Blogging "Do"s and "Don't"s

This week I came across a whole bunch of articles and posts on blogging, so I thought I'd share some of them with you.

First, Morgan Smith of Cogent Legal posted some blogging tips from a panel he participated in at the recent Legal Marketing Technology Conference/West in SanFrancisco. The panel's tips include:

Successful blogs consist of high quality, original posts at least weekly
Quote or cite reporters covering your area of law or blog topic - they may start following you and quote you back
Anticipate potential clients' questions and create blog posts that answer them
Use the 'related posts' plug in (if your blog has one) to keep visitors on the site and engaged
Track analytics to see which posts get the most traffic and write more on those topics
Remember that in addition to attracting potential clients, blogs can lead to speaking engagements and other writing assignments, not to mention relationships with thought leaders and other colleagues.

Next up, from the Inbound Marketing Blog comes the 7 Worst Business Blogging Mistakes You Need to Avoid (and I admit that my blog makes some of them). I recommend you read the post for the whole list, but these are some of the common mistakes I see lawyers making from his list:

Not writing often
Over-optimizing for search (write for human beings - it makes a better impression on web visitors and won't get you penalized by Google or other search engines for trying to "game" the system)
Not including calls to action in blog posts (tell your reader what you want them to do next, whether it's leaving a comment, checking out another post or a particular page on your site or taking action on your advice)

And from Boostblogtraffic.com, 12 Blogging Mistakes that Make You Look Like a World-Class Idiot warns bloggers not to: