The Secret to Writing a Lawyer Blog

Someone on a social networking site asked a question about writing a lawyer blog, and about writing posts that will generate traffic versus posts that will appeal to a niche. I think I have the secret, and it's not really a secret.

To paraphrase Crash Davis from Bull Durham: Don't think meat. Just write.

I've written blog posts about all kinds of things. Some are highly focused on what my law firm does, but some are all over the map. I have never written a blog post just to generate traffic for its own sake. I'm certainly aware of keywords in some of my posts, but I rarely worry about that.

Write good content. Write in your own words, but at the same time in a way that is understandable for your target audience. If you're writing to regular people, you have to explain the Latin or the abbreviations (or leave them out). A huge challenge here is to remember what you didn't understand when you weren't a lawyer, and then figure out how to explain it to the person you were then.

Write about something you think is interesting, and explain why you think so.

Don't listen to people who say you should write a blog post every day, or twice a week. Write when you have something to say. Take your time saying it so you make it good. I have long gaps in my blogging and am confident that has not been a problem.

One of my most "successful" blog posts was about a play in the 2008 Superbowl. It had nothing to do with law. By successful I mean mainly a post that had a lot of views. But also, I really enjoyed writing it and the research that went with it. If you're blogging just for traffic or link value, etc., then you won't enjoy blogging. In the long run that means you won't do it well and you'll probably quit.

Finally, take all of my advice with a grain of salt. On the one hand, this lawyer blog is successful. It ranks well on searches, gets substantial traffic, and generates revenue for my firm. On the other hand, I don't really know why it works. I'm only guessing.

Traffic Court - New Heights!

Our traffic court site continues to grow. The latest news is that we broke 200,000 page views in the last 31 days. Monday was the biggest day in the site's history, with over 4600 visits and over 4300 "unique" visitors. Tuesday was over 4200 visits, making it the strongest regular Tuesday ever (excluding Tuesdays after a 3-day weekend), and the 4th biggest day in site history, just a nick behind July 7th (an abnormal Tuesday).

We think we've finished all of the California Traffic Court pages, and we're darn close to finished with NY and VA. We continue making good progress on Ohio, Florida, Texas and Pennsylvania. Washington State is also in our sights. We will soon pass 4000 traffic courts on the site.

Albany DWI Seminar

You know the world's in trouble when I'm speaking at a seminar. There will be a Lorman CLE on DWI in Albany on December 4th. I will talk about handling low BAC cases. Should be interesting.

Vote for Steven Vasquez

The congressional primary is Tuesday - voting is from 12 noon to 9 pm. Please make sure you get out and vote.

And Republicans -- vote for Steven Vasquez. There are three big reasons why you should:

1. Steven supports small government, and he really means it. His opponent talks the talk, but he is part of the GOP establishment that has ballooned government in NY, and the US, for over a decade. You can see this in the campaign itself. Steven's campaign has run lean, spending almost all of the campaign funds on campaigning - lawn signs, mailers, and phone calls to voters.

2. Vasquez has worked hard on the campaign. I met Steven in 2007 while we were both working on the Ron Paul campaign. He worked tirelessly for Ron Paul, and then continued to work on the congressional race. He has built a team of loyal volunteers who believe in him. If you want someone who will work for you in Washington, Steven is the choice.