Content Marketing Today

How Not to Prove You’re an Expert in Your Field: Put up a Website Almost Bereft of Content

Ironically, Morris Rosenthal’s website led me to the content-challenged online home of an intellectual property lawyer who specializes in publishing issues.  It’s ironic because Morris is a genuine king of content.  [this is a correction; I initially made the wrong attribution to Aaron Shepard who is also a fabulous content marketer.]

He has written extensively on the nuts and bolts issue that neophyte publishers like me need to know to succeed.  He has written an excellent book on self-publishing: Print-on-Demand Book Publishing. In addition, he provides a wealth of articles on his site about specific issues such as how to deal with a big-time publisher if you are an author. At the conclusion of that particular article he refers his readers to zickrubin.com.  Based on Morris’ ability to deliver so much great content, I expected to find something similar on the website of the law firm he recommended.

The experience was underwhelming.  The entire website consists of a home page, a map with directions to his office, links to e-mail members of the firm, and an article from October 2007, called “How can you trademark a mitzvah?” Out of curiosity, I actually started to read the article. It makes a good point about trademarks but is otherwise pretty disappointing as the only content on the site that demonstrates the expertise of the law firm.

The website does list the areas of law covered by the firm and provides background on attorney Rubin and his new associate.  That is important and necessary.  But it is not sufficient to demonstrate expertise through the provision of relevant and valuable content.  Basically, the site does not explain why I should be confident in the caliber of law practiced by the firm.

I would be inclined to do business with the firm only because of Aaron’s recommendation.  Had I found of the website independently, I would probably have moved on to another choice of firm that made their expertise much more readily apparent.

It’s worth noting that in a separate article we compare the Websitegrader.com score of this website– 16 of 100 –with that of Joe Wikert’s publishing 2020 blog–98.5 of 100.  Take a look at that article and at the critical components that Websitegrader is measuring.  The presence or absence of content is critical component in the grade given to each website tested.

Don’t just be an expert. Prove that you are an expert with great online content.

A business is unlikely to succeed unless it is very good at what it does.  In the 21st century, it must also be very good at what it does on the web.  The quality of your content will make a quantifiable difference in your ability to turn Web visitors into customers.