At the risk of sticking my nose in where it doesn't belong...

Jerry, I noticed your comparisons links to the various sites, and I
went to look at the results myself. I used Fedlawyerguy.org as an
example in the interest of time. Saying that it is linked to 92 other
sites is technically correct, but when you look at the actual results,
the numbers change. It turns out that 42 of those links are from one
site, Bag and Baggage; another 34 links are from your own websites --
netlawblog (31), fedlawyerguy (2), and elawyerblog (1). There are
actually only individual 10 sites linking to Fedlawyerguy (excluding
your own). I would imagine the percentages would be approximately the
same for the other two sites.

For a site that has only been up for 2 months, 10 links is great --
certainly few web design firms, let alone weblogs, can boast the same
after 2 months online. But all of the 10 links are weblog sites, and
we all know how "link-happy" webloggers can be. In fact, many blogs
throw up a link to my site in the hopes that I will respond in kind,
not because I have a special talent for legal research.

Don't get me wrong; I agree that weblogs can be (or already are??)
great marketing tools for lawyers. But as far as weblogs are
concerned, I'm not sure link popularity is an accurate measure of
marketing success. When you look at the links to the design firms you
listed, many of them are from sites that were designed by those firms
-- I think those serve as "instant references" -- otherwise, the
clients could choose not to create the link. In contrast, I just
don't think all the links to my weblog serve as "instant references"
-- many of them are webloggers saying "hey, cool weblog."

To me, the reputation of the blogger is likely to be a better
marketing draw for a lawyer than the number of links listed in Google.
I think the links to the design firms, on a link for link basis, say
more about the reputation of the designer than links to lawyer
weblogs say about a lawyer's reputation.

My two cents....

Tom


From: Jerry Lawson [mailto:lawson@...]
Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2003 1:52 PM
To: Network-Lawyers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [NetLawyers] More Instructive Comparisons



A preface is in order to make sure there's no misunderstanding:

Nothing I've said should be interpreted as meaning that Ms. Brown is
an
incompetent web site designer. That's not my point at all.

So far as I can tell, she is at least as good as the average designer,
and
possibly better than average. One thing she said that impressed me
was her
recommendation of Contribute. While Contribute is far from perfect,
it is
an improvement for people who are committed to using only conventional
web
sites. It was to Ms. Brown's credit that she recommended a product
that
would make life better for her clients but could cut into her profits
by
reducing billing for updates.

To emphasize the point that Ms. Brown is no worse than the average web
site
designer, let's do some testing of other web site designers, selected
at
random from the Open Directory. Again, all results are from Google,
as of
this afternoon:

http://www.poweradvocates.com (In business since 1999)
Linked to by 68 other sites.

http://www.sitelaw.com (In business since 1996)
Linked to by 87 other sites.

http://www.legalwebdesign.com (In business since 1998)
Linked to by 35 other sites.

In a way, this comparison is slanted in favor of the design firms,
since all
or most of them require their clients to build a link back to them,
thus
artificially inflating their totals.

Now, let's compare those professional sites, all done by skilled
graphic
designers, with three blogs that use basic free templates. The blogs
are
also at a disadvantage because they have only been around months, not
years:

http://www.netlawblog.com (Started January 1, 2003)
Linked to by 406 other sites.

http://www.elawyerblog.org (Started August 2, 2003)
Linked to by 119 other sites.

http://www.fedlawyerguy.org (Started August 2, 2003)
Linked to by 92 other sites.

Note further: the first three sites are all professional sites, run by
full
time workers with a heavy incentive to attract large numbers of
visitors.
By contrast, all three of the latter blogs are part-time affairs run
by
someone with a full time legal practice.

The bottom line: While not necessarily a wonder drug, blogs have
enormous
potential for legal marketing.

Jerry Lawson
http://www.netlawblog.com




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