It’s a common question among lawyers looking to grow digitally: whether or not it’s advantageous to invest in Google My Business for lawyers. After all, the platform is not as popular as LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube, for example.
However, it’s important to note that Google is constantly changing the way people search for information, and Google My Business can be a great differentiator for your office in this regard.
Follow this summary and discover the tool’s possibilities:
- What is Google My Business?
- What advantages does Google My Business offer your law firm?
- How to create and configure your law firm on Google My Business?
At the end, you will leave here ready to make your first post on the platform. And better yet, you’ll understand how to get your law firm found on Google for free or with the help of virtual legal assistant services.
What is Google My Business?
Google My Business is a tool created by Google itself with the aim of bringing greater visibility to local businesses. It was developed with the intention of allowing your office/company to be easily located on the Google search network and Google Maps.
The platform’s main purpose is to aggregate information and provide visibility to user data.
This way, whenever a search is performed, the algorithm identifies some reference and presents the related locations to the public. For example, if you search for a law firm focused on social security and are in the city center, the tool will locate all firms in that niche in the region.
What’s more, this platform makes it possible to provide:
- Address
- Contact information
- Services
- Photos
- News
- Virtual Tour
- Opening hours
- Agendas
- Website, blog and social media links
Everything is simplified and free, in addition to providing a more functional exchange of information with the target audience. Furthermore, the tool also ensures greater interaction between lawyers and their target audiences. This facilitates engagement and dialogue with potential clients.
This way, users can access, evaluate your content, write a testimonial about it or send a question regarding what was covered.
Cool, isn’t it?
And the good news doesn’t end there! The best part is that all of this can be measured.
This means that all data collected by Google My Business is analyzed by the tool and provides insights into which clients may find your office’s services.
Want to know more?
Below, check out other advantages of the platform and discover how it can boost your performance on Google.
What advantages does Google My Business offer your law firm?
As I’ve already told you, investing in Google My Business can completely transform your approach to legal marketing. For this reason, I’ve listed below the main benefits this tool offers lawyers who want to build a stronger, more impressive digital presence! Check out each of them with me:
Prepare results reports
The platform provides monthly reports that measure all your results. With these reports, you have access to the following performance information:
- Number of views
- Number of searches
- Number of interactions
- What terms were used to find your office?
- How many people called the number provided
- Number of people who took a route to your office
- Number of clicks on the website
These numbers act as a kind of compass. In other words, through them you can improve your marketing strategies and define new ways to be found more easily on Google.
Expand your digital presence
With the insights provided by Google My Business, you can better understand your firm’s reach and, consequently, where your leads are coming from.
From this point on, it becomes twice as easy to understand your online performance.
What’s more, with the tool, you’ll know how many people viewed your services on Google and how many requested directions to your office.
By analyzing the details of this data, you can better plan actions to increase your digital reach and, therefore, increase customer acquisition.
Generate more Leads
The premise here is simple: if the tool increases your visibility, it consequently increases your lead acquisition. By publishing on Google My Business, you provide photos, articles, and other content that can drive traffic to your website and generate directions to your establishment.
But pay close attention!
First of all, you need to optimize your profile on the platform, and that’s precisely what guarantees good results. Don’t worry, in the next topic you will find out in detail how to register.
How to create and configure your law firm on Google My Business?
Now that you’ve made it this far, there’s no doubt how advantageous it is to register your law firm on Google My Business and explore all the possibilities of this tool.
The question remains: how do I create and configure an account on the platform?
Don’t worry!
With that in mind, I’ve created a very detailed step-by-step guide on how to access and enter your office information there.
How to register on Google My Business
The registration process is simple and straightforward. Follow these steps to get started:
- Step 1: Access the Google My Business page ;
- Step 2: Click “Get started” and sign in with your Google account;
- Step 3: Enter the name of your law firm and click “Next”;
- Step 4: Enter your office address and click “Next”;
- Step 5: Select the option that best describes your office location and click “Next”;
- Step 6: Enter your office phone number and click “Next”;
- Step 7: Choose whether you want to receive updates and recommendations from Google and click “Next”;
- Step 8: Verify the ownership of your law firm by following the instructions provided by Google.
That’s it! After registering, following the tutorial above, a letter should be sent to your address with an activation code.
Once you receive it, simply go to Google My Business, select your location and click “Activate”. Once this is done, you and your offices will be 100% ready to be found on Google by various leads.
The next step is to create your first post for the tool.
How to optimize your lawyer’s Google My Business listing
1: Verify and claim your Google My Business listing
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: High
- Impact on conversions: Medium
For greater authenticity and to guarantee the veracity of the information presented on your Google business listing, make sure to have it verified and properly claim it .
2: Include keywords in the title of your Google My Business listing
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: High
- Impact on conversions: High
Using relevant keywords in your business listing title improves its search engine ranking. For example, a lawyer in Bordeaux could use the following structure: [Firm Name] – Lawyer Bordeaux. Note that this practice goes against Google’s recommendations, but doesn’t appear to be penalized at present.
3: Add a main category
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: High
- Impact on conversions: High
One of the most important SEO factors is selecting the correct primary category for your law firm. Generally, you should select either “Lawyer” or “Law Firm” .
4: Add more categories
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: Medium
- Impact on conversions: Medium
Adding relevant secondary categories improves your business listing’s ranking for other keywords. However, we advise you to remain as specific as possible by selecting only 4 or 5 additional categories at most .
5: Have a physical address in the city you are researching
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: High
- Impact on conversions: High
Your office’s physical address must be located in the city where the user is searching . This is one of the most important factors in your listing’s ranking.
6: Provide your correct contact information
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: High
- Impact on conversions: High
Make sure that the contact details, whether it be the address or the telephone number , are filled out correctly and accurately.
7: Indicate your office’s opening hours
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: High
- Impact on conversions: High
Make sure your opening hours accurately reflect reality to avoid disappointing potential customers. Also, keep in mind that if you’re open longer than your competitors, you have the opportunity to rank higher in search results, especially when they are closed.
8: Add your website
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: High
- Impact on conversions: High
A website is an essential element of local SEO . If you have a website showcasing your services, it will strengthen your credibility with potential customers and allow you to convert more leads.
9: Use a clear and professional logo
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: Low
- Impact on conversions: High
Design plays a significant role in building trust with potential clients. A professional logo that reflects the modernity of your law firm is an excellent way to enhance your credibility .
10: Publish high-quality photos of the office and your team
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: High
- Impact on conversions: High
Adding high-quality photos showcasing your offices and law firm members is essential for your SEO and will significantly improve your conversion rate. It’s also advisable to offer a 360° view of your workspace.
11: Add a video of your firm as a banner
- Difficulty: Medium
- Impact on SEO: Medium
- Impact on conversions: High
This little-known technique involves displaying a short video as a banner on your Google Business Profile. The video will automatically play when a user types your business name into the search results. It should briefly showcase your team members, your premises, and perhaps even a reenactment of a lawyer working on a case . It’s an excellent way to engage users and increase conversions.
12: Write a detailed description of your firm and its areas of expertise
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: Low
- Impact on conversions: Medium
Introduce your firm and areas of law using the dedicated space. Be sure to conclude with a call to action (CTA), such as “Contact our team of experienced lawyers now.” Note that keyword stuffing has virtually no impact on your SEO, so avoid keyword stuffing .
13: Ask your customers to post positive reviews to improve your rating.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: High
- Impact on conversions: High
A high rating on your business listing, between 4 and 5 stars, is a very important factor in your ranking on Google Maps. Therefore, encourage your customers to post positive reviews as often as possible.
14: Encourage your customers to leave positive reviews with text
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: High
- Impact on conversions: Medium
Detailed reviews, including text, posted by your customers are important for your business’s search engine ranking. They provide an excellent way for potential customers, and search engine algorithms, to assess the quality of your services. They also improve your chances of ranking highly for a wider range of keywords.
15: Ask some of your customers to write reviews using strategic keywords
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: High
- Impact on conversions: Medium
If you have the opportunity, ask a few customers to naturally use keywords relevant to your business in the reviews they post on your listing.
16: Also get simple opinions (without text)
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: High
- Impact on conversions: Medium
To maintain a natural review profile, also aim to get comments with a simple rating and no text . These are generally the most common type of review, hence the importance of having them.
17: Ensure you have a consistent flow of reviews over time
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: High
- Impact on conversions: Medium
Ensure you regularly receive new reviews on your Google business listing by encouraging your recent customers to share their experiences.
18: Respond to all your reviews, positive and negative, as soon as possible
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: Medium
- Impact on conversions: High
You must respond to all reviews, whether positive or negative, as soon as possible. Monitor the inbox associated with your business listing to stay informed about new comments. Ideally, a response time of less than 24 hours is best.
