Reputation Management, Part Fourteen: Blogging to Protect Your Reputation

Blogging is another useful online reputation management tool.

Self-generated content is a positive way to promote your business, protect your reputation and showcase a side of yourself that your clients may not normally see when they come to you to discuss issues like selling their home or seeking a child custody order modification. A blog lets you discuss your interests, link back to your website and attract social media clients.

Blogs are the original form of social media, providing a simple way to share your thoughts with friends and potential clients searching for a Massachusetts personal injury attorney (or any other type of lawyer) online. They can provide a way to proactively manage your reputation. It’s a known fact of SEO that it is harder to get into the search rankings if there are several websites devoted to the same keyword updated on a regular basis. Your blog or blogs can help you prevent negative reviews from having as large an impact. It can also help you showcase your expertise in your field of business through a more candid, unofficial medium.

Tips for business blogging

There are several guidelines to keep in mind when starting a blog for or related to your business. You should:

• Be committed to seeing it through. A blog updated less than once a month is arguably worse than no blog at all. A defunct blog makes viewers feel that you are no longer in business. Ideally, you should update your blog one to three times per week with relevant content.
• Consider your platform. While WordPress is the new hotness in many ways, with tons of bells and whistles, you may prefer a simpler platform such as Blogger, Blogspot or TypePad. Consider paying for a premium blogging service that allows you to more easily integrate your blog with the rest of your website.
• Be professional. Even when you’re writing in a more casual tone of voice, you’re still a lawyer with clients seeking legal advice. Always consider your audience and the value you might add to their lives. To whom will your blog be of use? How will it do so? A blog is not just a glorified journal. Spelling and grammar should be impeccable, and the focus should be on the topic rather than on yourself.

A great blog will do wonders for your reputation. You may develop a professional following and receive positive feedback from potential prospects, but even if you don’t, blogging is an important SERM technique that will help you keep your law firm in the top search rankings.

Coming up next is videos and reputation management, the last subject up for discussion in CaseDetails.com’s Reputation Management series.