To start off, let us first look at what a Google My Business listing (GMB listing for short) exactly is.
To put it simply, a Google My Business listing is an offshoot of the field of online SEO and its primary purpose is to attract people from within a certain radius of your law firm’s physical location by making use of organic SEO techniques.
To understand the importance and effectiveness of GMB listings for law firms, let us look at an example:
When I go to the Google search bar and type in the phrase “Lawyers in Los Angeles,” this is the first thing that is displayed on the results page of the search engine.
As you can see in the image above, the three-pack is the first thing that is displayed on the results page. Now you might ask, what is a three-pack? A Google three-pack Is the method employed by Google to display the top three results for local SERP results. This means that the Google algorithm makes use of the user’s location to display results that are relevant to the location from where that user has submitted the query.
How Is a Legal GMB Beneficial for Your Law Firm?
Now that you are aware of the Google three-pack, it is worth mentioning that strategically positioning your law firm in the three-pack within your locality increases the odds that a potential client will discover your services through organic search results on the Google SERP.
On the contrary, it is highly unlikely that a potential client looking for law firms within their locality will scroll past the Google three-pack and the paid advertisements on the results page to specifically find your business website.
In addition, it has been found that most of the results displayed on the Google SERP are related to certain locations. Also, with the advent and popularization of Google maps, more and more people have begun to depend on the Google location services instead of trying to figure out their destination via a manual/physical process.
The best part about the Google My Business listing is that it elevates the standing of your website and location both on the Google SERP as well as on the Google Maps services. This means that your firm is being advertised on more platforms and thus has far greater reach than it would’ve had otherwise. Therefore, it is safe to say that GMB is helping potential clients find out about your services with greater ease than ever.
According to statistics, it has been estimated that 50% of the customers that searched for a store/service in their locality visited the store within a day. The distinctive part about this statistic is that a large portion of these businesses had created a Google My Business listing for their stores which helped them to land customers over the internet.
For law firms, the GMB listing service can be even more lucrative since the potential clients searching for a law firm are likely to get in contact with the firms that they discover online. Thus, GMB listings are an excellent way to attract a large number of potential customers towards your practice. Also, when It comes to legal matters, people tend to look for swift ways to get their issues resolved ASAP.
If utilized properly, Google My Business is a fantastic feature that will help you increase online visibility and attract more potential clients looking for legal services offered by your law firm. However, it is important that you constantly update your legal GMB listing so that your firm remains in the three-pack.