19: Add your service areas
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: Medium
- Impact on conversions: Medium
Specify the geographic areas your practice serves. Generally, simply entering the city where you operate is sufficient. It is recommended to limit the service area as much as possible, even though you may practice in other cities.
20: Adjust the marker’s position on the Google Maps map
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: Medium
- Impact on conversions: Medium
Within the interface for editing your business listing information, you have the option to adjust the marker’s position on the Google Maps map. Ensure its positioning accurately reflects the location of your law firm.
21: Enter the date your company was created
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: Medium
- Impact on conversions: Medium
By completing the creation date of your firm in your Google My Business account, you will have the opportunity to easily demonstrate your legal expertise by displaying the mention “In operation for 10 years”, for example.
22: Add your main legal services to the services section
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: High
- Impact on conversions: High
Google offers the option to list all of your firm’s services. Some will be suggested, but you’ll also have the option to create new labels. For example, if you’re a lawyer specializing in commercial law, you can list “lawyer specializing in commercial law” or “Specializing in commercial law”.
23: Add your main services to the products section and list your prices
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: Medium
- Impact on conversions: High
Although the “Products” section isn’t specifically designed to showcase services, it’s significantly more visually appealing than the services section. It offers the opportunity to present your services in detail, using a description, an image, and a call to action. If you wish, you can also include your pricing, for example, for an hour of online consultation.
24: Add a link to your online appointment booking tool
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: Low
- Impact on conversions: High
If your firm’s website has a page dedicated to booking appointments, or if you are registered in a directory of lawyers offering this functionality, you can simply add this link to your listing, and it will be visible in the first available information.
25: Enable chat to allow your customers to send messages in real time (free)
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: Low
- Impact on conversions: High
Give your potential customers the opportunity to contact you in real time directly from your business listing using Google’s free chat . It’s a great way to build relationships with your customers and provide a positive user experience.
26: Add links to your social media profiles
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: Low
- Impact on conversions: Medium
Since 2023, Google has allowed you to manually add links to your social media profiles directly to your listing. Use this feature to promote your profiles and showcase the modernity of your practice.
27: Use the Questions & Answers format effectively
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: Low
- Impact on conversions: Medium
A Google Business Profile has a “Questions & Answers” section. You should answer questions from potential customers, but you can also answer your own! The idea is to use a separate Google account and ask a frequently asked customer question. Then, answer that question. Finally, to make the question more visible, ask two colleagues to “Like” it .
28: Inform your customers about the events you organize using posts
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: Low
- Impact on conversions: High
Highlight events organized by your firm that are relevant to your potential clients. For example, legal seminars, free consultations, webinars, etc. This is an excellent way to generate interest among your audience and strengthen your credibility.
29: Publish news items via posts to demonstrate your legal expertise
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: Low
- Impact on conversions: High
Google Posts offers the option to publish news. Use this feature to highlight legal news , such as legislative developments, legal advice, etc.
30: Include a call to action in each of your Google My Business posts
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: Low
- Impact on conversions: High
Regardless of the type of post you publish on your profile, always make sure to add a relevant CTA at the end of each post. This encourages potential customers to take the desired action.
31: Confirm your special opening hours during special dates
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: Low
- Impact on conversions: Medium
Complete your office opening hours during public holidays to ensure an optimal user experience.
32: Indicate the languages spoken in your office
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: Low
- Impact on conversions: Medium
If the lawyers in your firm are proficient in languages other than French and you are able to meet the legal needs of an international clientele, mention the languages on your profile.
33: Display attributes about your customers on your listing
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: Low
- Impact on conversions: Low
You have the option to display attributes on your business listing, specifically regarding the clientele you serve. For example, you can mention that your practice is LGBTQ+ friendly or that it’s a safe place for transgender people.
34: Check if appointments are mandatory before going to your office
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: Low
- Impact on conversions: Medium
On your Google My Business listing, you have the option to add an attribute indicating whether an appointment is mandatory before visiting your law firm.
35: Are you a lawyer? Mention that you are a woman who runs a practice.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: Low
- Impact on conversions: Low
If you are a woman and you run your own practice, Google provides the attribute “Identifies as managed by a woman,” which allows you to highlight this information on your listing.
36: Avoid spelling mistakes
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: Low
- Impact on conversions: High
Of course, be sure to carefully proofread all the information you enter on your Google My Business listing. A spelling mistake could damage your firm’s credibility.
