Many law firms have more than one location, making it more difficult for them to rank any of their locations. This does not mean that it is impossible, just that it is going to take a little bit more time and effort than it would take to rank just one office.
Don’t worry—there are plenty of factors that you can control to make sure that when someone searches for a law firm in their area, yours will be among the top search results. Here’s what to do:
- Use local listings. Start with Google My Business and Bing Places. Make sure that on both of these places, all of your locations are listed. If you do this, Google should have the information that it needs to create Google map listings, which will help it determine what search results your listings should be included in. It is important to fill out your profile as completely as possible, making sure that your addresses adopt the right format and that they are all as distinct as possible. This will prevent Google from getting confused or trying to merge your listings.
- Understand what Google looks for in local listings. There are essentially three things that the search engine looks for when compiling lists of local businesses to present to it searchers. There are the distance from the user to the business, the relevance of that business to what the user has searched for, and the prominence of that business, as measured by authority and social signals. Once you know that these are the three basic things that Google is going to be looking at when determining whether or not to include your law firm in a list of local businesses, you can start creating a strategy.
- Understand the limitations of distance. The truth is that Google is going to show preference to businesses closer to the user, even if businesses that are farther away might be more relevant to that user’s search. Right now, that is just how the algorithm works. There is also not really that much information available when it comes to figuring out just how Google calculates location when it cannot use the GPS on a searcher’s phone and is only working off of local keywords used in the search query. You want to list your address, so that you are easy to find—but understand that your actual location and distance from the searcher is not always going to help you when it comes to improving your search rankings. You will have to rely on relevance and prominence to make up the difference.
- Make your website as relevant as possible. This means that you need to make it very clear what you do and why what you do is relevant to the keywords you have used on your website. You can further increase the relevance of your website by including your local phone number, links to other local websites, and images that are of your surrounding area. On top of this, create a services page that thoroughly discusses the different kinds of law you practice, mentioning your service areas a few times. Doing this for each of your different offices will make sure that each office will rank individually for relevant search queries.
- Make yourself as prominent as possible. What does this mean? In short, there needs to be local buzz about your law firm. Google measures this by looking at your social indicators, how many local websites are linking to you, and how authoritative and relevant your web presence is. If you only have one website for all of your offices, you might be missing out on an opportunity to boost your rankings. Landing pages that are specifically for each of your offices, complete with location-specific keywords, can bring you more exposure.
Having more than one office is a great way to reach out to different people in different parts of your area. Use this same philosophy to reach out to people online. If you have different physical offices, you need different online offices, too. If you market those physical offices separately, marketing them online separately, too. The more separate your web presences for each location are, the more likely you are to see a boost in rankings for those specific areas. This is especially important for showing up on searches in map applications, as those search algorithms look for information about specific addresses. Having that information prominently displayed will make it easier to rank.
Many law firms have more than one location, making it more difficult for them to rank any of their locations. This does not mean that it is impossible, just that it is going to take a little bit more time and effort than it would take to rank just one office.
Don’t worry—there are plenty of factors that you can control to make sure that when someone searches for a law firm in their area, yours will be among the top search results. Here’s what to do:
- Use local listings. Start with Google My Business and Bing Places. Make sure that on both of these places, all of your locations are listed. If you do this, Google should have the information that it needs to create Google map listings, which will help it determine what search results your listings should be included in. It is important to fill out your profile as completely as possible, making sure that your addresses adopt the right format and that they are all as distinct as possible. This will prevent Google from getting confused or trying to merge your listings.
- Understand what Google looks for in local listings. There are essentially three things that the search engine looks for when compiling lists of local businesses to present to it searchers. There are the distance from the user to the business, the relevance of that business to what the user has searched for, and the prominence of that business, as measured by authority and social signals. Once you know that these are the three basic things that Google is going to be looking at when determining whether or not to include your law firm in a list of local businesses, you can start creating a strategy.
- Understand the limitations of distance. The truth is that Google is going to show preference to businesses closer to the user, even if businesses that are farther away might be more relevant to that user’s search. Right now, that is just how the algorithm works. There is also not really that much information available when it comes to figuring out just how Google calculates location when it cannot use the GPS on a searcher’s phone and is only working off of local keywords used in the search query. You want to list your address, so that you are easy to find—but understand that your actual location and distance from the searcher is not always going to help you when it comes to improving your search rankings. You will have to rely on relevance and prominence to make up the difference.
- Make your website as relevant as possible. This means that you need to make it very clear what you do and why what you do is relevant to the keywords you have used on your website. You can further increase the relevance of your website by including your local phone number, links to other local websites, and images that are of your surrounding area. On top of this, create a services page that thoroughly discusses the different kinds of law you practice, mentioning your service areas a few times. Doing this for each of your different offices will make sure that each office will rank individually for relevant search queries.
- Make yourself as prominent as possible. What does this mean? In short, there needs to be local buzz about your law firm. Google measures this by looking at your social indicators, how many local websites are linking to you, and how authoritative and relevant your web presence is. If you only have one website for all of your offices, you might be missing out on an opportunity to boost your rankings. Landing pages that are specifically for each of your offices, complete with location-specific keywords, can bring you more exposure.
Having more than one office is a great way to reach out to different people in different parts of your area. Use this same philosophy to reach out to people online. If you have different physical offices, you need different online offices, too. If you market those physical offices separately, marketing them online separately, too. The more separate your web presences for each location are, the more likely you are to see a boost in rankings for those specific areas. This is especially important for showing up on searches in map applications, as those search algorithms look for information about specific addresses. Having that information prominently displayed will make it easier to rank.
Published on January 19, 2016
About the Author: Ashley Bardonaro
