A properly optimized Google Business Profile is a prerequisite to ranking in the Google Local Pack.
Below, we’ll cover how to optimize your Google Business Profile.
How To Optimize Your Law Firm’s Google Business Profile:
There are no secrets to Google Business Profile, but we do have tips. Below, we’ll go through every section of attorney’s Google Business Profile settings, and add notes, tips, and dispel a few myths.
This guide applies to those who have already claimed and verified their listing.
To edit your profile, search for your law firm’s name while logged into a Google Account which is an “Owner” or “Manager” of the Google Business Profile. That should bring up this dashboard at the top of Google Search:
Below we’ll go through each section of this dashboard.
Business Information:
In this section, you can enter business information.
- Business Name: This is the official name of your law firm, as registered with the Secretary of State. Keywords are not allowed. DBAs are allowed.
- Business Category: The business category is extremely important. Here you’ll want to select “Personal Injury Attorney” and not “Law Firm” (if you’re a personal injury attorney) as the “primary category”. You can indeed enter “Law Firm” or “Attorney” as secondary categories. If your firm offers multiple practice areas, select the most important or profitable category first. There are over 40 attorney categories, includeing: personal injury attorney, criminal justice attorney, family law attorney, & immigration attorney.
- Description: A well written Google Business Profile helps improve conversions.
– Pro tip: The description does not impact Local Pack rankings.
– Pro tip: Google can delete these from time to time! - Opening Date: This is important.
- Phone Number: Enter your phone number.
– Pro Tip: It’s ok to use a call tracking number here. Your phone number does not need to be identical absolutely everywhere on the web. - Chat: Optionally, allow users to message you via Text or WhatsApp.
- Website: Here you will want to enter the URL to your website.
– Pro tip: Multi-location law firms should enter the URL to the location page matching the city of the GBP. - Social profiles: Add all of your social profiles here.
- Location: This is the address to your staffed office. Enter it here. Make sure the Map Pin is in the correct location.
- Service Area: We usually avoid using this feature. Entering something here can create confusion about which areas are serviced. This does not impact Local Pack rankings.
- Business Hours: In competitive niches we almost always recommend 24hrs/day. Technically, you should only enter the hours the law firm is staffed. Google stopped policing this years ago.
- Special Hours: Optionally you can enter holidays you’re closed and things of that nature.
- More (from the business): Google allows people to “identify as Asian owned”, black owned, Latino, etc. This generally gives profiles a small badge.
- Accessibility: Here you can check boxes for things such as wheelchair accessibility.
- Amenities: Basically, if you have a restroom (say yes).
- Crowd: We usually leave this untouched.
- Parking: This is more important for restaurants, but go ahead and select the correct parking here.
- Planning: You can select “appointment required” here if needed. We leave this unchecked.
- Service Options: We recommend you go through these and select as many as possible.
A note on “Your attributes were updated by Google” messages. Google updates things from time to time. So do end users. So do competitors. You’ll want to stay on top of these settings.
Reviews:
This section of the GBP dashboard allows you to read and review to client’s reviews. It’s recommended law firms engage with clients here, and leads to more reviews and better conversions.
Photos:
You can upload photos and videos in this section. A cover photo and a logo image are mandatory. We strongly recommend showing pictures of the outside of the building, the entrance, and team members. We recommend adding as many photos as possible. Short videos may also be added.
Posts:
Google Posts last for a long time and are seen by people looking for your law firm by it’s brand name. These do not directly impact rankings but can increase user engagement. We recommend you update these from time to time. You could post about current events, offer a free consultation, or post images of recent reviews or settlements here.
Products:
The way this works varies depending on the type of business. For law firms, we create “products” with images called “Car Accident Lawyer”.
– Pro tip: Make your listing pop with custom images here!
– Pro tip: Make your last product entered “Free Consultation” to keep it stuck to the top.
Services:
For attorney listings, there are many “services” which may be entered. Adding relevant services can improve visibility for specific searches. Using personal injury attorneys as an example, services which may be selected include auto accident litigation, wrongful death lawyer, etc.
Google will occasionally add a whole bunch of services. We recommend you accept these from time to time. When this occurs, you’ll see a message which reads “Services were changed based on feedback from Google users or other sources. Review these published updates to make sure they are accurate.”
Bookings:
This is optional. You can enter a URL for a booking link here if you’d like.
Ask for reviews:
This section is very important because Google gives you a URL & a QR Code to send to people to ask for a review. Review quality, review score, and review recency are most definitely ranking factors.
See Google’s help page on Google reviews best practices if you have questions about Google’s guidelines.