Page 45 - MASTER COPY LEADERS BOOK 9editedJKK (24)_Neat
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Leaders in Legal Business
Online Content Marketing - Blogs, Websites, and SEO Kevin O’Keefe 1
LexBlog
CEO
Blogging: Internet Networking to Build Relationships
Good lawyers get their best work via relationships and word of mouth — always have and always will.
The Internet has not changed this.
Blogging accelerates relationships and reputation. What may have taken a lawyer 15 or 20 years to
accomplish in professional and business development is being accomplished by good lawyers in two or three
years through blogging.
Take attorney Peter Mahler of Farrell Fritz, a mid-sized New York-based general practice law firm. He
generates 100 percent of his business from relationships he has built through blogging. Mahler’s New York
Business Divorce Blog, which focuses on business dissolution matters, has enabled him to build a national
reputation and a referral base that allows him to work on sophisticated
matters with high-quality clients.2
Building online visibility like this is imperative for driving
business development today.
Here are just four reasons why you may wish to consider
blogging.
• On average, nearly 60 percent of a typical B2B purchasing
decision is made before even having a conversation with the
provider.3
• Your future clients are Googling you. Seventy-eight percent of executive-level buyers go online to look
for legal counsel.4
• Your competition is already is already doing it. Attorneys from AmLaw 200 firms publish 660 blogs, a
71-percent increase in the last few years.5
• Be more profitable. The greater the proportion of leads generated online at professional services firms,
the greater their profitability.
If visibility meant getting seen, alone, every lawyer would have his or her face, name, and number on a
billboard on the side of the interstate. Visibility means something more for good lawyers. What do people discover
about you and your reputation when they ask around?
Online, people are looking for your insight and commentary, how other leaders in your field cite and share
what you have to say, how reporters are quoting you, and the conferences at which you are speaking.
Your law blog delivers this form of visibility.
1 Kevin O’Keefe is the founder and C.E.O. of LexBlog, a blog devoted to helping legal professionals establish networks, build online visibility, and create
organic interactions via their respective contributions. In addition to LexBlog, Kevin also founded Prairie Group Trial Lawyers, a virtual law group, after a
17-year tenure as a practicing attorney. He has a B.B.A. and a J.D., and has spent almost 20 years serving as a board member on two Wisconsin area
banks. Kevin’s grassroots approach to legal networking is the reason why LexBlog is one of the largest legal blogs in the world.
2 Peter Mahler, NEW YORK BUSINESS DIVORCE BLOG, http://www.nybusinessdivorce.com/.
3 Brent Adamson, et al, The End of Solution Sales, HARVARD BUS. REV. (July-August 2012), https://hbr.org/2012/07/the-end-of-solution-sales.
4 Burkey Belser, Heavy Executive Level Reliance On The Internet For Finding And Working With Professional Service Providers, GREENFIELD/BELSER
(December 12, 2010), http://www.greenfieldbelser.com/articles/heavy-executive-level-reliance-on-the-internet-for-finding-and-working-with-
professional-service-providers-.
5 AMLAW 200 REPORT, http://amlaw200.lexblog.com/ (last visited April 12, 2015).
38
Online Content Marketing - Blogs, Websites, and SEO Kevin O’Keefe 1
LexBlog
CEO
Blogging: Internet Networking to Build Relationships
Good lawyers get their best work via relationships and word of mouth — always have and always will.
The Internet has not changed this.
Blogging accelerates relationships and reputation. What may have taken a lawyer 15 or 20 years to
accomplish in professional and business development is being accomplished by good lawyers in two or three
years through blogging.
Take attorney Peter Mahler of Farrell Fritz, a mid-sized New York-based general practice law firm. He
generates 100 percent of his business from relationships he has built through blogging. Mahler’s New York
Business Divorce Blog, which focuses on business dissolution matters, has enabled him to build a national
reputation and a referral base that allows him to work on sophisticated
matters with high-quality clients.2
Building online visibility like this is imperative for driving
business development today.
Here are just four reasons why you may wish to consider
blogging.
• On average, nearly 60 percent of a typical B2B purchasing
decision is made before even having a conversation with the
provider.3
• Your future clients are Googling you. Seventy-eight percent of executive-level buyers go online to look
for legal counsel.4
• Your competition is already is already doing it. Attorneys from AmLaw 200 firms publish 660 blogs, a
71-percent increase in the last few years.5
• Be more profitable. The greater the proportion of leads generated online at professional services firms,
the greater their profitability.
If visibility meant getting seen, alone, every lawyer would have his or her face, name, and number on a
billboard on the side of the interstate. Visibility means something more for good lawyers. What do people discover
about you and your reputation when they ask around?
Online, people are looking for your insight and commentary, how other leaders in your field cite and share
what you have to say, how reporters are quoting you, and the conferences at which you are speaking.
Your law blog delivers this form of visibility.
1 Kevin O’Keefe is the founder and C.E.O. of LexBlog, a blog devoted to helping legal professionals establish networks, build online visibility, and create
organic interactions via their respective contributions. In addition to LexBlog, Kevin also founded Prairie Group Trial Lawyers, a virtual law group, after a
17-year tenure as a practicing attorney. He has a B.B.A. and a J.D., and has spent almost 20 years serving as a board member on two Wisconsin area
banks. Kevin’s grassroots approach to legal networking is the reason why LexBlog is one of the largest legal blogs in the world.
2 Peter Mahler, NEW YORK BUSINESS DIVORCE BLOG, http://www.nybusinessdivorce.com/.
3 Brent Adamson, et al, The End of Solution Sales, HARVARD BUS. REV. (July-August 2012), https://hbr.org/2012/07/the-end-of-solution-sales.
4 Burkey Belser, Heavy Executive Level Reliance On The Internet For Finding And Working With Professional Service Providers, GREENFIELD/BELSER
(December 12, 2010), http://www.greenfieldbelser.com/articles/heavy-executive-level-reliance-on-the-internet-for-finding-and-working-with-
professional-service-providers-.
5 AMLAW 200 REPORT, http://amlaw200.lexblog.com/ (last visited April 12, 2015).
38
