Since I run a number of hotel-related websites, I often receive catalogs and direct mail pieces targeted at hotel owners. One brochure I recently received had a legal angle that made me laugh, so I thought I’d post it here:

It’s for a sidewalk leveling/construction company, arguing that uneven sidewalks are a slip and fall accident lawsuit waiting to happen. I love how professional the drawing is (sarcasm). Anyway, I thought this was worth a quick laugh, particularly since I work with law firms like the Boston slip fall lawyers of Feinberg & Alban + the Fort Lauderdale injury lawyers of Fazio Disalvo during my “9-5″ job. They represent slip fall victims… the ones dreaming of “the big payoff”.

I’m no designer, that’s something I’ll tell you from the start. That’s why I love WordPress; it lets me pick and choose between free and paid templates I can toggle on and off in just a click. In that vein, what do you think of the new “lush” theme? See the credits in the footer, but I think it’s clean and orderly – straight to the point. Surprisingly, the code is clean, a testament to the power of CSS2.

I’m pleased to announce CaseDetails.com is now WAP enabled! What’s that mean? Visitors who access the “normal” www.casedetails.com URL via cell phone, Windows CE device, BlackBerry, etc. will be redirected to an XHTML compliant version of the site where past and present posts are available for review.

Now that I’ve got this up and running here, perhaps I can pass along how easy it was so you can get your WAP enabled legal website going as well. (This temporarily bypasses the soon-to-be-addressed issue of why you should have a WAP enabled website for your firm.) This advice is for WordPress users only at this point.

In short, upload wp-wap to your site. Then add a few lines to your .htaccess file to detect and redirect mobile devices:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_ACCEPT} (x-)*(application|text)/(x-)*(vnd[-.])*(wap[-.]|wml)+
RewriteRule ^(index.php)*$ wp-wap.php [L]

That’s it! I’ll update this space in the near future with instructions for non-WordPress users.

[tags]wap enabled,legal websites,mobile devices[/tags]

There’s a new tool on the block aimed at the booming blogger market – Windows Live Writer (Beta) 1.0. In summary, it’s a desktop application that allows WYSIWYG authoring of posts by programs like WordPress, Blogger, Movable Type and more. In an interesting twist, the program also has a SDK (software developer kit) so modules can be developed for extended functionalities. (For some reason, I get a chuckle out of their homepage statement “We can’t wait to see all the things people cook up with the SDK!”)

So is it worth a try? My immediate opinion is that the workspace looks very similar to Microsoft Word, without so many buttons. Matter of fact, the workspace looks kind of sparse, but with the basics covered. In contrast to w.bloggar, I don’t see any table options. We’ll have to see what I discover as I explore a bit more.

To cover all the bases, there are also the features available for general blog management like “updating weblog style”, trackbacks and other settings. One unique feature is the ability to insert Windows Live Maps. Something I just have to try:

Insertion of the map appears to be successful. With the ability to reference “bird’s eye” views through Microsoft Virtual Earth, the maps look nice, but the accuracy is questionable.

In a sceptical streak, I do hope the program doesn’t fudge up the code like other Microsoft applications tend to do. Time to post this and see!

Thanks to Andy at The lost outpost for the heads up on this program.

[tags]Windows Live Writer[/tags]

One of my few complaints about WordPress as a blog publishing platform is that the “visual rich editor” isn’t very powerful for formatting and manipulating text and/or HTML. While you can turn off this visual editor, I recently read a WordPress book where w.bloggar was recommended as a (free) option. w.bloggar 4.0, a desktop application used to edit blogs powered by WordPress, Blogger, MovableType and more than 10 other publishing platforms, offers a GUI environment for creating and editing blog posts. Free being one of my favorite things, I decided to give it a try. Matter of fact, this post is my first using that system!

w.bloggar Review

The current install version is 4.0. Setup is very straight forward. Just download the zip or exe, run the installer and start the program. It will prompt you for whether you want a new or have an existing blog, guide you through finding the xmlrpc.php file. (This is kind of “universal translator” code interface the default WordPress install puts in your root blog folder, allowing any program to be designed to pass information to and from a blog that’s live and online.) Enter your username and password and you’re in!

FORMATTING OPTIONS – Upon initial setup, you’re presented with a basic editor interface. There are clearly-marked places to enter your post’s Title and body copy. Of course, w.bloggar provides buttons to apply boldface, italicized, strikethrough and underlined text formatting to your text, as well as buttons for bulleting, linking and aligning. Except for the underline option, this is pretty well the same as WordPress. At first glance, I’m not really impressed. I do like that the program says it will output XHTML compliant code, but using traditional HTML attributes like targets, I’m not sure it’s truly 100% compliant. I also do like that nearly every option is tied to a keyboard shortcut (macro). For example, to underline text, you just press [CTRL]+U. These shortcuts are limited within WordPress.

It does appear there are more font face and size options readily available but (honestly) CSS should be used to set most of these things. On second thought, and CSS-purism aside, this is likely to be a very powerful feature for most users considering most non-technical users wouldn’t be the ones editing the CSS themselves.

So w.bloggar formatting? Eh, it’s ok. I have a feeling a quick search of WordPress plugins would turn up something with similar capabilities, though. Continuing the exploration…

HTML OPTIONS – Now we’re talking. Non breaking spaces, H1, H2, H3, hex colors, comments and more are readily available. Moreover, there’s a table button. Since
i) I, personally, am looking into changing the way I code tables from straight HTML to CSS; and ii) the native WordPress interface doesn’t have much to offer in the way of insertion/creation of tables, I’m interested to see how this feature works out.

