When you’re hungry and searching Google Maps for a place to eat, you’re typically interested in restaurants nearby – not across town. It’s no different with personal injury law firms. A client is facing a potentially life-changing accident or injury and is looking for the nearest, most experienced lawyer to handle their case.
But if your online presence isn’t optimized to compete with local competitors, you’ll easily miss out on prospective clients simply because they don’t know you’re there.
Law Firm Local SEO Benefits
Local SEO for your law firm’s website and online profiles is of utmost importance if you want to effectively reach your target audience within your local community.
When someone searches for a personal injury lawyer, search engines such as Google rank a user’s results by 3 important ranking factors: Relevance, Distance, and Prominence.
Relevance
It’s important that your law firm’s SEO campaigns and marketing strategies involve updating your business profiles and web content with complete and detailed descriptions using relevant keywords specific to your legal services. For instance, as a personal injury attorney, you should categorize your business profile specifically as a “personal injury attorney” and not simply an “attorney.” This will not only focus search results to your target audience, but will also differentiate you from other attorneys in your area.
Distance
The location of a user’s IP address (on desktop computers) or mobile phone geolocation and their distance to your business address also affects how your law firm ranks in their search results. There likely are plenty of attorneys closer to a user than you are anytime they search for an attorney, which is why it’s key to have both an up-to-date business address as well as specific descriptions and keywords in your online profiles so your law firm stands out and ranks higher than the rest.
Prominence
Your rank is also determined by your law firm’s online footprint across the web, and the information about your business that Google gathers from links, articles, and directories.
Positive Google reviews will likely increase your rank among user searches for personal injury lawyers. And even your position in general web search results makes a difference, which means SEO best practices will only help your law firm’s local SEO.
Factors to Consider in Local SEO for Lawyers
Here are plenty of specific ways to improve your local SEO, and therefore increase your law firm’s ranking in a local user’s search results if they’re looking for your services.
Website Optimization
Again, your website’s overall SEO will help your law firm’s local SEO. It’s a matter of utilizing the proper keywords relevant to your particular practice in the content on your website’s pages. This will help funnel your target audience specific to your law firm, whether they search for a “personal injury lawyer” in Google or on an app like Google Maps.
Have this SEO mindset with any of your law firm’s online profiles, using keywords that are as specific to your services as possible, anytime you get the chance to describe or categorize what you do.
Google My Business (GMB)
If you’ve ever searched for a business on Google, you’ve likely seen a pinned map at the top of your search results with a list of nearby businesses and their respective star ranking (reviews), address, and phone number, as well as hours of operation.
This is where your business needs to be when a user searches in Google: “personal injury lawyer near me.”
In order for Google to have your information to share at the top of the search results page, you must create and complete a Google My Business page for your law firm. To set yourself up for a higher GMB listing, make sure to include:
- a lengthy, keyword-rich description of your practice and the services you provide
- at least 50+ images and videos
- the most specific category for your law firm. For example, instead of categorizing simply as an “attorney,” categorize as a “personal injury attorney”
- your local phone number
- a link to your website
- your complete address (exactly formatted the same as it is on your website)
- accurate and updated info
Mobile Experience
Consider how often you use your phone to search for a restaurant or any other type of service in your area. Create and optimize your law firm’s accounts not only for your GMB page when a user searches in Maps, but for popular apps like Yelp and Facebook as well.
There are aggregate services that will create your profiles across many different apps and platforms at once – just make sure you’ve taken your time with your profile at the beginning, and that your information is complete and accurate before your dozens of accounts are created.
Reviews/ Reputation
A great way to increase your law firm’s online presence is by getting positive reviews and feedback from clients and peers alike. Do your best to gather customer feedback on the following services as they’ll go a long way in improving your local SEO:
Google Reviews
Having positive feedback on your Google My Business page is probably the single most effective way to increase your rank in local searches for services related to your practice.
Yelp
Is there a more popular review app? It’ll do you well to have an optimized Yelp profile, although they have a strict policy against solicited client reviews. You will get banned from the service if caught, but it’s good to have a presence and be available on the app as it will only help your local SEO.
Avvo
Another review app, Avvo business listings typically rank pretty well and is a good place for giving and receiving peer endorsements.
Get More Leads From Local SEO With Law Tigers
For decades we’ve adapted and developed our attorney SEO services in a highly competitive and flooded market – not merely surviving, but thriving as a legal practice with no plan for stopping. If you increase the inbound traffic to your law firm’s website and online profiles, you increase your pool of potential clients. Partner with Law Tigers and get your law firm the attention it deserves today.
