A Long Island, N.Y., IP lawyer recently sent out a press release announcing her new Web site, called Intellectulaw.com. The site is designed and hosted by FirmSite, a division of Thomson FindLaw. Like many sites these days, it includes a link to what it calls the Intellectulaw blog. At first glance, it looks like a blog. It has headlines and several items of text and a sidebar with various buttons for subscribing to its feed. But this is not a blog, it is a page of static text. Even worse, the entire page of text is a promotion for the FirmSite service, disguised as an interview with the lawyer. Most ironic is this supposed quote from the lawyer:

“So it is very important that when creating their Web sites with FindLaw, lawyers take the time to understand the added value they receive and the leverage they can enjoy Â? both personally and professionally.”

I do not mean to pick on this lawyer. But this is an example of poor guidance on Web marketing. Someone should have known better than to have put up a page of static marketing text and called it a blog, and someone should have caught that before they sent out a press release drawing attention to the site.

Photo of Bob Ambrogi Bob Ambrogi

Bob is a lawyer, veteran legal journalist, and award-winning blogger and podcaster. In 2011, he was named to the inaugural Fastcase 50, honoring “the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries and leaders.” Earlier in his career, he was editor-in-chief of several legal publications, including The National Law Journal, and editorial director of ALM’s Litigation Services Division.