Michael Martine and I wanted to provide an overview of what the members of Blawging Lawyers can expect. We have a lot of great material in store for the members which will help them market their law practice effectively through blogging, social media and beyond.

Overview of Blawging Lawyers Features

Blawging Lawyers has several major features that combine to provide a total 360-degree education in law practice blog and internet marketing:

• Written course texts in both Web page and downloadable “print-and-carry” PDF formats.
• Audio “teleclasses” which overlap the other materials, but which are not duplicates of them and have their own unique content.
• WordPress Walk-through videos that show you step-by-step how to use your blogging software.
• Audio Interviews with Professionals you can listen to or download as downloadable PDF-format transcripts.
• Recordings of all previous live teleseminars available for you to listen to whenever you like.
• A Recommended Resources Area where you’ll find links to the best resources we know of to accelerate your learning curve with blog marketing and make setting up your blog easier.
• Community forums where you can interact with other Blawging Lawyers members and ask questions of Michael, Grant, and each other.
• Live teleseminars three times over the 6 months, in which you can ask questions of Grant, Michael, and the experts brought in to lend their expertise to a subject.

All-told, you’re looking at a rich vein of blog marketing gold. There are still plenty of good blogs on the web with plenty to offer about blogging and internet marketing, but most of them aren’t focused exclusively on law practices. Everything you need to become a law practice marketing wizard is here, under one virtual classroom roof, in Blawging Lawyers.

Overview of Course Content

Blawging Lawyers course content is divided into several broad categories, each containing a series of individual lessons or topics. There are many lessons within Blawging Lawyers, and more are created on a frequent basis. The major categories are as follows:

• Blog Marketing and Internet Marketing Lessons
• Interviews with Professionals
• WordPress Walk-through Videos
• Blog Case Study Videos
• Live Q&A Session Audios
• Recommended Resources

The Lesson Plan

Blawging Lawyers features content that is released “automagically” according to a scheduled lesson plan, just like a “real” curriculum in a “real” school.

Each member of Blawging Lawyers receives the content according to the lesson plan. As each new member joins, the timetable begins for that person, and new content is made available according to the lesson plan as it progresses from their start date.

The timing of the Lesson Plan is to release the next lesson (and sometimes more than one topic) once per week. Once per week might be too quickly for some, but once a lesson is available to you, it’s always available. You could go on vacation for a couple weeks and just catch up when you come back refreshed.

Blog Marketing Lessons

Most of the course content is focused on this area, naturally. Below is a complete list of these lessons:

1. Why A Blog for a Law Practice?
2. Aligning Your Blog to Your Practice Area
3. Getting Set Up and Running 1 – Hiring Help
4. Getting Set Up and Running 2 – Do it Yourself
5. How to Use a Feed Reader and the Benefits of RSS
6. How to Get Noticed 1 – Promoting Your Blog Before Launch
7. How to Get Noticed 2 – Promoting Your Blog After Launch
8. How to Get Search Traffic
9. What to blog about
10. How to save yourself from writer’s block
11. Using an editorial calendar and organizing to blog
12. Turn Visitors into Readers
13. Turn Blog Readers into Clients
14. Reading the Numbers: Visitor Statistics
15. The Social Media Connection – An Overview
16. Twitter for Lawyers
17. LinkedIn for Lawyers and Practices
18. Facebook for Lawyers
19. Ethics of blogging for lawyers and firm policies
20. Using a blog and a website together or separate?
21. Networking online and offline to promote your blog
22. Email Marketing Basics 1 – Use the Power of Permission to Grow Your Profits
23. Copywriting Basics – The Importance and Power of Words
24. Linkbaiting for Lawyers – What it is and How to Do It
25. Using Video Effectively on Your Law Blog
26. Promoting Your Blog Locally
27. What to Do when You Run for Office

WordPress Tutorials

These are provided starting after the Getting Set Up and Running 2 – Do it Yourself lesson.

1. Getting Around in WordPress
2. How to Write a Blog Post in WordPress
3. How to Manage Comments in WordPress
4. Creating Core Content Before Launch
5. Working with Widgets in WordPress
6. Working with Themes in WordPress
7. Working with Plugins in WordPress
8. Getting and Using Great Pictures for Blog Posts
9. Creating and Managing a Blogroll

Internet Marketing for Law Practices

Once you graduate beyond having all the clients you can handle, you can use Internet marketing to take advantage of your position to create passive online income streams. These will begin to appear in your Content area (Lesson Plan) after the Copywriting Basics – The Importance and Power of Words lesson.

1. Email Marketing Basics 2 – Use the Power of Permission to Grow Your Profits
2. What a Landing Page is and When to Use One
3. Advertising Online 1 – The Basics
4. Advertising Online 2 – Pay Per Click Campaigns with Google AdWords
5. Create and Market Information Products to Attract More Clients and Generate Supplemental Profits

Quick Links

Blawging Lawyers News

The News page is where you’ll find members-only announcements not found on the blog. Look here for news regarding technical or content updates and changes which you need to know, but which are not intended for the public.

Blog Case Study Videos

From time to time, we’ll be doing blog case study videos, where, using screencasting (video of what’s on a computer screen) we’ll perform a critique of a member’s blog. Blog case study videos are immensely helpful, not only to the attorneys whose blogs we study, but for everyone who watches. Each one will have valuable take-aways you can apply to your own blog.

Success Interviews

One of the keys to your success in “blawging” is doing what others have done successfully. In other words, you need great examples to work from. We have them aplenty. A small overall number of attorneys are blogging, and out of that small number, a smaller number yet are successful enough to serve as examples to everyone else. These Success Interviews are made available here as a collection you can listen to whenever you want, as often as you like.

Live Q&A Session Audios

Three times over the 6 months, we’re going to conduct live question-and-answer seminars where you can ask any question and get no-holds-barred answers from us and our experts. These will be made available to any member who wants to listen in on these session later.

Recommended Resources

You will find a listing of resources external to Blawging Lawyers which we recommend to you. The Recommended Resources lists includes any of the following:

• Other law practice marketing blogs and sites.
• Relevant books on law practice marketing (some of these are authored by experts we’re interviewing).
• Blogging sites and books.
• Internet marketing sites and books.
• And more.

Thanks for Reading Through what we are going to be offering at Blawging Lawyers

As you can see, there’s a lot of content in Blawging Lawyers. But you don’t have to worry about trying to absorb everything as fast as possible, because the Lesson Plan automagically presents the lessons in a time-release fashion. You’re in for a great ride! Successfully marketing your practice through blogging could be the breakthrough for you that it has been for us and our experts.

What You Can Do Now

Go to Blawging Lawyers and sign up to receive our Blawging Lawyers Report. Also, be watching for further announcements on when we will be taking the membership side of things live. It is just around the corner.