Blawg In A Box

That’s useful information to know, isn’t it?

Take a look at Stompernet’s new tool (note that you’ll have to opt-in in the form in the sidebar to get access to the site submission page) which shows you just what Google thinks your blawg is all about in terms of keywords.

Knowledge is power. Armed with this knowledge, you can adjust both your code and your blawg posts and other content to send the right message.

You might also like the free videos Stompernet is offering as well; there’s a lot of powerful information in there.

Here’s your answer: 27 blog posts all about the return on investment (ROI) of blogging for business purposes.

These posts were collected and reviewed by KoMarketing Associates on its blog along with selected quotes. Definitely worth a read.

One mistake a lot of new bloggers make (not just blawggers — bloggers of all stripes) is confusion between blogging and marketing. In other words, they think the blog is the marketing plan.

The problem with this approach is that blogging is just a tool — it’s a means to an end. Michael Martine at Remarkablogger recognizes this, in his recent post regarding a conversation he had with Brian Clark of Copyblogger fame:

What may be hard to take is that it’s not really about blogging at all. A blog is a tool. Just one tool, at that. That notion isn’t hypocritical or sacrilegious to me at all. I mostly write about business blogging, where the blog is a tool designed to further the goals of the business.

This is true of all business blogging, including blogging for your law business. (And please, let’s not revisit any tired old debates about whether law is a profession or a business, because we should all know by now that it’s both.)

So use your blog in your marketing plans but don’t depend on a blog alone for your marketing. Integrate that blog into your other activities. Put your blog URL on your business card. Use hard-copy prints of exceptional posts as direct-mail pieces. Videotape a client seminar, and put the video on your blog. Always, of course, make certain that your actions comport fully with your ethical rules.

I am informed by the two folks I retained to proof the e-book that there are technical issues they’re trying to research and resolve. I believe this relates to live hyperlinks, if I understand the issue correctly, and to security (i.e., making sure the download is secure for both you and me). I am told it will take 5-7 days to resolve, given their other projects and the length of the book.

I’m going back over the text myself to see if we can simply omit the links, and if that would be an acceptable change. I don’t know what I can do about the security issue beyond look into it myself, which I will do.

Further updates will be made when I have more information. I really appreciate your patience!

Brittanica Online is offering free one-year subscriptions for bloggers, webmasters, and writers who publish “regularly.” This is fabulous news for bloggers who need a more reliable source than Wikipedia for background and supporting quotes.

Fill out the form requesting access, and they’ll get back with you.

It’s out of my hands, and in the hands of the proofers, who tell me they’re working as furiously as possible to get it out. In the meantime, I thought you might find some usefulness in this excerpt from the Introduction, which discusses who the book’s for — and, more specifically, who it’s not for — and thus might help the undecided, well, decide.

Why I Wrote This E-Book, And Who I Wrote It For

Let’s first start with who this book is NOT written for. It wasn’t written for people who like to throw money at a problem and hope for the best. Nor was it designed to meet the needs of those who believe the most expensive solution is always the best. And if you’re the kind of person who is impressed by flashy cars, designer clothes, expensive furniture — or if you’re the kind of person who truly believes that’s what your clients expect from you — then this e-book probably isn’t for you, either.

It most definitely was not written for self-important lawyers who feel any measure of disdain for their clients. And it wasn’t written for anyone who isn’t willing to get their hands dirty digging in the garden, in a manner of speaking.

While large law firms can and should investigate blogging as a means of marketing their practices and keeping in touch with their clientele, this e-book isn’t written for them. Marketing a larger firm, through a blog or otherwise, requires a very different approach than for solos and small firms of 2 to 10 lawyers. For the Big Law folks (or, as my consumer bankruptcy colleagues affectionately call them, “the tall building lawyers”), the selling point must be the breadth and depth of resources, which is inapposite to the approach that’s best for solos and small firm practitioners — the “cult of personality” or the “sell yourself” approach, as it’s sometimes called. Parts of this e-book will be helpful to those tall building lawyers on their firm’s marketing committees, but the overall approach it advocates must be revised to something more appropriate for the larger entity and its unique assets (and liabilities).

Finally, while I’m a big fan of delegating certain tasks — even blogging tasks — to others, I have to say this: if you’re expecting to hand this book to your paralegal and let him or her do all the heavy lifting, then it’s not for you, either. In other words, if you have no intention and no interest in doing the work required — the daily blogging, the participation in other sites, the cultivation of “blog buddies” and the creation of your blawg community — then do yourself a favor: hire a web designer and a copywriter, and skip the blogging. It’s just not your cup of tea.

