Self-proclaimed FLMA nerd Jeff Nowak chose his niche 10 years ago and hasn’t looked back. He sits down with LexBlog’s Bob Ambrogi on This Week in Legal Blogging to discuss his blog, FLMA Insights, and offer advice on starting to blog.

Here’s the full episode and, down below, we have a selection of the best exchanges.

Episode Summary

Jeff begins the episode talking about what got him into blogging. He had gotten into the swing of practicing law but needed something that would keep his interest for the foreseeable future—and that’s when FLMA Insights was born. Passion is one of the most important components to not only gaining a readership but to staying invested in the blog. Jeff speaks to how his career would be different if he’d never started blogging and advises against focusing on SEO.

You started blogging, I think about 10 years ago. And how did you get interested in it? How did you get started in it?

I was in the same boat that so many other attorneys are in when you are about six to eight years out of law school. At that point, you realize, okay, I can practice law. How am I going to survive at this for another 30 years? How is this going to keep my interest for decades to come? And so for me, it was the niche of delving into FMLA. I decided this is what I wanted to get into, this is how I was going to make myself valuable, and an area that I really enjoyed. But how do you then turn that into a career? Luckily for me, I’ve always enjoyed public speaking. I’ve enjoyed writing. So it started out actually with podcasts. And so we did podcast for a while and really enjoyed it. I remember that moment, had to be toward the end of 2009, I went to my to my colleague who I started the FMLA blog with and said, “Hey, did you ever hear of this thing called blogging? I think there’s something to it. I think we should start up an FMLA blog.” He thought I was crazy. But I stuck with it and met with Kevin O’Keefe in early 2010. I didn’t really know what I was getting into other than I knew that I enjoyed writing and I wanted to. In blogging, I was taking a concept that I loved—the FMLA—and I was marrying that concept with really two things, my love for writing and the desire to help people solve problems like that. That’s what my vision for the blog was, to write and to be able to help people with their problems.

As you were getting started, how did you start to get the blog going, and how did you start to build up a readership and get into a routine around it?

You have to start with passion and perseverance, you know, those were the things that helped me through the first couple of years. I knew I had a passion for what I was doing. And I guess this is advice for for the young kids out there that are starting to think about blogging. Find something that you’re passionate about, I knew that I was passionate about this area of the law. So the passion for the topic and writing kind of helped me through but it was a it was a dedication to, you know, X number of posts per month. And I had a goal of getting four posts a month up on the blog, as simple as that. It had to be practical for me. So any blog post to kind of get me through those first couple of years, it had to solve people’s problems.

At what point did you start to realize you’ve got something here that people were noticing it that you’re getting some attention for this?

There came a point about three years in where I was retained by a national airline and it was incredible at that point, for me to realize that they didn’t hire me because I had a blog, but they had followed me for quite some time and they learned that they had in me someone they could trust, someone who  knew what he was talking about in the area—or at least BSing his way through it enough for them to appreciate that. But they found someone that they could trust and they wanted to give me a shot at helping them through some of the leave issues they were dealing with at the time. So it became clear to me at that point, I guess that was a moment for me. It became clear to me at that point that I was connecting with people in a way that they found trustworthy enough to to start sending their questions my way.

To this day, what do you do to build awareness and build an audience for your blog?

Well, when you when you have a blog, and you spend, so much time on it, the worst thing you can do is to draft your article, put it on your blog, and then shut it down. You don’t touch anything else. You don’t engage in a further discussion about that. It’s like hitting a home run in baseball and stopping at first base. It was through largely through LinkedIn that helped me amplify that message to appeal to a mass audience. It allowed me at the time and even today to engage in authentic communications with people that I care to interact with. Building up this blog and in broadcasting it through social media, you really start to become that trusted voice that people can believe in and and then start coming to you for with with their practical issues that they’re dealing with. So social media is just so critical.

How might your career be different today if you hadn’t been blogging?

I would be far less satisfied with with with my career with the practice of law. In 10 years of blogging, I’ve  found just wonderful content, connections with people on a professional level that I otherwise wouldn’t have had. I’ve been able to help people, many of whom are never going to hire me. That has been, I guess, the lasting effect of being a blogger. And for me, that’s been the most rewarding thing is to realize that in blogging, I’m now helping people. At this point in my blogging experience, to help people I don’t anticipate that I’m going to ever get any business out of what I just drafted at midnight last night, and I posted first thing this morning, but I do know that my experience in this area is going to help employers in a practical way. That to me is the most satisfying part of being a blogger.

How do you define your own success as a blogger?

I’ve never once looked at SEO, I’ve never once looked at how my URLs are shaping up to someone else’s. Look, just write what you believe in and what you’re passionate about and that SEO will come with that following. Don’t spend your time worried about what the stats or the data look like. Do it because you want to do it and you want to help people and all of that other stuff is going to come with it. You’re going to gain that trust, you’re going to gain the clients, you’re going to gain the SEO over over time.

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Photo of Michelle Newblom Michelle Newblom

Michelle works on LexBlog’s Publishing team and assists in managing and creating the company’s editorial and social content, as well as working with clients to ensure the overall success of their blogs. She has experience working in all different realms of publishing—including newspapers,

Michelle works on LexBlog’s Publishing team and assists in managing and creating the company’s editorial and social content, as well as working with clients to ensure the overall success of their blogs. She has experience working in all different realms of publishing—including newspapers, magazines and research journals. Michelle has published a poetry book and been featured in an anthology.