Does your firm blog? Does Google know it?? I’ve been traveling and pretty busy, as many of you know, and I’m catching up on different posts and what’s happening in the industry. Now that Mad Men is over for the season, I need to find my inspiration elsewhere. Guest blogger Jon Ivanco‘s post,  Dear Law Firms: Stop Hiding Your Blogs, caught my eye over on Adrian Dayton‘s blog, Marketing Strategy and the Law – Social Media Edition.

Last week I was tasked with creating a list of all the blogs that were run by AmLaw firms numbered 101-200.  I visited every firm’s website one by one to see what blogs they were currently publishing to the public.  This was a nightmare.  Blogging by and large is not prominently displayed on the vast majority of their websites. The concept behind creating content for people to read and gain knowledge relies on their ability to find it.  Content should be easily accessible when navigating these websites.  It does not strike me as being too difficult to accomplish this; every website had a newsletter or publications tab, yet only about one third of the sites had a direct link to their blog(s).

A lot of firms are still hiding their blogs, if they have them. I don’t understand the reasoning behind this, but if you write it, don’t you want them to read it?? It’s like making the office locations part of a treasure hunt. I know you want your firm’s website to be cool and all original, but why hide the office locations?? I don’t get it. My firm doesn’t make the AmLaw 200, or the NLJ 250 … but did we pass the test?? The Google Test?? Do this:

  1. Google your firm.
  2. Look at the results.
  3. Is a link to your blogs in the results?

If not, you need to fix your website. As for my firm … we passed with flying colors! Phew.