As an important part of location-marketing support of your SEO strategy, you need to claim and verify your local business’ Google My Business (GMB) listing. This helps visibility across Google channels - specifically Google’s Local Pack, Local Finder, Google Maps, as well as overall organic search rankings.
What is Google My Business?
Google My Business is a free service that makes it easy for qualifying businesses to manage their listings in Google search results. For local area services, Google My Business displays results on a map, and lists other important details about your firm, including contact information, website, business hours, and reviews.
The Google My Business listing is a useful marketing tool for providing information to prospects, but it’s also extremely beneficial for promoting attorneys. The popularity of local searches means that geographic or location-specific results are showed first. So when someone searches ‘attorney’, because ’near me’ is implied in all searches, with a Google My Business profile your law firm’s listing will appear more prominently in the results than other firms / attorneys with only regular listings.
It’s is also an effective way to interact directly with your clients. Google My Business allows you to manage online reviews, respond to questions, send private messages and schedule appointments.
And your listing provides valuable insights on what’s working and what’s not. You can see how people are searching for your firm (direct or discovery), where customers are viewing your business (search or Google Maps) and customer actions (website visit, directions, call or chat).
Raise your Law Firm's Profile
Once you’ve entered your details (address, contact details, office hours) your firm’s location appears on the local map search results, highlighting your name, with other details displayed in the feature block directly below the map. Google My Business also promotes your law firm on mobile. On the search page, a box similar to the Local Finder will appear below the main results for easy viewing and engagement.
Your listing also automatically displays prominent links to your website and the directions page on Google Maps. For local search, this promotion is a great way to show potential local clients how convenient it is to find you and how to reach out for more information.
The Google search engine considers many factors when displaying search results, and for local search or local search, the primary criteria to focus on are relevance, location, and authority.
Relevance is a measure of how well your content and web site architecture is optimised to match Google searches.
Location information across all your online profiles and your website should be complete and accurate to feature as a local business provider.
Authority is an SEO term for high interest or a quality link. Having high authority means your website is likely to be the best place for someone to find information related to their search.
Claim your Google My Business listing
If you haven’t claimed and verified your Google My Business Listing yet, that’s the first step. To get started, create a profile through the guided process. You should frequently check your business listing to ensure that it remains accurate as there are features that allow anyone to suggest edits and give information on your listing.
Use Google Posts to share Quality Content
Google Posts provide the opportunity to deliver updates about your law firm right on the search results page, which can help your law firm feature more prominently in local search results.
To create Google Posts log into your My Business dashboard and navigate to the “Posts” section. Here you can create a text and / or image post. This will help keep your profile active and relevant, to the benefit of both your listing and business.
By using the features that Google offers for local businesses, you’ll help your firm feature prominently is local searches, which in turn build trust an authority in terms of Search Marketing, and helps people looking for for services in their area easily find your firm.