Baltimore Injury Lawyer Blog

Ok. If you are a really dedicated reader of the blogs written by Miller & Zois lawyers, you may have caught that the title above is a (sort of) facetious reference to Ron Miller's post about the various types of law blogs out there.

My very own Baltimore Injury Lawyer Blog has exceeded the life expectancy of most new attorney blogs. As Ron notes, the Drug & Device Lawyer Blog reports that more than half of lawyer blogs fail in the first year.

This is not surpising, because most of them are horrible. Usually there are three culprits: 1) bad writing, 2) lousy content, and 3) infrequent updates. These are the "usual suspects" in the mystery of "why is your blog crappy?" Which makes sense, considering that the price of admission is low- a computer, an internet connection, and something to say.

I have now escaped failure for fourteen months. Go me! Some would consider this a surprise, but they are mostly people who thought that giving me an unedited pipeline to the world would be a recipe for disaster because of my tendency to say (and write) what I actually think. I think that is why this blog works.

My blog is not a chore because I like to write. I write about something that interests me, namely the law, specifically personal injury litigation. It would be a lie to say that marketing is not a reason I write the blog. It would be a bigger lie to say marketing is the only reason I write the blog.

Ron talks about his blog being a hybrid- the focus is on providing quality content that people want to read and come back to, but remembering to throw your keywords in there to keep our Google overlords happy. That is how I approach this blog.

Accordingly, here are my tips on keeping a personal injury lawyer blog from failing in the first year:

1) Be a person who likes to write. If you hate to write you will not update the blog, and it will fail.

2) Write about something you know about and like. The value of what you have to say is proportional to your level of knowledge of the subject. Lack of knowledge = crappy content= no readers= fail.

3) Have at least a basic knowledge of written English. You can't write= crappy content=no readers=fail.

4) Provide actual content that might be of use to someone. Blatant marketing pitches are unhelpful. "I am a personal injury lawyer so you should hire me for your personal injury case" doesn't give the reader much. Neither does veiled marketing like "Five Killed in Accident on I-97." On the other hand, "Top Ten Deposition Tips" might actually be useful.

5) Be patient. It takes time to build a readership. If you give up, your blog will certainly fail.

If you are thinking of becoming a blogger, do it because you want to, not because some marketing consultant told you it was a good idea.