Legal Marketing & PR

Law Blog vs Lawyer Website: What?s the Difference?

By Amy Derby

Lots of lawyers ask me why they should have a blog, or if they should have one. If they haven’t heard much about blogging, one of their first questions is often “What’s the difference between a blog and a website?” Here’s my response:

Your law firm website is the online version of a marketing kit. On your website, you talk about yourself, what you do, what you?ve done in the past. Maybe you post articles to answer frequently asked questions about the practice area(s) you cover. You optimize the site for search engines, set up a contact form, and hope clients will find you.

As a Blogger, You?re a Person

While both websites and blogs allow you to brand yourself as an expert and establish authority in your practice area, blogging allows you the opportunity to prove you?re human. On your blog, your writing will be less formal, your tone will be more casual, and your readers will leave feeling like they got to know you. Hopefully they?ll even want to come back!

Which Lawyer Would YOU Hire?

Pretend you’re an average guy surfing the net to hire a lawyer.

Scenario 1: You land at a lawyer?s website through a search engine. You find information similar to what you can find on other lawyer websites. You read for a minute, then hit the back button and read the next lawyer?s website. Unless that first guy is the only lawyer with a website in his practice area, chances are slim that you?re going to remember him as anything special. He?s not so different from the other guys.

Scenario 2: You land at a lawyer?s blog. From his posts, you immediately understand his passion. You learn what he stands for. You witness his reactions to what?s happening in the news and sees how much he cares about his cases. You get the impression that he?s the type of guy who never gives up, who never loses.

You?re an intelligent guy, but you need some help. You want to hire someone who you know will do right by you, who won?t back down till you win this thing.

Which lawyer would you call?

Full post as published by Law Firm Blogger on February 24, 2009 (boomark / email).