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What is a blog, you ask? Short for “Web Log,” it’s an increasingly popular thanks to self-publish online. you'll actually syndicate your articles, making this an excellent way for experts to showcase their specialized knowledge.
Think of a blog as a sort of a web journal, with frequent postings and observations on items of interest. Most blogs specialise in a narrow discipline , which is right for experts. Hyperlinks to articles, websites and other blogs make this a really interactive medium that encourages audience participation.
The Pew Internet Study estimates that about 11% of Internet users – translating to 50 million people - are regular blog readers. Technorati, which claims to be the authority on what is going on on within the world of weblogs, tracks almost 42 million blogs.
Lawyers are active bloggers. consistent with a web survey conducted by Blogads.com late last year, 6.1% of bloggers add the bar . The Litigation Section of the American Bar Association discovered that the bulk of section members surveyed read a minimum of one blog regularly and almost 20% publish their own blog.
The best thanks to understand a blog is to seem at a couple of . The Google Blog features a very simple appearance. against this , some blogs within the legal market are often very sophisticated, like E-Discovery Law offered by Preston Gates & Ellis LLP or the ERISA Blog maintained by The Law Office of B. Janell Grenier. Law Professor Blogs offers an upscale network of links to law blogs maintained by legal academics.
Three reasons to start out a blog
1. Blog software is usually free or nominally priced
2. Blogs increase your program rankings
3. Postings get widespread distribution through syndication
If you wish to write down and have information to share about your area of experience , a blog are often an excellent marketing tool.
Three cautions before you begin blogging
Look before you leap into a blog. Launching knowledgeable looking blog requires careful advance planning. Here are some tips that could confine mind:
1. Create a strategic framework for the sort of data you plan to publish
2. Post new content frequently to stay your blog fresh
3. cash in of syndication features to maximise the reach of your blog
Basically, confirm you've got the time to take care of your blog with top quality and timely information. simply because you get named as an expert on an enormous case is not any excuse to neglect or abandon your blog.
Blog publishing services
Now, let’s say you're interested and need to seek out out more about launching a blog. One place to start out is together with your website hosting service. likelihood is that you'll link a blog to your website for alittle additional monthly fee. I host with GoDaddy for instance , and that they offer blog software for as little as $2.99 per month.
Leading blog services include Blogger (owned by Google), TypePad and Moveable Type (both owned by Six Apart Ltd.), and WordPress. LexBlog targets the legal market with a full-service offering that has strategic design, implementation and training.
Blog features encourage interaction
The beauty of the blog is that the way it allows you to arrange , archive and syndicate your articles. Here are a couple of features you ought to consider:
.Archives A calendar on the front page of your blog can link readers to articles posted on a particular date. you'll also organize articles by author or alphabetically.
.Blogrolls Present your readers with a sidebar list of other blogs on related topics that you simply recommend.
.Email a lover Add a button to your blog for straightforward emailing.
News Feeds. RSS (“Really Simple Syndication”) may be a blog technique that permits you to simply distribute your postings to other blogs. Interested parties also can come to your blog and quickly found out an automatic feed of your news for publication on their site. Read more about feeds at Wikipedia.
.Reader Feedback Allow your readers to discuss your blog postings to maximise audience interest. a number of the techniques used for this purpose include trackbacks, pingbacks or comment moderation.
.Permalinks Give your postings a static URL in order that readers can easily share links or revisit a favourite posting.
The Internet is during a constant state of evolution, with blogs being the newest example. celebrate and happy blogging! Write us if you've got any questions or comments.