Kostas Papageorgiou (@k_papageo), a blogger and content creator who helps startups grow their online presence, shared five topic ideas for a new blog for a startup company. I thought the ideas applied equally to lawyers launching a new blog.
With a little massaging from me, here’s Papageorgiou’s five core topics every startup/lawyer needs to be blogging about.
1. Best Practices and Suggestions
Legal updates and summaries are not enough. Share practical insight. What does your your target audience have trouble dealing with? People will like your take because it’s based on your experience with real life situations like theres.
For example how have you seen divorced parents best deal with visitation on the holidays? How have you seen non-compete clauses be drafted so as to be held up by the court?
2. How-to guides
With how-to posts, you’re telling the reader how to do something in a simple to follow, step-by-step guide.
Maybe it’s how to identify the best patent lawyer for your business. Or five tips for preparing for your first meeting with your estate planing lawyer.
3. Industry news analysis
There is a never ending flow of legal news and information. Not just legal updates, but also news of people and businesses involved in legal matters, the likes of which you read about in newspapers, and today, across social media.
A major part of establishing thought leadership is displaying that you follow legal updates and news. By following your newsreader (set up to follow sources and subjects) and sharing what you’re seeing you establishes you as a trusted intelligence agent.
Don’t just share the news or information. Tell me why you shared it, what’s your take, and what it means for me as your reader.
Knowing little about blogging ten years ago, I did exactly this. The result was a trusting audience, authority status for me, and business for LexBlog.
4. Answering user questions and concerns
Bar none, this the easiest thing you can blog about. All you need to do is gather questions you receive from clients and prospective clients. Jot them down on a legal pad titled ‘Blog’ you keep at the top of your desk.
Answer the questions in two or three brief paragraphs, much the same as you would in an email. Weave your answers into a story if you can to make it more interesting. ” A woman called me from South of town about a question relating to a green card status and employment here in the States…”
Another benefit here comes in terms of search engine optimization (SEO), since people will be Googling the same questions. No need to search for popular keywords for SEO. Armed with your “Blog legal pad,” you’re a keyword expert. Phrase your titles as the question for proper indexing on Google.
5. Reporting on future trends
Here is where you can really set yourself apart – by writing what you think will be future trends in the law, industry, or society, as it pertains to your niche or locale.
This sets you up as a visionary in your field, something only an experienced lawyer is equipped to do. Your content will also be unique, since others won have the same ideas and opinions.
Every lawyer’s style of blogging is different. What you’ll blog about and the manner in which you’ll do it will be unique. You’ll pick up your own style and hone what you blog on over time, especially by reading others’ blogs.
But you could do worse than following these five topic ideas for your new law blog — or your old blog, for that matter.
Thank you Kevin. http://kevin.lexblog.com/
Recent Comments