Boosting Your Law Firm's Online Presence with Local Citations and SEO

In a super competitive market, having a strong online presence is crucial for law firms looking to attract new clients and grow their business. While many firms invest in law firm marketing strategies like paid advertising and social media, one often overlooked aspect is local search engine optimization (SEO). Local SEO services can help your law practice rank higher in local search results and get found by potential clients in your area. A key component of effective local SEO is building local citations. The best law firms own their home market first!

What are local citations? Simply put, a local citation is any online mention of your law firm's name, address, and phone number (NAP). Citations can appear on local business directories, websites, social media platforms, and apps. Common examples include your Google Business Profile, online legal directories like Avvo and FindLaw, review sites like Yelp, and local chamber of commerce listings.

Why are local citations important for law firms? Search engines like Google use citations as a ranking factor in their local search algorithms. The more high-quality, consistent citations you have across the web, the higher you will rank in local results. Citations help search engines verify your law firm's legitimacy, location, and contact info. They establish your firm as a trusted local business.

Consistent citations are especially important. Google and other search engines cross-reference your citations to ensure your NAP info is accurate and matches your website. Any inconsistencies can hurt your local rankings. As part of a local SEO services strategy, it's important to audit your existing citations and correct any inaccuracies.

Building new relevant citations on high-authority sites can give your law firm an SEO boost. Focus on general legal and local business directories as well as niche legal directories specific to your practice areas. For example, a family law attorney would want to get listed on DivorceLawFirms.com. Fill out your profiles completely, using your official business name, address, phone number, and website URL. Add descriptions, hours, payment methods, photos, and other helpful details when possible.

While building citations manually can be time-consuming, working with an experienced local SEO services provider is a smart law firm marketing investment. A good agency will help identify citation opportunities, build out your profiles, clean up inconsistencies, and monitor your citations over time. They can also help with other aspects of local SEO like optimizing your Google Business Profile and managing online reviews.

Speaking of online reviews, they are another critical component of local SEO for law firms. Reviews on your Google profile, Avvo, Yelp and other sites act as "mini-citations" and further validate your firm to search engines. Reviews also provide valuable social proof to potential clients. Many people searching for an attorney will read reviews before deciding who to contact. Asking satisfied clients to leave reviews is an effective law firm marketing tactic. Be sure to respond to all reviews, positive or negative, to show that you value client feedback.

In addition to citations and reviews, a well-optimized website is essential for local SEO success. Your site should be mobile-friendly, fast-loading, and technically sound. Optimize your title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and body content for local keywords. Use a consistent NAP in your site's header or footer. Create separate location pages for each office and optimize them with local content. An experienced local SEO services company can provide guidance and support with on-page optimization.

Other local SEO best practices for law firms include claiming and optimizing your Google Business Profile, embedding a Google Map on your site, using local business schema markup, building locally relevant backlinks, posting regular blog content related to your location and practice areas, and staying active on social media. By implementing these tactics alongside a strong citation building and review management strategy, you can significantly improve your law firm's visibility in local search.

The value of local SEO for law firms cannot be overstated. At a time when most people turn to Google to find local legal services, ranking well in local search is essential for driving targeted traffic to your website, generating leads, and attracting new clients. Local citations are a foundational element of any successful local SEO campaign. Whether you handle citation building in-house or partner with a reputable local SEO services provider, make local citations a priority in your comprehensive law firm marketing plan. The investment will pay off in greater online visibility, enhanced credibility, and long-term growth for your practice.

Audit Your Law Firm's Local Citations

Here are some effective ways to audit your law firm's existing local citations for accuracy:

By following these citation audit best practices, you can ensure your law firm's online listings are accurate, consistent, and optimized for local SEO. Accurate citations will make it easier for potential clients to find and contact you, while also boosting your visibility and credibility in local search results.

What To Monitor In A Local Citation Audit

When auditing your law firm's local citations, focus on the following key pieces of information:

By focusing on these key citation components during your audit, you can ensure that your law firm's online listings are accurate, complete, and optimized for local search. Consistency across all these fields will help search engines and potential clients trust your information and identify your law firm as a credible local business. If this all seems to be a bit too much, hiring an experienced local seo agency can make this entire process easy for your firm.

