Google My Business for Law Firms | Guide

Make your Google listing work for your law firm

In this blog, we answer questions relating to the Google My Business service for law firms:

• Why should I update my Google My Business listing after it’s verified?
• How can this help me convert prospects into customers?
• How can I maximise the potential of my Google My Business listing?

If you haven’t read our previous article about how to set up your Google My Listing, follow this link.

Just to recap, Google My Business is a free service that helps local customers (and prospects) find your law firm on Google search.

Your law firm may already be verified and listed on Google. However, if you want to take full advantage of the Google My Business service, you need to do more than just create your listing, and verify it.

To understand why, take a couple of seconds and imagine you’re moving into your dream home…

Listing your law firm on Google

Imagine the house you have chosen to move into is in a great neighbourhood. It has spacious rooms, several bathrooms, and a huge back garden.

You now can decide what you want to do with the interior of the house.

Having gone through all the trouble related to moving to your dream home, you want to make the most out of it by purchasing new furniture and decorating it just the way you like it.

You don’t want to leave your new home empty.

Similarly, neglecting your Google My Business listing is like keeping your new home empty and undecorated.

But a bare home might just make you a bit uncomfortable, while a Google My Business listing that lacks complete and up-to-date information could lose you a fair amount of enquiries.

What Google My Business basically does is help convince searches to reach out to your law firm rather than your competitors.

Complete business listings can help – since they are twice as likely to be considered reputable by customers.

How to make your Google My Business listing complete?

To make your law firm listing complete, add as much information as you can.

Below are examples of items you can add to your listing:

Photos

Make sure to include photos of your firm and, if possible your staff. These usually increase client engagement.

You may already have some in your listing now, but make sure they are the right type.

Unfortunately, most people are painfully familiar with stock photos (which are often unrealistic).

As tempting as it might be to include free stock photos in your listing or on your website, try to avoid them.

Instead, feature real photos of your law firm.

Also, keep in mind that your images should be fairly big – a minimum of 720 pixels wide by 720 pixels high.

Anything smaller and you risk prospective clients wondering why are you suddenly featuring abstract paintings in your photo section.

In addition to the photos, you should include your law firm’s logo. Logos help customers quickly identify your firm.

Virtual Office Tour

Another great way to help your Google My Business listing stand out to your prospective clients is to add a virtual tour.

This type of tour will allow them to virtually “walk” through your office, and see what’s inside.

It’s a nice way to introduce new prospects to your law firm, get them comfortable with how you operate and encourage them to visit in person or to make a call.

To request a no-charge quote for this optional feature, you will need to go to your dashboard and click the “add virtual tour” button.

A Google-certified professional can provide the quote and also help you create the tour and add it to your listing.

Reviews of your law firm

Reviews are another important element of a strong Google My Business listing.

The more positive reviews you collect, the better.

Furthermore, having a number of reviews and responding to them shows prospects that you have a large, engaged customer base that you care about.

Google research shows that 88% of customers say they trust online reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations.

Bear in mind that client reviews aren’t just for the benefit of people looking at your listing.

The extra benefit is that they give you insight into your customer’s experiences with your law firm. You can use this to make improvements and capitalise on positive feedback.

Positive reviews containing relevant keywords can also help your SEO.

So don’t be shy to ask your clients to leave a review for you on Google or Trustpilot – they can really help!

Your Firm’s Operating Times

A Google My Business listing isn’t really complete until it provides your prospects with your opening/closing times.

This may seem obvious. However, it’s very easy for businesses to change the hours of operation and forget to update their Google My Business listing.

Have you ever gone to a shop only to find out that it’s closed?

Incorrect opening hours listed on Google can not only frustrate your existing customers. They can also deter your prospective clients.

Once you add or update your regular business hours, you can also add special business hours.

These can be added for those days you are open till late, closing early, or are completely closed.

Other features – Business categories and Insights

Depending on what business category you choose, you might see more options to add information to your listing.

In order to see what options are available to your business go to your Google My Business dashboard and click “edit info”.

In addition to the features mentioned above, Google My Business comes with built-in analytics reports called Insights which you might find very helpful.

Insights shows you how many people found your business info on Google Search and Maps, and how many people visited your website from your listing.

Insights can also tell you how many people requested map directions to your business and -major bonus- gives you a general idea of what area they are coming from.

If you would like to try online advertising, the Google My Business dashboard can connect you to Google advertising to set this up.

Evaluation of your Law Firm’s Google My Business listing

Let’s do a quick evaluation of your listing (if you have one) – answer yes or no:

• Is all the basic business information included in your listing? Such as your law firm’s address, website, hours of operation, etc.?
• Are there high-quality photos (no stock photos)?
• Are there positive customer reviews?
• Have you/ the law firm responded to any reviews?
• Are there any special (non-basic) features like virtual tours?

If you answered “yes” to all of them, give yourself a big high five – you have a great Google My Business listing!

Make sure to keep the info fresh and up-to-date, respond to client reviews, and regularly review your Insights report.

If you’d like to learn how to respond to positive and negative client reviews, read our recent blog about how local reviews can help your law firm.

If you are interested in running a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign alongside your Google listing, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.