Digital marketing is not optional for any law firm operating today. If your potential clients cannot find you online, they probably won’t find you at all. And that’s a problem because the legal field is incredibly competitive. Your digital marketing strategy has a direct impact on your firm’s profitability. It’s essential to leverage every marketing advantage you can find to increase your law firm’s website performance and attract a consistent client base.

One of the most effective digital marketing tools available from the Google Search platform is Google My Business, a tool that could potentially help you dominate search traffic in your area. Google My Business is a listing tool that allows you to change how your website appears in search results for local users and also provides you with more control and flexibility with your Google Search result listings. If you want a more robust digital marketing strategy and to take full advantage of Google My Business for your law firm, there are three vital steps you must accomplish.

Step 1: Set Up a Google My Business for Your Law Firm

Google My Business primarily focuses on local search traffic, so you’re going to need to ensure that the content of your website accurately reflects the geographic regions you are looking to target. For example, if your firm represents clients from anywhere in your state of operation, then the location data you mention should refer to your state. If you only provide your legal services to clients in one or more smaller metropolitan areas, be sure to include these exact locations within your content as targeted keywords.

Start building your Google My Business listing by logging into the Google account associated with your firm’s website. The account creation process for your Google My Business listing is very simple, so fill out the required text boxes with your company’s information and geographical location so the Google Search algorithm can properly rank your search result appearances.

After you complete the initial profile setup process, you will need to verify your Google My Business listing. Google offers many options for completing this step, including email verification, phone verification, or standard mail verification. Once your Google My Business profile is verified and fully functional, you can start tweaking and changing it in many different ways.

Step 2: Optimize Your Google My Business Listing

Now that you have your law firm’s Google My Business listing up and running, you should start overhauling it to have the visual appeal and information you want search engine users to see when they find it. Google My Business typically ranks the top three business listings that match a search engine user’s query. For example, if a Google user types in a search for “Philadelphia car accident lawyers,” the system will arrange the top three results with a regional map, pinpointing the location of each. The top three listings included with this map will likely be three of the highest-rated car accident attorneys and/or law firms offering their services to clients in the Philadelphia area.

The more carefully optimized your listing is, the more likely your firm will be to appear within these top three search result slots. Take the time to include your hours of operation for every day of the week, full contact information, and links to your firm’s social media profiles. You can also add photos of your firm’s physical location and members of your team. Pay extra attention to the location data you include in your Google My Business listing.

Be sure to add tags like “wheelchair accessible” or “veteran-owned” as appropriate. The more detail you include, the easier it will be for the Google Search algorithm to rank your firm’s website among top search results.

Step 3: Monitor Google My Business

Once you have completed the adjustments to your Google My Business listing, you can expect results right away. Additionally, the Google My Business tool is fantastic for gathering feedback and connecting with potential clients. Google allows any user to “Suggest an Edit” to a page’s listing or to search results. If users identify any issues with your Google My Business listing, be sure to investigate and address them as soon as possible.

Perhaps one of the best aspects of the Google My Business tool is the intuitive way in which the system reports your listing data. Google My Business will generate various scores based on the direct and discovery searches that land on your website, helping you form an accurate picture of your SEO strategy. You’ll also be able to measure several other kinds of user actions, such as time spent on a page, calls made to your firm that initiated through Google Search results, and see a review system that ranks your business compared to other local law firms.

It’s essential to pay close attention to your Google My Business listing over time and to regularly check your performance metrics. The performance analysis you can see from Google My Business is one of the most important tools at your disposal for refining your digital marketing strategy. The insights you gain from your Google My Business metrics can help you develop new website content, determine the best changes to make to your website’s design, and refine the location data you include with your listing to more precisely target your desired audience.

Start Developing Your Google My Business Strategy

Ultimately, the Google My Business platform is an invaluable marketing tool for any law firm that wants to grow the organic web traffic heading to their website. Google strives to make the user experience of operating Google Search as fast, intuitive, and responsive as possible. Google My Business provides you with the tools you need to target your law firm’s SEO strategy to your local service areas.

RizeUp Media offers a full range of digital marketing and web design services to law firms across the United States. If you are ready to start taking advantage of Google My Business and strengthening your firm’s digital marketing strategy, we can help. Contact RizeUp Media today for more information about the Google Search and SEO services we provide, and our team can start helping you refine your firm’s Google My Business listing.