Having a niche blog can be a sort of double-edged sword: You can corner the market with the audience, but there’s no one around to guide your way. That wasn’t a problem for Vorys’ internet defamation removal attorneys.
When the niche practice area developed a couple years ago, lots of ideas were floated by the attorneys in the group as to how they might market themselves. But pretty quickly, a blog became the clear answer.
“Our specific practice area deals with internet law, so we knew it was really important to have an internet presence,” said Colleen M. Devanney, one of the co-editors of the Internet Defamation Removal Attorneys blog. “That’s what we do, and where our clients are, by our very nature. So specific to our practice this was the avenue that we’re operating first, to be out there, and second to have a presence that showed our experience.”
And though the blog has only been live for about two and a half years, it certainly does show their experience. Their niche area touches on various aspects of the law, from SEO manipulation, to public disclosure of facts, to competing online marketing tactics, to false online statements. Meaning the attorneys get to showcase a whole lot of talent in a whole lot of areas. 
Which is good, because while clients in their line of work typically are seeking answers about a specific issue, handling that as a lawyer can take one down a whole lot of avenues. Which means during their time blogging, the Internet Defamation Removal Attorneys blog has come to reflect the changes that guide the lawyers’ day-to-day work.
“We’ve been directed or more narrowly tailored in terms of what we’re seeing and what types of clients are finding us [through the blog]…General people who find us through our blog or website, they’re excited to read something that dealt with their specific issue. It’s not just an internet lawyer, they know about this specific website and my problem,” said Devanney, who says it’s very common to get calls from readers looking for representation. “They search for that and they find our blog.”
According to Devanney, their content typically falls into one of two buckets: Either it’s the type of cases they’ve been seeing—trends, certain websites, strategies they’ve seen work—or just by monitoring news sources, and keeping track of what’s happening. Given the amount of information and experience they encounter every day, that can be a lot of information building up. But as any blogger knows, turning that into a consistent blog is easier said than done. And for Devanney and the team, she says it took a bit of learning.
“50 and 60 year old lawyers don’t have the experience reading the internet and finding blogs the same as a 25-year old would,” said Devanney, who says when they were looking for new attorneys they made a conscious effort to find some who were versed in journalistic writing. “It’s not a law review article; we have a more general audience that disucsses these issues that deal with the law, that are online and affect everyone…Our blog has that journalistic tone, versus reading a legal publication that the normal person wouldn’t read or even would want to.”
But people are definitely reading the Internet Defamation Removal Attorneys blog. Devanney says it’s a very common occurrence to hear from a potential client or even other attorneys looking to get insight on the matter. They have a regular website too, but according to Devanney it’s the blog that really highlights their niche.
“We’ve gotten really good feedback that a good way to make those types of connections is to have them realize that we’re the experts in this field,” said Devanney.
That may be why the blog already has a sister blog, the Online Seller Enforcement blog. After all, people are always looking for more from a niche. And the Internet Defamation Removal Attorneys team will keep supplying.
“But we’re keeping the content fresh, always on the lookout for relevance,” said Devanney. “When it first started we had all this experience and background to make posts about. As time goes on, you’ve already [built up a knowledge base]…It’ sinteresting for us to put our voice on these issues.”