37: Link from your website to your business listing
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: Medium
- Impact on conversions: Medium
If you have a website for your practice, create redirect links to your business listing on Google. The most relevant pages are the homepage and the contact page. You can also add this link to some of your services pages.
38: Get external links to your GMB listing from relevant local websites
- Difficulty: Medium
- Impact on SEO: Medium
- Impact on conversions: Medium
Develop a link acquisition strategy using local and specialized websites that redirect to your Google My Business listing. Directories specializing in lawyers, local media, and legal websites are excellent sources.
39: Ensure consistency of information between your listing and different directories
- Difficulty: Medium
- Impact on SEO: Medium
- Impact on conversions: Medium
NAP citations, or local SEO citations, correspond to your business name, address, and phone number. In addition to the areas of expertise you can list on various directories, you must ensure that this information is consistent across as many relevant directories as possible.
40: Ensure consistency of information between your listing and other search engines (Bing Maps and Apple Maps)
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: Medium
- Impact on conversions: Medium
Other search engines, such as Bing Maps or Apple Maps, offer similar features to those offered by Google with business listings. Use these free tools to generate more customers and ensure consistency of information across all your pages. Note that to create a business profile on Bing Maps in France, you must be listed in the Yellow Pages.
41: Optimize the title of the landing page linked to your listing
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: High
- Impact on conversions: High
Generally, the page on your website linked to your Google My Business listing is the homepage. Make sure to optimize the title tag of this page , ensuring it’s similar to the title tag of your listing.
42: Use relevant keywords in the headings (h1, h2, etc.) of the landing page
- Difficulty: Medium
- Impact on SEO: High
- Impact on conversions: High
Crucial for local SEO, ensure you use relevant keywords on the landing page linked to your Google listing. While avoiding keyword stuffing in all your page titles, use your target keyword in the main title and then add slight variations in the secondary titles.
43: Create a page for each service on your website
- Difficulty: Medium
- Impact on SEO: High
- Impact on conversions: High
Creating dedicated web pages for each of your law firm’s services is crucial for your local SEO. These pages maximize your ability to rank highly for keywords relevant to your practice. This website structure will also make it easier for Google’s search engine crawlers to understand your services, thereby improving your business listing’s ranking.
44: Implement an internal linking strategy on your website
- Difficulty: High
- Impact on SEO: Medium
- Impact on conversions: Medium
Improve your website’s search engine ranking and enhance user experience by implementing a smart internal linking strategy. This involves linking your pages together in a relevant way, strategically varying the anchor text.
45: Ensure the geographical relevance of keywords in website content
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: High
- Impact on conversions: Medium
Ensure you use relevant, geo-targeted keywords that correspond to your office’s physical location. If your premises are located solely in Niort, do not use keywords related to other cities. This will negatively impact your website’s search engine ranking and your Google Maps listing.
46: Get local backlinks pointing to your website
- Difficulty: High
- Impact on SEO: High
- Impact on conversions: Medium
Acquire links from other relevant local websites that redirect to your firm’s website to improve its authority on Google. External links, or backlinks, help boost a website’s popularity and, consequently, improve your firm’s search engine ranking.
47: Improve your firm’s visibility to facilitate your search engine ranking
- Difficulty: Medium
- Impact on SEO: High
- Impact on conversions: High
The more often your firm’s name is searched on Google, the better your website and business listing will rank. To achieve this, various tactics are possible, such as providing excellent customer service and having one of your cases featured in a local newspaper.
48: Optimize your website to be mobile-friendly
- Difficulty: High
- Impact on SEO: Medium
- Impact on conversions: High
Make sure your website is equally optimized for desktop and mobile browsing. The majority of local searches are now conducted on mobile phones, so it’s crucial that your website is responsive to deliver an optimal user experience.
49: Make sure you fill in your contact details correctly on your website
- Difficulty: Easy
- Impact on SEO: High
- Impact on conversions: High
As logical as it may seem, make sure that the contact details on your website are correct.
50: Improve the quality of the content on your service pages
- Difficulty: Medium
- Impact on SEO: High
- Impact on conversions: High
Continuously updating and improving the content of web pages related to your services is important for local SEO. Adopting this approach demonstrates to Google, and to your customers, that you are constantly optimizing your website.
Conclusion
Now you know how beneficial Google My Business can be for lawyers looking to expand their online presence. There’s no doubt that this tool works as a true compass for people to get to your office.
I’m sure that with a good strategy, you’ll be able to modify your Google results and make a splash with legal marketing. With everything I’ve presented to you today, you can now start making good plans.