What’s in a Blawg’s Name? Audience Appeal, Perhaps

I’ll admit it: I’m a sucker for a clever pun or play on words.  Among legal blogs, there’s been a minor run on clever names lately, with several new blogs carrying clever turns of phrases as their names.

Clever names are nothing new for legal blogs, of course. I think one of the oldest legal blogs out there, Ernest Svenson’s Ernie the Attorney, still has the catchiest blawg name ever. But I wonder whether, in an industry ever-more crowded with blogs, lawyers and firms are trying ever harder to come up with titles that turn a phrase, all in the interest of enhancing audience appeal.

Here are some examples of recently launched blawgs with names that I think are clever. If you know of others, by all means add them in the comments below.

• CaseClothesed, a blog about fashion law.
• Credit Slips, a blog about credit and bankruptcy.
• Crime in the Suites, a blog about white-collar defense.
• Law Law Land, a Los Angeles blog about entertainment law.
• Legal Divas Blog. A diva is a highly talented woman singer. These four sing about law.
• The Law Street Journal, a blog for law students by law students.

No doubt, some SEO pro will protest that clever names carry an SEO downside. After all, a Google search for “business lawyer Atlanta” will favor the “Atlanta Business Lawyer Blog” (if there is such a thing) over the Legal Divas Blog. But a good name can raise a blog’s profile in other ways — and as its profile is raised, so its traffic will increase. Over the longer term, the clever name may be more effective in drawing readers than the SEO-optimized name (provided, of course, the cleverly named blog’s content is any good).