TOOLS – This is where a few more features are offered, both basic and advanced. Options to publish to multiple blogs, adjust templates and upload files are placed along side of simple functions like blog properties and spell check. Good features, but I’m interested to see how subsequent versions of w.bloggar will expand the more “advanced” options.

In conclusion, I’m still 50/50 on the product. If I find a few plugins that emulate w.bloggar’s “unique” properties (like tables), it may make the program less useful. Time will tell.

Related Resources:

• w.bloggar site
• About.com general WordPress info
• WordPress formatting plugins

[tags]w.bloggar,wordpress,visual rich editor[/tags]

One of the first things I wanted to learn in WordPress is how to let people know that this site exists and update those sources with information about the articles here. What’s great is that WordPress provides one way to automatically do this whenever you blog: within the administration control panel, go to Options, then “Writing”. Down at the bottom, you’ll see an input box where you can enter “[tag]Update Services[/tag]“. These are sites that are automatically notified (or “[tag]pinged[/tag]“) when you write an article.

In a new blog installation, there’s usually one entry already there: http://rpc.pingomatic.com/. I’ve gathered a few more. They are:

http://api.feedster.com/ping

http://api.moreover.com/ping

http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping

http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc

http://ping.feedburner.com

http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

http://rpc.newsgator.com/

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

http://rpc.wpkeys.com/

http://signup.alerts.msn.com/alerts-PREP/submitPingExtended.doz

http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2

http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi

http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud

http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/

http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/

We’ll see how this feature adds to the promotional efforts behind this [tag]legal SEO blog[/tag]. More soon!

[tags]blogging basics, legal blog, letting people know about your blog, WordPress Update Services, pinging [/tags]

I’ve coded sites for years now but WordPress (the “personal publishing” software used to create CaseDetails.com) is new to me. I’m interested to learn more about leveraging its features to quickly get ideas online. More than that, I’m interested in learning to leverage its predictable heirarchies and code structure to break into the emerging “Web 2.0” community. In other words, this site is going to explore building, customizing and promoting weblogs – using this site as a test subject.

What do you think are the most important first things to know or learn about blogging? In my next few posts, I’ll talk about some of the basics of getting websites and/or blogs up and running. Moving into the future, we’ll get to the heart of the matter: getting your site noticed in the search engines!

Traditional [tag]search engine marketing[/tag] (paid advertising + natural optimization) are two important parts of an effective website marketing campaign. Another highly effective method is the [tag]weblog[/tag] aka “blog” or, in legal circles, I’ve heard “[tag]blawgs[/tag]” used lately.

Writing a [tag]legal blog[/tag] about your firm’s specialty area of practice is a good idea for a number of reasons. First, it allows a quick and easy way for non-technical partners and personnel to enter relevant, up to date opinions and information to educate clients. Next, it can significantly increase your firm’s online presence; blogs are monitored closely by consumers and search engine spiders, so a blog is often an easier way to get noticed in the search engine results pages than traditional [tag]SEO[/tag] methods. Finally, blogs allow Internet users to enter their own comments and easily associate your articles with other authorities on the subject… and an engaged visitor is one more likely to remeber your message and, perhaps, become a client.

If you’ve decided that your legal practice would benefit from publishing a [tag]law blog[/tag], the first natural question would be, “Ok, how do I set one up?” There are three feasible options for most legal firms: 1) hire an outside company to [tag]set up your blog[/tag], apart from your existing website; 2) use your existing technology personnel (or company) to integrate a blog into your existing website; or 3) set up a blog using a third party service like Blogger.com.

Hiring an outside company to set up your legal blog - there are a number of firms you can find online that can provide a blog to you on a fee per service basis. They will set up a stand alone blog for you and just tell you where to log in or, more likely, the blog will be packaged with part of a larger marketing package they wish you to purchase. Prices vary widely for these services so beware… get multiple quotes and go with a company you’re comfortable with. If they’re trying to sell you way more than you need or charge strange fees, trust your instincts. Another word of advice (and a segue to the next bullet points): go with a company that will willingly work with whatever website hosting/technology provider you’re currently using. A blog should be an integral part of your practice’s larger web strategy.

Using existing resources to implement - or, finding a 3rd party to work with your existing providers – this is usually the best idea. You want to make the blog a natural extension of your established website or, if your website is new, it needs to merge seamlessly with your graphic design and marketing message. Things as simple as matching fonts and colors do matter. What’s great is that this ultimately allows for the greatest flexibility and can be done for little or no cost. Talk to your current webhost or website management group. Ask them about blogging. It may surprise you that you can have your blog set up for no cost at all using open source software like WordPress. (Which, trust me, is very easy for tech personnel to set up… so don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.) Since WordPress is what we use at CaseDetails, and what I feel is the best way to publish and market your law blog, I’ll have a number of articles in the future on using WordPress for online [tag]legal marketing[/tag].

Use third party like Blogger.com – there are definitely advantages of using Blogger.com or another turn-key blog system. First of all, it’s free. Second of all, it’s easy. Third, the blogs there do get spidered and, therefore, indexed in search engine results pages quite well. But you do give up a lot of the flexibility in layout and integration that you get with the first two options. The good news is that if you start on Blogger.com, programs like WordPress have built-in utilities to import existing posts from your old site.

Make the choice to start your [tag]specialty blog[/tag], then decide how you’re going to get it online. Once these two decisions are made, the rest is a matter of doing what you do best: talk/write about your favorite area of practice!

seo for law firms

[tags]blog,blogging,lawyer,attorney,law firm marketing,start a blog[/tags]