Local Search User Behavior Is Different

The real major difference between mobile smartphone usage and desktops or tablets can be seen in local search user behavior. Mobility offers a device that allows people to communicate, consume and query all from the same device. There's no such thing as “mobile” as far as most users are concerned, the entire user search experience is seam-less. Basically local search user behavior is reflected by these actions; communications, one on one, or one too many, consumption of data, media, or entertainment, and finally search queries looking for fast answers. Understanding local search behavior is critical for success for law firm advertising.

Three Ways Local Search Behavior Is Unique

What are the common characteristics of mobile users? They often share these local search behaviors:

  1. Location Based - this only makes sense that the internal GPS will influence search outcomes. Searches that answer “find a ___ near me” will drive very local results. 50% of all local search are search done on mobile devices.  94% of smartphone users have searched for local information.
  2. Task Oriented - with a bias towards action, 84% have taken action as a result of that search. 64% connect with a business — 48% called the business 47% looked up business on map or got directions stressing the importance that location plays in the results as well.
  3. Time Sensitive - action happens more than 90% of local users take action within 24 hours. 70% of mobile searches lead to action within one hour. It takes one month for the same percentage of desktop users to take the same actions.

Now that you know that local search users are task oriented, location based and biased towards action with time sensitivity, you can see why these potential clients are your most valuable leads! They are immediately ready to engage with your law firm’s services. So your local presence must grab their attention quickly, offers a unique value proposition and provides an awesome experience that makes it fast and easy to focus on completing the legal needs. If this sounds like local SEO along with speed is a virtue for local search, that’s because it is!

KEY POINT: because local search behavior is different, local search results are different too. In a recent independent analysis by SEO Clarity, 67% of local search results were different from desktop search results. Now some local search results are up to 73% different that their desktop counterpart search following this recent mobile update. Local search continues to deviate from traditional desktop search results when it comes to rankings, and is the main reason local SEO is critical for success.

How Local Search Differs

The mobile world continues to blur the lines and behaviors people use to connect to the internet. Seamless integration with all internet devices creates a user experience the moves easily between interest and actions, research and purchase, engagement and sharing. So what are people doing on mobile?

10 Facts About Local Search User Behavior:

  1. 86% of mobile internet users use devices while watching TV
  2. 63% access the Internet
  3. 62% check their email
  4. 61% play games
  5. 55% check the weather
  6. 50% use maps for directions
  7. 49% use social media and 70% access social networks with an app
  8. 42% listen to music
  9. 36% get their News
  10. 21% watch streaming video — 200+ million YouTube views on mobile per day

Use Site Analytics To Improve Conversions

local searchWith a better understanding of the goals of a mobile user and their current behaviors on a mobile device, you can now begin to develop a  focused local SEO strategy that aligns your business goals with your user actions. Start by verifying and measuring the organic mobile traffic and the top mobile queries and mobile pages of your website. Google Analytics provides more than enough data to get most businesses started down the local SEO path.

Continue to optimize your mobile site and focus on these 3 things:

  1. Mobile Design - is it crystal clear what actions you want people to take when they are on your website? Can these actions be completed easily?
  2. Relevant Content — is your mobile content short and concise? Does it contain mobile friendly keywords?
  3. Define location — use schema.org markup to specify your location, business type, reviews, and special events. Make it easy for mobile search bots to present your website.

Embrace A Local SEO Mindset

Local search continues to grow and evolve, so keep that at the top of mind in your local SEO and digital marketing strategies. Remember the mobile user profile outlined above and try the make their experience incredible and rewarding. Don’t let the mobile version of your website be the target of the frustration because it performs poorly, slowly or has too many steps involved to complete their ability to engage with your firm quickly. Don’t be the “idiot who built this damn website”; be the business that built “a great mobile website” that gets shared with many others because it is so client friendly.

Resources:
IDC Forecast January 2014,
KPCB Mobile Search Actions 2013
Google: Our Mobile Planet: United States of America - Understanding the Mobile Consumer, May 2013
Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update, 2013–2018, February 2014
IDC Forecast: Tablet Shipments Forecast to Top Total PC Shipments in the Fourth Quarter of 2013 and Annually by 2015, September 11, 2014
KPCB Internet Trends 2014

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