Blogs allow you to share information, ideas, opinions and expertise with an audience and it really is the first main form of social media. Blogs have been gaining a lot of popularity and as I find more attorneys utilizing them I decided to write a post about how to optimize them. Because you're working so hard to provide unique and quality content on your blogs it makes sense to put some time into make sure people can find it, read it and share it.
Here are a few blog guidelines to follow:
1) Frequency of Posts
The only thing worse than not having a blog today is having a blog where the last post is form October of 2009. It really doesn't project much confidence to the reader that you are on top of things, still in practice or have enough time to take their case. If you have loyal readers try to post on a consistent basis. Even if it is every Monday that is something that your audience can expect. I am terrible at this myself, but I'm putting methods in place to make sure I can have more consistency to my postings and I suggest you do the same! Another benefit of regular posting is the search engine spiders will continue to crawl and index your website/blog often. This is a good thing to have.
2) Links
In your content be sure to have internal links and external links when appropriate backed by relevant anchor text. Don't go nuts on this one, but these links can provide value and support the information you chose to write about.
3) Keywords
The most basic function of SEO is having the right keywords in your content. Blogs are no different this way. Consider your audience and try to determine what the search behavior of your target audience is and incorporate that throughout the content. If you're writing a blog post about Child Custody what type of words is that person typing into the search engine to find information? Those are the keywords you want to focus on. The strongest keyword should be included in your blog post title.
4) Promote Your Work
Did you write a blog post you're happy with and want more people to see? Share it to your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and GooglePlus accounts. Secondly allow the readers of your blog to easily do the same thing by adding share buttons to every post.
5) Title Tags
Depending what blogging platform you're using this will differ, but know that it will help to create unique title tags for each blog post. Most will default to the title of your post, but when possible add additional titles. If you wrote that great post "Child Custody in Michigan" your title tag could be "Child Custody in Michigan | FirmName Family Law Attorneys.
Here are a few blog guidelines to follow:
1) Frequency of Posts
The only thing worse than not having a blog today is having a blog where the last post is form October of 2009. It really doesn't project much confidence to the reader that you are on top of things, still in practice or have enough time to take their case. If you have loyal readers try to post on a consistent basis. Even if it is every Monday that is something that your audience can expect. I am terrible at this myself, but I'm putting methods in place to make sure I can have more consistency to my postings and I suggest you do the same! Another benefit of regular posting is the search engine spiders will continue to crawl and index your website/blog often. This is a good thing to have.
2) Links
In your content be sure to have internal links and external links when appropriate backed by relevant anchor text. Don't go nuts on this one, but these links can provide value and support the information you chose to write about.
3) Keywords
The most basic function of SEO is having the right keywords in your content. Blogs are no different this way. Consider your audience and try to determine what the search behavior of your target audience is and incorporate that throughout the content. If you're writing a blog post about Child Custody what type of words is that person typing into the search engine to find information? Those are the keywords you want to focus on. The strongest keyword should be included in your blog post title.
4) Promote Your Work
Did you write a blog post you're happy with and want more people to see? Share it to your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and GooglePlus accounts. Secondly allow the readers of your blog to easily do the same thing by adding share buttons to every post.
5) Title Tags
Depending what blogging platform you're using this will differ, but know that it will help to create unique title tags for each blog post. Most will default to the title of your post, but when possible add additional titles. If you wrote that great post "Child Custody in Michigan" your title tag could be "Child Custody in Michigan | FirmName Family Law Attorneys.
