Setting Up Your Law Firm’s Google My Business Listing: A Step-by-Step Guide

Securing a Google My Business (GMB) listing is an imperative step for your law firm. Google ad space is notoriously expensive for lawyers due to the amount of competition in the field. One way to up the ante on your law firm’s SEO—in addition to positioning yourself to organically appear on SERPs—is to get a listing with Google My Business, which will work to localize your audience’s results as well as position you as an expert resource in your community. 

Google My Business is free and easy to set up, and it’s almost guaranteed to increase your firm’s client traffic. Oftentimes, people who are looking for lawyers are in a stressful and time-sensitive situation, which motivates them to find an attorney nearby. Google My Business is a great way to give your firm that sort of visibility, and can work alongside your SEO model to include terms and keywords that are relevant to your niche. 

Ultimately, these search terms will help draw in your target clients both geographically and depending on what services they need. Before getting to the setup of GMB, here is a crash course on some SEO basics.

An Overview of SEO

A solid SEO strategy is crucial for any successful law firm. Search engine optimization may sound super-technical, but it’s easier than you think. While Google’s latest algorithm updates are a part of the picture, SEO is a bit more personal than that. SEO is about understanding your users. 

To create a solid SEO strategy that works, you first need to know what users are looking for and why—AKA the search terms they use to find answers and the type of content they’re seeking to provide those answers. Without this knowledge, you’ll have a hard time catering to your target audience. For law firms, it’s especially important to understand this—oftentimes, what clients search for is highly specific. 

In order to develop an effective strategy to rank in SERPs, you’ll need to understand the key components of search engine optimization. Here are some of the most important concepts you need to know.

Keyword Research: As previously mentioned, keywords are the search terms or queries that users enter in search engines to find answers to questions and solutions for problems. You need to consider what keywords could lead users to your site and optimize your site to feature these words.

Keyword research has evolved significantly, and these days the intent behind the keywords is more important than the words themselves. Keyword research is crucial in finding the topics that users care about so you can optimize your content to cover those topics. If you’re looking into companies that provide SEO services for law firms, you would want to ensure your SEO expert understands your specialties. After all, it won’t do you any good if you’re just getting increased traffic from people looking for a lawyer.

Link Building: This may be the single best way to quickly rank in search engine results pages. Basically, link building is the creation of hyperlinks from one website to another. For SEO purposes, you’ll focus on backlinks, also called inbound links, which are links on other sites that direct users to your own.

The more high-quality inbound links you have, the more authoritative your site becomes, and you can build a respected online presence as an expert in your niche. You can develop links by identifying broken links on other sites and suggesting that the webmaster replace them with links to relevant pages on your site. The best way to earn backlinks, however, is to create things that are worth linking to.

Content Marketing: This refers to any original content you create that showcases your business, and it’s a fantastic tool for small businesses and large enterprises alike. Content marketing differs greatly from traditional paid advertising in that it often seeks to provide educational material and other valuable information that consumers wouldn’t get through traditional marketing.

You can approach content marketing in a variety of ways, such as writing articles and blog posts, producing videos, answering questions online, or through newsletters offered to loyal clients. The most important thing is that you’re offering relevant information that keeps users interested in your business and establishes your brand as an expert voice.

Considering the staggering popularity of video content (Cisco predicts 82% of all web traffic will be video by 2022), YouTube tutorials and webinars tend to be successful for content creators. Video content could include addressing top customer concerns, as well as showing off lesser-known or more complex features of products. Finding sites that your target audience frequents and publishing guest blog posts is also a good idea to bring in more traffic. Best of all, any content you create can stay online for as long as you want it to, and users can even share it on social media platforms.

Engine optimization is great for bringing in high-quality traffic from all over the United States, and the world, but for smaller businesses or ones with local storefronts, you’ll likely want to get closer to your community.

How is Local SEO Different?

While an organic search result isn’t limited to a geographic area, a local search occurs when a search engine detects a user is looking for results in their local area. A physical address, the name of a city or state, or a business name may trigger a local search. A Google search will display local search results at the top, and these searches are extremely common on mobile phones. 

If you own a brick and mortar store, you’ll want to appear high in local results to increase your foot traffic. Even a purely online storefront can benefit from local searches made in their city or cities with fulfillment centers. The good news is this ultimate guide to local SEO can guide you on the steps you’ll need to take for an effective local SEO campaign, and it all starts with Google My Business.

Utilizing Google My Business

A Google My Business profile gives business owners a way to customize an informative business listing, keep in touch with local clients, and gain valuable insight on how clients are finding your business and where they’re searching from. A GMB listing also makes it easy to track how you appear in search results and how your information appears in Google Maps. One of these listings is simply crucial for local search engine optimization.