And that’s OK. It really is. Not everyone needs to blog in order to have a profitable, fulfilling practice. I have found utility in it for a number of reasons, which I share in chapter 1, but I’ve never once deluded myself into thinking that I could only have a successful practice if I blog. Nor would I ever suggest, state, or imply that anyone who chooses not to blog is a moron, a fool, blind, not as smart as those of us who do blog, or in any other way deficiently constituted as a person, a lawyer, or a business owner.

See, I’ve found one way to market my practice that makes sense. A lot of other lawyers feel the same way, and report similar experiences to mine. I happen to think it’s a particularly genius way to go about it, especially for solos and small firm lawyers — especially those strapped for cash. It’s effective. It reaches the right people with the right message. And it works. More importantly, the return on investment is literally incalculable. Sure you can (and should) track the folks who find you by your blog and to that extent, your ROI is capable of being articulated. But the real value of a blog, to my way of thinking, can’t be measured accurately, as it’s rooted in a market-wide (indeed, global) view of you, the blogger, as the expert in your practice area. What’s that worth to you? Only you can answer that question.

But if you’re the kind of person who would rather leave the marketing to someone else and who thinks the web is just a passing fancy — well, friend, this probably is not the e-book for you.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, who is this book written for? Well, it’s obviously aimed mainly at solo and small firm lawyers, particularly those who have limited marketing budgets and, as the saying goes, “more time than money.” It’s especially good for those who are comfortable expressing themselves in writing; for those who are better one-on-one than one-to-thousands in social settings; for those who are legitimately interested in their practice areas and didn’t just fall into them by default; for those who care about their clients and truly want to do more than just “earn the retainer” but also want to help make their clients’ lives a bit easier; for those who are interested in creating and managing their own images both as lawyers and as business owners; for those who just want more clients, or those who want more of the right kind of clients; for those who believe the right solution isn’t always the most expensive one; and for those who have no interest in spending more of any currency — time, effort, energy, or cold hard cash — than is absolutely necessary.

This is a highly targeted, effective, efficient method of marketing, but it requires effort and energy. You must permit yourself to become wholly invested and involved in this process, or it will not work. If you’re not willing to become this engaged in your blog, then you’d do well to adjust your expectations downwards.

Despite my level best efforts, Cheap & Brilliant Blawgging is not quite ready for prime time. I could let it out tomorrow, but I just can’t bring myself to do that without it being up to my standards. It needs to be proofed, and my proofreaders tell me that will happen no later than this Friday. Add on three days for a safety net, and we’re looking at Monday.

I do believe you’ll be pleased, and I hope you’ll think it’s worth the wait.

Update: Apparently there were some issues with MarsEdit, the blogging software I and many other Mac bloggers use to compose blog posts offline, and its compatibility with WordPress 2.5. According to this post at The Blog Herald, that’s been fixed. I can happily report I haven’t had any issues with WordPress and Mars Edit after the update of each — they seem to get along quite well.

I’ve been working with WordPress 2.5 for a few days now, and am ready to report back on what the new release is really like.

Dashboard Improvements

First, the dashboard. Don’t let the underplayed descriptions on the WordPress blog fool you. This is a greatly redesigned dashboard, both in look and function. And while it took some time to get used to it, I admit, it’s an improvement.

I also love the new feature that allows you to change your permalink without radically altering your normal architecture across the board.

Overall, it’s a much cleaner appearance, which makes it easier to compose, I think

Images

Working with images is greatly improved as well, although it requires some getting used to. Formerly, the upload box was on the same page as the post editor. Now, it’s a pop-up box that allows you to work with each file individually. There are many more options for working with your images, too — from changing the URL, adding a new size (medium) to the old options of thumbnail and full sized, to (best of all) automatic positioning. Check it out:

Posting

The post editor is pretty nifty. The same old code buttons (or, if you use the visual editor, the formatting buttons) are there, but there’s that “add media” function now, which makes adding podcast files or images a snap. Then on the right, the “Related” list shows the most commonly used tasks (managing comments, managing all posts, managing categories, etc.).

Below the post editor box, there are tools for working with tags, categories, and all the other tools you’re used to — except now they’re below the post, out of the way, leaving a more uncluttered working space.

