How To Claim & Optimize Your Law Firm’s Google Map Listing

Is your law firm’s Google map listing optimized? An optimized local map listing will receive far more traffic and bring you more new clients. There are a number of best practices that you want to be aware of to properly optimize your Map listing and of course this includes the use of video.

• Firm Name – Always use your legal Firm Name – don’t stuff additional fields into the Name Field. E.G. So if you’re, “Smith Law Group LLP,” make sure that you name it, “Smith Law Group LLP,” and not some other facsimile thereof like “Traffic Legal Services” or “Smith Law Group, Your Traffic Legal Services Firm.” This would be against the Google Places Guidelines and will reduce your probability of ranking.
• Address – On the “Address Field” use your EXACT legal address. Be intentional here. You want to ensure that you have the same address listed on your Google Places listing as it is on all the other online directory listings like YellowPages.com, CitySearch.com, Yelp.com, etc. The consistency of your N.A.P (Name, Address, Phone Number Profile) is very important for placement.
• Phone Number – Use a local (not 800#) and use your real office number rather than a tracking number. We find that 800#’s don’t rank well. If you use a tracking number it won’t be consistent with your other Online Directory Listings and ultimately won’t rank well.
• Categories – You can use up to five categories, so use ALL five. Be sure to use categories that describe what your business “is” rather than what it “does”. So you can use “Personal Injury Attorney” “Personal Injury Law Firm” and “Atlanta Personal Injury Law Firm” rather than “Personal Injury Attorney Fighting for Your Rights” or “Attorney on Your Side” the latter would be considered a violation of Google’s regulations and would hurt rather than help you.
• Practice Area & Location settings – Google offers 2 options here 1. No, All clients come to my location 2. Yes, I serve clients at their location. As a law firm you need to select “No, All clients come to my location” because clearly your clients are visiting your location. Not doing so can result in a penalty on your listing.
• The next option once you click “No, All clients come to my location” is “Show my address”. If you happen to work from a Home Office it is required that you select “Do not show my address” not doing so put’s you at risk of having your listing deleted.
• If you don’t have a Business Address or a Home Address to list the only other option is a Virtual Office. Unfortunately P.O. Box Addresses & Mail Boxes Etc. don’t tend to rank well.
• Picture & Video Settings – You can upload up to 10 pictures & 5 videos. Use this opportunity to upload authentic content about your company. It’s always best to use real photos of your firm and team rather than Stock Photos.
• Pictures – Be sure to invest in professional pictures. You can also create geo context for the photos by uploading them to a video sharing site like Panoramio.com (a Google Property) that enables you to Geo Tag your photo’s to your company location.
• Videos – Upload VIDEOS. Remember that you are a law firm so although it does not need to be super hi-tech it does need to be professional. Consider hiring a professional to shoot the videos. A best practice is to upload the video’s to YouTube and then Geo Tag them using advanced settings.

Once you have Optimized your listing using the best practices referenced above, you want to be sure that you don’t have any duplicate listings listed on Google Maps. We have found that even just one or two duplicate listings can prevent your listing from ranking on page one. In order to identify and merge duplicate listings run a search on Google for “Company Name, City”.

To clean up duplicate listings, click on the listing in question and then click “edit business details”

• Then click “This is a duplicate” and let Google Know that the listing should be merged with your primary listing.

If you follow these best practices you will have a well optimized Google Maps listing for your Law Firm.

About Creative Internet Authority:
Creative Internet Authority is a digital marketing company that specializes in producing and promoting videos for law firms. We use a 7 step process to create educational, informative and relevant videos that position law firms as thought leaders and authorities in the industry.

Helping Lawyers and Law Firms with the ABCs:

• Attracting the Right Prospective Clients
• Building Authority so that Prospective Clients Trust You
• Converting That Traffic Into Clients or Subscribers

To learn more about Creative Internet Authority and how you can use videos to increase visibility and exposure download our guide below.

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