For a local law firm, it can be hard to compete with the larger-sized billboard giants and television T.V. ads, but if you are strategic in your approach to local optimization and have access to the right tools, you can easily climb the ranks of local Google search. To get started, evaluate your website with this Free Local Listings Scan.
What is local search?
Local search is any search conducted online aimed to find a specific product or service within a geographic area. For example, “divorce attorney Las Vegas.” Google displays local search results a bit differently than the pay-per-click ads and organic search results. If you open a new browser, type in “Las Vegas personal injury attorney” and press search. You’ll notice that, right below the first bundle of paid ad’s, and right above the first organic search result, a bordered box with a map and several business listings appear. These listings are what we refer to as “local search results” and if you’re not optimizing your website to rank in the local map pack, you’re missing out on a LOT of free traffic!
How do I optimize for local search?
To properly optimize for local search, you must first ensure your information is consistent across the board. It is not enough to simply put the facts about your business on your own website — you need to make sure that information is correct and consistent across the many search engines, apps, maps, social networks, voice assistants, directories, and other intelligent services that consumers are using to search.
What is NAP?
Your listings are comprised of the public information about your business. This includes location-specific information such as name, address, and phone number (“NAP”) along with more complex information like hours of operation and whether or not you are pet-friendly.
This is the information that is rendered not only on your website, but also across Google My Business (GMB), Facebook, Yelp!, TripAdvisor, YellowPages, Apple Maps, Yahoo!, Bing, and every other local directory website.
Why is NAP important?
When the information about your business appear consistently across the major directory sites, search engines and consumers can trust the information provided more, and per Google’s quality guidelines, higher trust leads to higher local search ranking.
The key is to have consistent information in each business listing and keep it updated. Unfortunately, this can take a lot of time to do manually, especially if your law firm has more than one location. Also, many of these apps and directories are constantly crawling for the most up-to-date information, which means your business information can be easily removed and/or updated without you even knowing!
Our solution for your law firm’s business listings:
Working in collaboration with Yext — the leading NAP intelligence software — SEMrush developed the Listing Management tool to provide a streamlined and efficient way to update all of your information at ONCE! The best part? They’ve given me permission to offer it to you for free for 7-days!
See below for an example of our software:
So, to begin optimizing for local search, please register for a 7-day trial. Once you’ve done so, you can conduct a free local listings audit. Once you’ve received your results, feel free to shoot me an email and I’ll provide you with your best plan of action for optimizing your law firm! A $1,500 value, FREE to all Attorney at Law Magazine readers. Taylor McArthur
Comments 1
Great article! Where can I learn more about ranking organically in local search?