Having a blog on your website is as mandatory as your phone number and contact information. Blogs allow you to offer your site's visitors concise information related to your area of practice and it keeps your website growing with new pages of content.

Before we go into writing blog entries, let’s first talk about what exactly a blog is.

The word blog is a contraction of “web-log”. In the early days of commercial Internet access, message boards and forums did what blogs now do. The goal of the blog was to offer a simple to edit interface that allows anybody from any skill level to add entries to a website/blog generally based on a niche topic.

Additional features such as user commenting can add a community feeling to your website but the effort involved in moderating comments for spam and inappropriate messages generally leads law firms to disable this feature. Also, most of our clients disable commenting as community interaction is more prone to take place on Facebook or other social networks.

The other benefit of a blog is increased exposure through RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feeds. All popular blogs offer an RSS feed that basically takes your blog entries and syndicates it into other blogs, search engines, and forums.

You may not know this but Google has a search engine just for blogs called “Google Blog Search”. By your website having a blog, you are eligible to have your blog entries published in (and syndicated through) Google Blog Search – a free service. If you are using WordPress for your law firm website's content management system and blog, it will automatically submit your website to Google Blog Search. You can also do so manually at http://blogsearch.google.com/ping.

So now that you know what a blog is and why you should have one, let's talk about how to write blog entries.

Writing Blog Entries

Blog entries, unlike articles, do not require any special formatting. You just need a title and a couple paragraphs. You can also assign tags that act as keywords for your blog’s search function.

Here is an example of a blog entry for a fictional Boston divorce lawyer we will call Smith & White.

BEGIN SAMPLE
A Divorce is Not Always Immediate

Couples seeking a divorce in Boston, Massachusetts are of course subject to Massachusetts laws governing family law matters. What many separated couples do not know is that your divorce is not immediate after a judgment is issued.

In many cases, a judge will review a separation agreement. If the judge finds that the marriage is in fact irreparable, a hearing will be scheduled for approximately 30 days from then.

Assuming all things go as planned, the judge may issue a judgment at the hearing but this does not mean you are divorced. Your divorce will not be finalized until 90 days after the judgment is issued.
With four months being all but guaranteed at the end of your divorce, it is important to work with an experienced Boston divorce lawyer. All of us at Smith & White have spent years navigating Massachusetts family law and know how to avoid costly mistakes and save time.

To learn more, contact a Boston divorce lawyer, Boston divorce attorney, or Boston family law attorney at Smith & White by visiting http://www.example.com or call 1.555.200.9121.
END SAMPLE

The blog entry was concise, useful, and relevant to this fictional firm's area of law. Notice in the footer of the blog entry where we included their keyphrases. Those are the most popular keyphrases that Smith & White are optimizing for. In the blog entry we hyperlinked those keyphrases to the law firm’s website (in this sample's case, example.com). Hyperlinking keyphrases improves the relevance of that website for that keyphrase.

Something you may be wondering is why would we put a website and contact information at the footer of a blog that is being posted on that particular website. The answer is that you should write your blog as if the reader is reading the blog entry on a syndicated website. Remember, your blog entries will be submitted to Google Blog Search, http://blogsearch.google.com/, and other websites. It might also be syndicated on various third party websites. This will bring inbound links to your site and offsite exposure to your firm.

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