Do you use Blogger for your law practice blog? It’s easy, free and gets you online in moments. And trust me, it shows.
Susan Cartier Liebel explains in a recent post on Build A Solo Practice, LLC exactly why you should not use Blogger for your professional blog. The upshot of the post is that it makes you look less-than-professional, a mere newbie in a sea of experts. After all, you’re using the blog as a practice management tool for your law office – is it somehow not worth the measly hosting cost of under $100 per year to do a passable job of it?
TypePad carries a minor cost, WordPress is free (I’m talking about the downloadable version at wordpress.org, not the hosted version at wordpress.com). And with many hosting companies offering a one-click installation of WordPress to help you along, it doesn’t get much easier.
Wait, you ask. Doesn’t Google index Blogger more quickly than other sites because Google owns Blogger? The simple answer is a resounding NO. Look, all Google wants is for people to get the best search results; if that search result is best met by a WordPress blog, that’s how it’s going to go. Because when people get good search results from Google, they’re more likely to come back to Google. And the more often people use Google to search, the more advertisers are going to pay to Google for the right to be on the search results page. Round and round it goes.
But my blog is really good, you say. You can’t tell me that having it on Blogger is going to cut against me. If I”m really good then the readers will come! True enough, but let’s face facts – you’re not famous. In fact, to prospects the likelihood is that you’re just another lawyer with a blog. You may be good, but you’ve got no brand. And the blog is your brand (at least, part of it). So why go with a Blogger brand when for $100 per year you could actually have you own?
Finally, remember – Google can at any time and for any reason at all simply delete your Blogger blog. Poof, and it’s gone. Years of work, thousands of words, tons of goodwill . . . all up in smoke. Want to read more about this phenomenon? Just check out Search Engine Journal’s article, Reasons To Not Blog Using Blogger or Blogspot.
Is this all worth saving a measly $100 a year?
Just my opinion, but …I started blogging on Blogger in 2005 – albany-lawyer.blogspot.com. My blog gets over 4000 unique visitors a month. It is the #1 source of referrals to my law firm website, with 167 visits in the last month. I have other blogs, some using blogspot urls and others on their own (e.g. wredlich.com/stop-wasting-money/). Based on my experience, I believe the blogspot address helps with SEO. IN the past I thought about migrating my blog to its own domain, but for now at least I'm sticking with blogspot.Blogger is not just free. It's very easy to use. I use WordPress for other sites, and I've used TypePad and Movable Type too. Blogger is far and away the easiest.The most important thing about blogging is writing. The more you write, the more traffic your blog will draw. Since blogger makes it easier, you will write more because you're not wasting time playing with the software.