Not always a fan of Avvo’s ideas (like the nasty Avvo Answers), this seems to be a great fit for Avvo, neither competing with its proclaimed core mission of providing the consumers of legal services with unbiased information about lawyer nor pushing ne’er-do-well lawyers to provide bad information to people who pay what it’s worth to get their name highlighted.
What’s most interesting about the concept is how Avvo has set itself up as the low-priced alternative to Kevin O’Keefe’s Lexblog.
With Avvo Blogs, you can blog for less than $1 per day. You shouldn’t have to spend a truckload to showcase your expertise in a professional manner.
Many companies will try to sell you “more-effective” blogging technology for thousands of dollars per year, but few bloggers will need such a fancy blog. Think of blogging like buying a suit. You can spend thousands of dollars on a custom-made suit, or you can buy one off the rack at Macy’s that your client’s will love just as much. Clients will focus on the brains in the suit, not whether you have hand-stitching on your lapel.
There are already blogging programs out there for free or low priced, substantially lower than the marketing chestnut of $1 a day, but they have plenty of drawbacks and require the blogging lawyer to put in the effort to make it work for a legal blogger. In contrast, Kevin offers customization that will make the blog of the worst lawyer in town look like a winner. It’s a fascinating conundrum, pitting the cheap generic against the finely tailored suit. If you’re a lawyer who is intent on blogging for business, which one should you go for?
Some may feel that the cheap generic approach is a poor reflection of their practice. As Avvo blogs catches on, and more of them appear, it stands to reason that the generic appearance of your blog will become immediately apparent, and make you seem inordinately common. But you get what you pay for, and not everybody is prepared to pay for the good stuff.
Of course, these are programs and templates. Nobody offers a blog that anyone will care to read. That part’s up to you. If you’re boring or flaky, no program is going to help. If you’re a flagrant marketer, the most perfectly tailored suit won’t fit. And if you just don’t bother to put in the effort to create worthy content, a dollar a day is money in the toilet.
For the record, I’ve been hanging out in the blawgosphere for a while now, and have watched a lot of blawgs come and go. Most lawyer’s don’t have it in them to keep a blawg alive. They start out all full of energy, then slowly peter out until one day they simply disappear. It’s happened with some pretty good blawgs. It’s happened with some truly awful blawgs. Most blawgs fall into the latter category.
If you think that your marketing effort might not merit the big bucks, but are willing to take a chance for a dollar a day, then you’re the guy Avvo Blogs is looking for. Just don’t sign up for too long a stretch if you really aren’t all that interested in blogging, or if you’re sole purpose is getting great new cases and making tons of money. You’re unlikely to be the sort of person who can keep it going for the long hall, and it’s not likely that the blog is going to bring in enough business to pay for itself, no less make you fabulously wealthy. But for a $1 a day, at least it won’t break the bank.
And as a parting thought, my blawg is about as low rent as it gets as far as appearance and programming go. But it hasn’t held me back.
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Maybe it’s just my own paranoia, but I think renting online space to enhance the perception of my expertise from the same company that will post any comment from any “former client” and proudly display a fluctuating numerical ranking of my professional worth… I don’t know. Seems dangerous.
It’s got to be better than Avvo allowing your competition to put up paid advertising on the same page that shows your free profile and numerical rating.