Constant Content : Legal Ghostwriting & Content : Janet Raasch : Copy for Lawyers & Attorneys, Law Firm Business Development

When I ran into Aviva Cuyler and Adrian Lurssen of JD Supra at the 2010 Legal Marketing Association Annual Conference last week, I made a rash declaration.

After a year and a half, my own blog finally shows up number one (instead of number two) in a Google search for my own name.  I've finally succeeded in pushing you guys -- and my JD Supra profile -- into second place.  Ha!

I should have known better.  When I did a search on "Janet Ellen Raasch" this morning (which every professional should do weekly as routine brand maintenance), my JD Supra profile was back in first place and my blog back in second.  Those folks at JD Supra are a competitive bunch!  They stated that "they had their ways" to get back into the number one spot, and they did!

JD Supra is a Web site (free for basic service) where lawyers and law firms can share profiles and legal content,  It is without a doubt the best-optimized site I've ever come across -- ahead of better-known sites like Facebook and LinkedIn.  Your free profile (and associated content) on JD Supra is almost guaranteed to come up first in search for your name -- ahead of the bio that appears on your law firm's Web site.  Take advantage of this!

Every professional services provider should "own" the first page of results for a search on his or her name.  Create a keyword-rich profile and post it on social network and content sites like JD Supra.  Post articles and samples of your legal work on these sites as well.  This simple exercise will help you control and manage the results of any online search for your name.

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I didn't post a "fresh" blog entry last week because I am currently devoting one hour a day to tedious -- but extremely important -- blog housekeeping tasks.  I have 115 blogs and Web sites on my aggregator.  Each day, I am methodically adding ten links to those blogs to this relatively new blog of mine -- and then individually contacting the authors to let them known that I subscribe to their blogs and have added a link to them on my own blog.  I am then requesting that they take a look at my blog and, if they find it useful, subscribe and link in return.

I am halfway through this process and it seems to be working well!  My site statistics continue to improve each day, as do the Google results for my blog.  The blog itself has finanlly surpassed my LinkedIn profile (although not yet JDSupra).

When it comes to blogging, "The bee that gets the honey doesn't hang around the hive" is a much better slogan than "If you build it, they will come."  They won't come unless they know you are there.

If you want good results for your blog or other social media site, you have to "work" it -- making sure that links to your site appear on other sites and making sure that other prominent bloggers know that you exist and are regularly monitoring (and perhaps commenting on) your posts.  You want to return the favor by mentioning and commenting on their posts as well.

Time for online spring cleaning!

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