Google Alerts + Your Blog & Website = You Are An Informed Expert
If you keep up with what Google is posting on their blog, then you are already ahead of most of your competing law firms. Many firms don’t pay attention to the latest news on the web until it’s too late and by then the latest big recall is on the evening news and their competitors are already miles ahead of them.
Many experienced law firms stay ahead of the game by keeping their ear to the tracks, to see if they can hear the next big case coming. Maybe they check CNN or their favorite news outlet on a daily basis for drug recalls, or food poisoning stories, but there is an even easier way to keep up with relevant web content and the latest recalls. I’m talking about Google Alerts.
Google Alerts is not new, but it is certainly underutilized. It’s a free tool that lets you receive emails showing you new results on a given topic. For example, let’s say you are an attorney that takes food recall cases and defends clients who were poisoned by those foods. You might set up a Google Alert on “Food Recall” or “Food Poisoning” and have those new results emailed to you when they become available. So now, instead of browsing several news sites each day trying to stay on top of the latest recalls, you can just check your alerts via email and see all the relevant new content on that subject.
OK, so now you have the alerts set up. What do you do with them? You stay ahead of the competition of course! You make posts about the recalls to your blog before your competitors can. You talk about what it means for clients and their families. Post about what they can do if they think they might have been affected. Post about what they should do to protect themselves, what their rights are, what the company responsible is doing to rectify the situation and all those other informative topics that present you as a knowledgeable and “up-to-date” law firm.
Why stop with only a blog post? You can also send out a series of press releases, develop new content for your website with information about the recall, start a targeted pay-per-click campaign, or, if you have some decent recording equipment (easily affordable these days), you could even do a Youtube video where you present your expertise on the latest recall and what people should do if they are affected.
Blogs are becoming more integrated into search engine results, but are still often underutilized by law firms. Stay ahead of the competition by having your own blog. Keeping your site up to date regularly with your own custom content, videos and articles about the latest news is a great way to get search visibility while showing your visitors that you are knowledgeable and competent in your area of legal expertise.
