beneficial:

Continue Reading Syndication of law blogs a real plus for bloggers