Are you a personal injury lawyer or owner of a law firm? If so, a great Google My Business profile is crucial to gaining significant online visibility with your target audience, particularly local clients. The top-ranked GMB profile (the profiles that appear in the ‘local pack’) are likely to get approximately 42 percent more clicks. 

For your law firm to appear in that ‘local pack,’ you should optimize its GMB profile for a combination of various local ranking factors. Understanding the specific factors to optimize for is essential to boosting your rank and acquiring the revenue associated with ranking better on Google and other search engines. If you are unsure about the specific law firm SEO steps to implement, consult with an expert. 

Recently, Google published that GMB signals fall into three different packets, including distance, relevance, and prominence. Each of these local ranking signals is often informed by thousands of various algorithmic variables. Previously, GMB studies and surveys from Moz.com, Brightlocal.com, and even Localseoguide.com have sought to reveal and rank the essential local ranking factors. Here are some of the important aspects of Google My Business for law firms that you should know.

The city listed in the GMB profile has a direct impact on the position

Generally, the function of GMB profile is to help consumers discover relevant local businesses. Multiple studies have found that when a consumer search is a query that includes a city, the specific city listed in the Google my business profile is often the dominant ranking factor. Also, the law firm whose GMB profile has a city name alongside ‘personal injury’ or ‘car accidents’ often get a higher rank compared to those that have the term ‘lawyer’ alone.

These facts are expected because Google My Business results are usually relevant if they are in the geographical area of the searcher. Similarly, if search queries replace the city name with a nearby municipality or neighbourhood, the local search pack displayed in the top search results is likely to change. The nearest law office at the time of a specific search is likely to appear in the generic and localized search. This is because distance plays a key role when it comes to displaying business profiles in the local search pack.

When creating or optimizing your law firm’s Google My Business profile, ensure the city name listed in the profile matches the specific city that your target audience uses in typical search queries. Also, keep in mind that you are likely to rank better in a local pack results by listing your law firm in a less competitive location. Note that tinkering with the city name might help you boost your rank depending on the specific location of your law firm and the location of your target audience.

“Personal injury lawyer” remains to be the highest-ranking business category

In a recent study that aimed to find the highest-ranked business category, the researchers found that “personal injury lawyer” was the highest-ranking business category in the personal injury field. About 81 percent of all personal injury firms analyzed in the study used the business type or category “personal injury lawyer” with just a few exemptions. Other categories that seemed to rank better include “family law lawyer,” “criminal justice lawyer,” and more. 

General business categories like ‘legal firm’ or ‘lawyer’ were found to have the lowest ranks in the local pack. This correlation reveals that Google and other search engines up-rank Google My Business profiles with business categories that are closest to the consumers’ search queries. In this case, relevance is a signpost of local search, and having a specific category could help you rank better than having just a general category.

To achieve the highest rank for various queries related to personal injury, set your law firm’s GMB profile business category to a term that is similar to what your target audience is searching for. For example, you can set “personal injury lawyer” as the business category.

Using the right keywords in your GMB’s description affects rankings too

There is a close correlation between top-ranking law firm GMB profiles and the use of relevant search queries or keywords in the Google My Business profile description and title. Some of these keywords are related to the city name, lawyer, personal injury, and car accident. If you are creating a GMB profile for your law firm, it is important to do keyword research and create a list of relevant search terms that must be added to your GMB profile description and title.

Generally, the keywords in the Google My Business profile description and title appear to be an important ranking factor, though with less weight compared to the business category name. Most law firm GMB profiles that have a combination of relevant keywords in their description are likely to rank higher than those that don’t have such keywords. That means adding the relevant keywords to your Google My Business profile title and description has a positive effect on the profile’s rank. 

There’s more to GMB profile ranking

There are also other important aspects of the Google My Business profile for law firms. For example, review volume seems to be an important ranking factor compared to review quality. It is important to mention that Google analyses the reviews to determine whether a business is trustworthy or not. That means a GMB listing with many reviews is more likely to rank higher in the local pack compared to those with few or no reviews at all.

Additionally, frequent updates and more photos to your Google My Business profile correlate with higher rankings. That means personal injury lawyers who regularly add new posts at photos to their GMB profiles tend to rank better than those who don’t. There are other SEO best practices that are likely to boost your GMB profile’s position in the local pack. For example, having more and high-quality referring domains to your GMB profile could boost your rank in the local pack.

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