Fortunately, a Google business listing is completely free, and you’ll just need some basic information to create a business profile. If you have listings on any other directories, like Yelp or Bing Places, you’ll want to make sure all your information is consistent across your profiles. One of the main advantages of Google listings is that Google can help local businesses get their information to places with high visibility. But, if you have inconsistent information online, clients may find your listings untrustworthy.

When you’re ready to make a profile, you’ll need to create a Google account with your law firm’s name, address of your physical location, service areas, phone number, and website URL. Once you’ve entered all of your firm’s information, you’ll simply need to go through the verification process to finish your account. Some businesses will be eligible to enter a verification code through text message or email, or you may need to wait to receive your code through a postcard.

Optimizing Your Listing

Once you create the profile for your firm, you’ll want to optimize it based on best practices for local search. In fact, according to Moz, your GMB listing alone accounts for 25% of your overall local SEO ranking factors. Keeping your profile updated helps Google both accurately post your firm in the right places at peak times and show potential clients that your local law firm is the best solution for them. 

The first thing you should do to optimize your listing is to claim a short name, especially if your firm has multiple locations. This change makes it easy for users to enter your location’s short name into Google to find that specific location, which creates a better user experience for each local audience. You can easily claim short names from the information tab of your business dashboard.

You also need to craft a unique business description, which can be up to 750 characters. This description is one of the most important pieces of content you’ll create for your local SEO efforts as it’s one of the first things clients will see, and therefore, it can be the make or break factor. 72% of customers who perform a local search visit a local business within five miles, so your description is a great way to grab attention and boost foot traffic. Be sure to make your location sound convenient and address user intent.

Your business category and subcategories are important factors as well. You need to make these as specific as possible to ensure your local audience understands what you’re offering them. As a law firm, you’ll want your subcategory to show your specialization. If you’re a general practice, you might choose subcategories representing the kinds of cases you most frequently deal with.

Just like on social media, using great photos will capture the attention of users, and it’s advisable to upload at least three shots of the exterior and interior of your firm. You’ll also need images of your team members, especially those with high notoriety. Photos of employees with happy clients will make you look more credible. GMB even provides options for 360-degree photos and videos in your photo space to provide users with a clearer image of your firm.

Client Reviews

Having a GMB listing is good for more than displaying your basic information and business hours; it also makes it easy for clients to leave online reviews in one convenient location. Your firm’s profile can be a great way to showcase positive reviews. Many clients will only visit a business’s website if the business has good reviews, so you’ll want to show as many of these as you can in search results.

Online reviews are considered a top-three ranking factor for local SEO. If you want to appear in the local pack of search engine results pages, you’ll need several reviews attached to your business profile. Naturally, you’ll want these to be positive, but the occasional negative review is inevitable for any business. Fortunately for business owners, you have a great deal of say in framing reviews.

With a Google business account, you’re allowed to request and encourage online reviews so long as the business does not provide tangible incentives. You have control over how your employees handle client concerns, so you can strive to resolve issues the first time and present your company as one that values constructive criticism. There are several ways you can make a review request, such as a message immediately after checkout from your online store, or you could submit an email request a few days later.

It’s a good idea to have someone, or even a team, dedicated to monitoring your online reviews because leaving owner responses can improve your rankings in local search results. A professional response apologizes for any negative experience the client had, accepts responsibility, and offers a way to make amends. A genuine and professional owner response may inspire a user to update a negative review, and it at least displays professionalism. Naturally, you can also leave responses of gratitude for positive feedback.

Responding to reviews is easy with GMB as you can automatically receive notifications when new reviews are up, and Google even considers owner responses a local pack ranking factor. Responding to reviews demonstrates that you value your clients. Their feedback, and even negative reviews, can be used to identify and solve problems.

Enlisting the Experts

Search engines and their algorithms are constantly updated, as are best practices for SEO, so it’s certainly understandable if you’re a bit overwhelmed thinking about optimizing your web pages and business listings. You can always seek professional local SEO services to set your accounts up, improve performance on desktop and mobile devices, and help you create local content. This can include blog posts with local headlines, videos about your firm connecting with your local community, or social media posts on local pages.

Even WordPress plugins like Yoast SEO Premium can provide you with insights into the most common keywords you use in your content and make suggestions for building more internal links in your site to make for a better user experience. Improving your overall SEO and embarking on a Google My Business listing will help your law firm establish a positive reputation and convert your site visitors into clients.