How to Setup a Google BLOG for your Law Firm
Blogging is definitely catching on in the AZ legal community. Earlier this year I wrote an article for Attorney at Law Magazine titled “Should an Attorney or Law Firm BLOG” in which I laid out a rationale for Blogging and recommended that you may want to start with the free and easy to use BLOGGER BLOG platform. BLOGGER is a Google product and is stupidly easy to use even for the techno neophyte. In fact you can be Blogging in less than 10 minutes. Here is how to do it.
1. Go to any Google BLOG like this one https://www.azlawyermarketing.com/ and click on the ‘Create BLOG’ button on the upper right of the page.
2. This will take you to a screen that asks you to either sign into your Google/gmail account or create one. Signing up is a simple process – but make sure you save your password.
3. Once your done with that it will ask for a BLOG title. This is important because this will be the first thing people see when they get to your BLOG. Mine is Alex Morris: Arizona Attorney Marketing Consultant in Scottsdale and Phoenix. Make sure that you utilize practice and geographic keywords in your title as it will also serve as the Title Tag of your BLOG. – an important consideration for search engine optimization.
4. Pick a URL. For this you may want to reference my article on choosing a domain name. The difference here is that I recommend that you use the word “BLOG’ in your title. *Its important to note that when you first sign up the URL will have .blogspot.com on the end. For $10 dollars a year you can and should change this to a custom URL of your choosing. Therefore, since you will be changing the URL anyways – don’t spend much time here, racking your brain for the perfect URL address.
5. Pick a Template. One drawback to Google BLOG is the paucity of template design options. At first there is like 6 to choose from. Choose one and move on – The templates are like dresses, you can change them at any time. In addition, Google just added an easy to use design editor which will allow you to change colors and layouts.
6. Now you are ready to post! However, I recommend that you knock out some administrative issues first.
– Comments: Turn on Comment Moderation or Disallow Comments completely. As an attorney, you don’t want to run the risk of a spammer or irate former client to post bad comments on your BLOG! So go to the ‘Settings’ Tab, click on Comments and click the box that says enable comment moderation. This will prompt you to enter an email address where all comments will first go for your approval.
– BLOG Description: This appears underneath the BLOG title and should be used to describe the purpose of the BLOG in greater detail. This is important since it will always be on the first page of your BLOG and visible to every reader. (Posts are sequential and will move down the page as you post more). It is also important to include keywords as the content of the description is also important in terms of search engine optimization. *To add a BLOG description go to the settings tab, click on ‘basic’ and fill out the ‘Description’ Box.
– Publish to a Custom Domain: At this point you have an active BLOG. The only problem is that the URL contains that bulky .blogpost.com nomenclature. Ugh!! So for $10 a year I recommend that we change that to a custom domain of your choosing. To do this – go to the ‘Settings’ tab, then the ‘Publishing’ tab. Here you will see “Switch to a Custom Domain” option. Follow that link. Here you will be asked to enter in a custom URL. (*Dont add the www) Once finished, Google will check to see if its available. If so you can have it and you will proceed to check out and enter your credit card info. If the URL is not available try another one. After you check out you have a new domain, but it wont show up right away. In my experience it usually takes 10 minutes for the new domain to work. In the meantime, use the Blogspot address to get there.
–Adding Labels and Changing your Layout: This refers to the layout of your BLOG- and the page elements that are to the right or left of your content. Google calls them ‘Gadgets’ but are also commonly referred to as Widgets. When your BLOG is released there are three Gadgets listed: Followers, Post Archive and, About Me. You can remove a Gadget, add a Gadget or change the order of the Gadgets. This is pure personal preference but I usually recommend adding at least one Gadget called- ‘labels’. This is important in that the Labels Page Element allows you to organize your posts. To add the ‘labels’ Gadget or any Gadget go to the ‘design’ tab and click on ‘Add a Gadget’. Here you will see a number of cool gadgets that can spruce up your BLOG. Besides ‘labels’ I also recommend adding a ‘link list’ – as you will be able to prominently link to your main site from here. I normally recommend moving down the ‘Followers’ label in the beginning since you will have very few followers when you start. You also should edit the “About Me ” Widget – adding a picture and a description of the firm.
BLOG Posting
Once the above is done, you won’t need to mess with it again. The priority now is for you to crank out BLOG posts. This is very easy with BLOGGER. To get back to your BLOG and post, simply enter the URL of your BLOG and sign in with your new Google Password you got in step one. From the dashboard, you can edit an old post or add a new one. Similar to Microsoft Word, the BLOG posting tool is very easy to use and intuitive. The only item you should be aware of is how to link from your BLOG post.
Adding a Link From Your BLOG Post:
One advantage of Blogging is that it can create some great linking opportunities to your website(s), particularly if it helps improve the reader’s experience. For example if you are doing a post on pressure ulcers – it may be useful to link to the page on your website that has even more information on decubitis ulcers. To do this, have your website URL open in another window. Click on the specific page you want to link to and copy the URL of the internal page. Within your BLOG post, highlight the phrase you want to link, in my example Pressure Ulcers, and click on the link button above the posting window. Paste the URL and press submit link. You have now just built a link! But dont get carried away with linking. Too many links and you risk diluting the link value of the page and/or it make look spammy to the search engines. One per post is a good rule of thumb.
There is more to cover but these are the basics. Good Luck and happy Blogging!