Earlier this year, ProBlogger published a post discussing strategies for driving traffic to, and building a loyal readership for a new niche blog. We think it's a great resource for lawyers starting out with a new blog who either want to "own" their niche, or perhaps simply enhance their reputation for expertise among their peers and the media.
The first sentence says it all: "[t]he best way to build traffic for a new niche blog is to have lots of content and to post it regularly." Well, there's a bit more to it than that.
Elaborating further, ProBlogger recommends that, to help generate steady traffic and attract loyal readers, a blogger needs to develop a publication schedule consistent with his or her blogging objective, and then stick to it.
For instance, if you want to become a "rock star" in your niche (the "go to" resource, so to speak), then you need to aim to post new content every day (and maybe even more than once a day). The sheer amount of content that this frequency creates will eventually establish you as an authority in your niche subject (but see crucial distinction between "feature" posts and "quickie" posts further below).
Less ambitiously, if you simply want to develop a reputation for expertise and thought leadership among your peers and the media, then posting 2 to 3 times a week should work.
Simply looking for a creative outlet? Then post once or twice a week.
Adding a further nuance, ProBlogger notes that there are two kinds of posts: features and quickies (my term). Features are long posts that focus on a subject and develop it fully in an essay-like style.
In contrast, a "quickie" is a short post, generally 2-3 paragraphs in length, that can be digested quickly. For example, a short post might offer a blogger's "two cents" on some new development or trend, and then link to an article on a media website for the full story.
The distinction between features and short posts is actually quite critical since bloggers need to understand that they are actually publishing for two different audiences.
The first audience is Google (and other search engines to a lesser extent). To develop the search engine visibility necessary to drive increasing traffic to your law blog, frequency is key. This is because Google has a bias towards fresh content. So the more frequently you publish "niche" content to your blog, the more quickly Google will notice your blog, and start ranking it highly for search queries related to your niche.
But realistically, when striving for frequency, you're not going to be able to publish a new essay -- i.e., "feature post" -- each day. In fact, attempting to do so could easily lead to burnout (and keep you from other important work - like servicing clients). Instead, for purposes of attracting Google's attention, short posts published frequently should do the trick.
But then there's the second audience: your peers and the media. In terms of developing a reputation for expertise and thought leadership, frequent short posts offering only superficial treatment of various topics won't satisfactorily demonstrate the kind of deep mastery of your niche that sophisticated readers are looking for. For those folks, you need to periodically publish an "essay" that covers a subject thoroughly and demonstrates a grasp of nuances and meaningful analysis of complexities. Those are the kinds of posts that will earn you the respect of your peers and attract the attention of journalists looking for experts.
In terms of a ratio, Problogger says one or two features per week is more than adequate with the balance consisting of small posts published at a frequency consistent with your blogging objective (as per above).
Visit ProBlogger for the complete post on niche blogging strategies.
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