Danny Star, CEO and Founder of Website Depot Digital Marketing Agency, has helped hundreds of small businesses grow and expand.
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Are you a lawyer who’s frustrated that your law firm’s digital marketing strategy isn’t working as well as it should? Or, alternatively, are you a digital marketer who wants to be able to help your legal clients as much as possible?
When I started my company, I didn’t plan on focusing so much on the legal niche. But over time, lawyers started gravitating toward us. Here are some of the lesser-known techniques that we use to help our legal clients.
‘Relevance, Distance And Prominence’
If you search online for “attorneys near me” (or some variation thereof), you’ll get three results near the very top. That’s what’s known as Google’s 3-pack.
Yes, there may be some results above them on the page, but they’ll have the word “Ad” next to them. The 3-pack doesn’t have that. Rather, these are the three best results that Google has for your search terms.
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As you might imagine, this is where you want to be. Of course, everyone else wants to be here, too, making it as competitive as can be.
How does Google determine who gets in? “Relevance, distance and prominence.” When it comes to what Google says, it’s important to pay attention. For example, Google determines relevance by “how well a local (Google) Business Profile matches what someone is searching for. Add complete and detailed business information to help Google better understand your business and match your profile to relevant searches.”
You’ll note that Google did not say, “Write a new blog post every day, fill it with value, make it at least 500 words, choose a keyword, etc.” These things can be very helpful for your digital marketing efforts, sure, but to have the best chance of getting into the 3-pack, you have to factor in relevance, distance and prominence as well.
Being As Prominent As You Can
Prominence is determined, in part, from “information that Google has about a business, from across the web, like links, articles, and directories. Google review count and review score factor into local search ranking. More reviews and positive ratings can improve your business’ local ranking. Your position in web results is also a factor, so search engine optimization (SEO) best practices apply.”
Let’s break this down.
“SEO best practices apply,” means that you have to do the SEO work. Google isn’t going to take you from page 3 of the search results to the 3-pack just because you had a very successful case. To get to the 3-pack, you need to have an effective SEO strategy. But you also need much more.
Many of the lawyers and digital marketers for lawyers that we’ve talked to seem to have the impression that reviews from satisfied clients just happen. They think they have no agency. That is not the case. You can get reviews yourself, or for your clients. There is nothing wrong, nothing at all, with reaching out to clients you helped and asking for a review. If you’re like a majority of the lawyers we’ve worked with, your satisfied clients will be happy to help.
Don’t Overlook Your Google Business Profile
Another thing we’ve seen with lawyers and digital marketers for lawyers: They build a good website, they have a consistent content schedule and their SEO strategy is on point, but they still aren’t seeing results.
Why? Because they overlook their Google Business Profile.
So often, the very first thing we do with our clients is claim their Google Business Profile. Then, we set about optimizing it as much as possible.
When you optimize your profile, fill it out as completely as possible, as honestly as possible and as consistently as possible. For example, it asks for your website address. This may not seem like a big deal, but you want to make sure to always list your website address the same way everywhere. Why? Because Google’s web crawlers take that very seriously. If they see that your website address is listed one way in one place but different somewhere else, they’ll rank you lower because you could potentially confuse Google’s users. For example, including “www” before my website name is very different from listing the address just as “websitedepot.com.” Sure, it’s the same site, but it has to be listed the same everywhere.
To use an analogy, if your strategy to get into the 3-pack (or just to succeed with Google) is like a car, then your Google Business Profile is like the key. No matter how much work you do on the rest of your car, without that key, nothing is going to work, and you certainly aren’t going to get where you want to go.
Continued Maintenance
When folks finish their Google Business Profile, they often think, “Hooray! We’re done with that.” For now. You have to maintain your profile.
You can edit it at any time, but anyone else can suggest edits too. So check often to make sure that things haven’t been changed. Sure, you can accept and reject suggestions, but like so much else in digital marketing success, constant vigilance is required.
Getting into Google’s 3-pack is the culmination of a lot of hard work. But once you do, it’s worth it. It’s worth even more to stay there.
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Author: Danny Star, Forbes Councils Member
