If your marketing budget is limited and you can only afford to pursue one online channel, your effort should be dedicated to getting into Google’s 3-pack for as many important keywords as you can. That effort requires the regular addition of two items:
- Properly-worded citations
- Positive reviews
Because Google wants to present the best vendor choices to searchers, Google’s 3-pack algorithm weighs both the number of accurate citations and the quantity of positive reviews to determine which law firms appear in the local 3-pack.
1. Properly-worded citations
Citations are listings of your business name, address and phone number on other websites. This is often called as your business NAP (name, address, phone). Though not all citations are linking to your website, they still play an important role for your law firm’s local search ranking because Google use them as a verifier that your business is real.
However, there’s a catch. Your business NAP must be consistently written – abbreviations, spellings, street numbers, punctuations, etc. If you’re not consistent, Google can view varying listings as different entities.
That uniformity requirement makes the job of citation creation well-suited to software, which is what we use to create citations for our law firm clients. We also know which directories contain the most value for lawyers, and how to create a profile using the right balance of keywords and descriptive copy.
2. Positive reviews
There are two steps to building a persuasive and current collection of positive reviews:
- Continually solicit reviews
- Screen out bad reviews
Continually solicit reviews
Because recent reviews are regarded by both readers and Google’s algorithms as more persuasive, obtaining a steady flow of new reviews will be more helpful than a one-time solicitation effort.
We use software to regularly request reviews from our law firms’ clients. This automation ensures the requests go out, no matter how busy your staff. Our software also simplifies the task of writing a review so that no technical knowledge or review site logins are required. Even the least tech-savvy of your clients can provide a review when our software is used.
Screen out bad reviews
Our software also controls which reviews get posted. You decide which reviews the public sees and which reviews only you see. In our software we call this hiding process “parking bad reviews.” After receiving a bad review you can decide whether to make any changes at your firm or to reach out to the unhappy client. But with our software no one else besides you sees the criticism.
Price
Our citation-creation and review-solicitation-and-screening work cost $1,000/month. Citations and reviews will be obtained in the first month, but their impact on your local ranking will take three months to be seen.
Tell me how your $1,000/month citation and review efforts can bring me more leads.