Observed

Dan Toombs is a lawyer and law firm marketing guru based in Australia. His podcast has thousands of listeners worldwide.

I’ve been invited to participate in an upcoming podcast produced by the Australian lawyer and self-styled change agent, Dan Toombs.  The subject of my interview will be best practices for on-line attorney bios, and I’ll be featured on Dan’s law firm marketing podcast site.

Here’s what Dan said to me:

Doug, really liked your recent guest video post on Larry’s site, and would love to interview you for the podcast on how Attorneys should configure and promote their bio’s. Would only need 20 – 30 minutes of your time.  Although I broadcast from Australia, my subscriber list has approximately 600 US Attorneys and Practice Managers and a strong listenership on iTunes.

More as I know more.

Take a look at this infographic from Brafton’s Katherine Griwert.  It makes a compelling case for the importance of quality content to drive organic traffic.

The trick is in defining quality.  Google’s Amit Singhal and other experts aren’t quite as clear on this point, except to say that the search engines are looking for sites that create a “positive user experience” and that the path to that is through quality content.

In a nutshell, that means copy that’s engaging and that gets to the point.

What I offer my Web content clients is that search engines like the same things that people tend to like.  So…

• Keep things short.  250 words is plenty long for anything you might call a page.
• Use bullets, paragraph breaks, bold type and other formatting tools to break up your text.  If it looks long, it won’t get read…much less remembered.
• Headlines and subheads are huge.  Think of them as if they’re billboards…and your readers are moving 80 miles per hour.
• Tell your story.  Readers come to a professional service provider sites to find someone who a) can fix their problem, b) make their lives easier and c) clients will like working with.  Consider deploying brief client success stories, what you do other than work and the like.
• Face the client.  Make your copy about your client whenever possible and NOT all about you.  Not only is client-centric content more engaging, but it will set you way apart from your competition.

See?

PS:  A tip of the hat to Larry Bodine for posting this story.

When I build a bio page for an attorney, I remind them that getting picked is an emotional process, at least in part. That’s why it’s important to let visitors to your page know they’re dealing with someone who’s more than a list of impeccable credentials.

Carl Aveni, a litigator based in Columbus, Ohio, agrees. Take a look at this recent clip:

Making your bio like a personal story will also make it more readable and set you apart.

PS:  Thanks to Larry Bodine for sharing this clip with me.  Plus, there’s a related post at http://doug-stern.com/blog/2010/11/19/people-buy-from-people/.

My guess is that this would get my attention. Even in a hurry-up busy airport. Which is the point. When the point is to get found...and, maybe, be remembered.

There are a couple lessons from the Bingham law firm’s airport billboard.

1. The first is that you must have an awesome image to arrest the eyes of the reader-visitor-viewer.  This one does that.
2. The other it to keep things brief.  Seven words or less.  That goes for billboards as well as headlines.  At nine words, this one’s close.

Remember that ads mostly scratch the get-found part of the itch.  They’re cognitive, left-brained creations.

A couple days ago, I posted something about the importance of engaging your reader-listener-visitor.  This clip is the second in a series of three I produced to complement an article of mine, “The KILLER BEs:  Strengthening Your Business Development Writing.”  Larry Bodine posted it on his LawMarketing Portal.

Once upon a time, I used to know something about client events.  Actually, I used to get some very good advice from someone who knew something about orchestrating events, especially when there was a bar in the vicinity.  (Yep, she worked for President Reagan.)

One of the pieces of advice I remember best about such events was to have servers pass trays of drinks to arriving guests.  Giving a guest a drink (alcoholic or otherwise) to hold immediately helped put them at ease.

In other words, it got the new guest engaged. (more…)

Here are my three sets of better-writing guidelines:

In a nutshell, they tone down business writing. And, tighten it up…particularly for lawyers.

Remember that you’re not always writing a brief. Converse and empathize. Don’t (always) try to impress.

#1: Be thematic

This is the framework for everything. It’s a discipline that transcends conciseness or clarity. Being thematic demands that every document, paragraph, sentence and word serve a purpose. Find it.

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