This year, I’ve created a lot of websites for legal professionals, and almost all of them ask me to include a blog (for those who don’t know, a blog is included in my standard rate for every web design). I give all of them the same lecture – the only thing worse than no blog is a “dead” blog – so be serious about whether you will really maintain it before I put it in your site menu.

I tell them about WordPress’ fabulous delayed publication feature, which allows you to write several posts in a single sitting and schedule them to publish at a later date – you don’t have to blog weekly to have a blog post published weekly. Everyone seems really excited…but when I check back in on my clients’ websites…the blog still says, “Hello World!” – the dreaded first default post issued by WordPress.  Nothing else.

Kudos to Shakeal Masoud and Matthew Dunaway for keeping active legal blogs going – but for the rest of you…

Practice marketing guru Jay Fleischman just published a killer post on his Legal Practice Pro blog – 4 Reasons Legal Blogs Die And 5 Ways To Succeed. If you’re not reading Jay, you’re not doing everything you can to learn about marketing your practice on the Internet. Read and subscribe to Legal Practice Pro and The Untethered Lawyer. Jay tells it like it is and pulls no punches, and you’ll learn a ton of stuff you didn’t even know you needed to know about how to stand out from the crowd – but the truth is, it’s really up to you.

Happy Halloween!