The word blog is a shorter version of the term weblog. It's a Web site that is easily updated on a regular basis, has a high concentration of repeat visitors, has its content pushed to subscribers by RSS (really simple syndication) or email and allows for response and discussion from site visitors.

Well-run legal blogs usually focus tightly on one niche area of the law and/or jurisdiction. The aim is to provide the legal blog's readers with a constantly renewing source of news and insight about that topic.

The publisher of a legal blog is generally an individual lawyer or a practice group in a law firm.

A legal blog establishes its author as a reliable, helpful authority on the subject matter, and builds and enhances the reputation of its publisher. Visitors often come to rely on information from the legal blog for quality information and commentary. For professional businesses, like lawyers, achieving this level of loyalty among visitors, the monetary rewards can be great.

What makes up a legal blog?

A Web site

That's the basis of a legal blog -- a Web site. What sets it apart from much of what you see online is the fresh content, chosen and published regularly by a trusted online source. In real life, you have friends or colleagues you always call when you need a reliable answer about some particular topic. Legal blogs are kind of like that -- only there's often much more detailed info, and it's available round the clock.

Most legal blogs online now have a log appearance with new entries placed at the top and a set of links along the side pointing to similar sites or legal blogs. That's because blogging software templates people have used create pretty standard, similar-looking legal blog pages. However, legal blogs can be created to look and function like the most sophisticated Web site. And blogs come up in search engines just like Web pages.

A real-person feel

A legal blog tends to become closely identified with the lawyer or practice group who creates it. Readers get an honest feel for the person(s) behind the legal blog, and form a stronger bond with the blog publisher than with a law firm that publishes a Web site.

Easy updates

Adding a post to a legal blog is as easy as writing an email. You type or paste info into a box and click a button -- just like that, it's up on the net and syndicated to your audience. It's equally easy to format text or add links to other sites and info.

Frequent updates

This is an enormous benefit of legal blogs. How often have you gone to a law firm site and found that there's nothing new or that it's simply not up to date? Online, content is king, and legal blogs are fabulously content-rich.

Good blogs serve as a 'Web filter' for news, information and resources on a particular topic, and updates can occur a few times a week or even daily. With consistent fresh content, readers become habitually tied to your site and your blog will perform much better in the search engines.

Highly focused on one subject or theme

While there are many personal blogs online that are like journals of all aspects of the author's life, legal blogs are a completely different story. Legal blogs project an articulate, informed image and provide genuinely useful content on a very specific topic.

There are blogs about specific areas of the law, science, medicine or business. Content is timely, and commentary is from an authoritative source. The more topic-focused, the more the correct audience will discover and read your legal blog. With good, tightly focused content and high traffic, law firm blogs get high rankings in search engines.

High concentration of repeat visitors

You and your legal blog provide something very valuable to current clients, prospects, the public and the media: a constant watch on particular topic. Your legal blog does the work, compiling and passing along updates as they occur -- and for visitors with some vested interest in your topic, this brings them back again and again. Email or syndication can alert them to new posts on the blog.

Content pushed to subscribers by RSS (really simple syndication) and email

As opposed to a static law firm Web site that only works if someone happens to show up or remember to check back, your legal blog content is syndicated or pushed to your readers through a "news-feed" reader on your audience's computer or via their email just like as done by news sites throughout the net.

Interaction and feedback from readers

If you wish, you can give your readers the ability to respond to your posts and to one another. This builds a sense of community and loyalty to the legal blog, and adds to the legal blog's content and variety of viewpoint. Both these benefits increase the legal blog's relevance for search engines.