Bottom Line: Thumbs UP

Way, way up. Kudos to the WordPress team for a wonderful release.

A fellow site writer for the About.com company forwarded to me this article from our parent company, the New York Times. It was of such import that I feel compelled to share it with all my BIAB readers.

In the article, the growing problem of bloggers’ unhealthy working conditions and lives is explored, especially in the context of two recent high-profile deaths:

Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.

Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.

While blawggers are obviously approaching their blog tasks quite differently from those tech-oriented and political bloggers, we’re all still susceptible to the same stresses. No, we’re not blogging at 2 in the morning or (hopefully) falling asleep in front of the screen. But we have this whole other professional life to boot as lawyers, and for many of us, as business owners, too.

My readers mean too much to me. Please make sure you’re:

• Blogging productively. Use software and common sense to organize your posts and adhere to a schedule that will help you save time and keep repetitive tasks to a minimum.
• Getting sufficient rest. Not at your desk, mind you — in a real bed, with a pillow and everything, for at least 6 to 8 hours a night.
• Eating well. Forget diets and supplements (except a good multivitamin) — just aim for a balanced diet as full of low-on-the-food-chain foodstuffs as possible.
• Exercising regularly. Take a daily walk at lunch or before bed or when you get up in the morning — whatever works best for you.

When stress starts eating away at your psyche and your well-being, go into what I call “emergency maintenance mode” and practice extreme self care. All non-essential projects and tasks are put on hold or delegated. No new tasks are accepted. Daily meditation and a general attitude of forgiveness towards oneself for all the myriad things you’re not doing are requisite. Gentle, easy mind-body practices like yoga and tai chi are especially good, but only if you’re not going to beat yourself up over how you’re doing it, or how frequently.

Bottom line:: Don’t become another sad statistic. Be proactive and recognize the danger that lurks inside — our own perfectionism and need to excel.

WordPress 2.5 was released last week, and the question arises: Should I upgrade my blawg?

Short answer: Yes. Here’s a longer answer.

New Features in 2.5

You can read all about the new release and its features and improvements over prior versions here at teh WordPress Blog. What follows is a brief summary.

The first thing to realize is that this is not a baby-step release. These are some serious improvements! Many new features have been introduced, and lots of improvements from small to huge will make for a more pleasant blogging experience all the way around.

Some of those features are:

• Support for salted passwords
• Cookie encryption
• Full screen editing
• Vastly improved visual post editor
• Built-in galleries
• Dashboard widgets and a cleaner “less cluttered” appearance for the dashboard

And much more — you can see a 4 minute screencast of the various new features here.

If you’re wondering what a salted password is, by the way, this Wikipedia article offers a pretty good, if somewhat technical, explanation.

Should I Care?

While much of these improvements are going to be beyond the ken (or caring) of many bloggers, including blawggers who don’t care how the engine works — they just want to get where they want to go! — some of the new benefits are pretty valuable. Consider “plugin upgrades” about which Matt writes:

[I]f the plugins you use are part of the plugin directory since 2.3 we’ve told you when they have an update available. Now we take that to the next logical step — downloading and installing the upgrade for you. This is dependent a little bit on your host setup, and it may ask you for your FTP password much like OS X or Windows will ask you for a password, but it works well on majority of hosts we were able to test, your mileage may very, plugins in mirror may be larger than they appear.

Also, consider the joys of a “friendlier visual post editor” about which Matt writes that he isn’t sure how to phrase this exactly except to say “it doesn’t mess as much with your code anymore.” Descriptive enough for me! Most bloggers have had this experience with a WYSIWYG editor (which is what the WordPress visual editor is): you blockquote a paragraph, but then can’t get beyond the blockquote to write your own thoughts without going into the Code itself and physically placing the cursor after the closing tag. Or you try to insert a hard return between bulleted items, as good formatting dictates, but when you post it all ends up crammed together. This release should alleviate much of that tedium.

There’s a new built-in gallery option for images — I’m not sure this will be highly useful for most blawggers, but I do think blawggers can as a group utilize images much more than they currently do. For some of you, this might be just the ticket to distinguish your blog from your competitor’s site!

Upgrade Information

The Codex (which was also improved with this release) has everything you need to know to get started with your upgrade process. Just remember to backup your blog before you start. And for super-easy upgrading, might I suggest a plugin called WordPress Automatic Upgrade? Makes the whole process much simpler, including the essential backup of your blog pre-upgrade.