Kevin O’Keefe in this recent post claims that blogs don’t belong “inside” a law firm website. What does this mean? Does this mean that the blog shouldn’t share the same url as the website? That it shouldn’t look from the outside world as if it is part of the law firm website? That it should be hosted by a proprietary firm that offers a specialized blog platform? And is this “rule” applicable to small firms which specialize in a specific niche and could use to drive traffic to their website by utilizing a blog?
Most of his ten reasons have to do with two issues:
1. Making sure the blog has a unique name and URL because that will build the blog’s brand. If its seen as “law firm blog,” it will not have as much credibility. That’s as easy as a re-direct URL and doesn’t require hosting a blog on a different platform.
2. That the blog needs a unique look and feel from the website. That can also be done from “within” the law firm website. See Shepard Mullin which has a “blog” page on its website that links out to the individually branded blogs. Now LexBlog hosts these blogs but the law firm could create these blogs itself with unique URLs and names and host the blogs as well.
Its too bad that many of Kevin’s excellent point get mushed into the vague concern about blogs being “inside” a law firm website.
Tags: Blogs, Linkedin, social networking
Reading Tea Leaves by Randy Wilson 
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