Marketing insights is the key for law firms to get new clients. But what most don’t understand is that the data found inside Google Business Profile for lawyers can be a leverage to improve their online marketing strategies. Thus, law firms miss the chance to grow their practice.
If you’re one of the law firms who’s only discovering what Google Business Profile is, let Local Business Marketing Solutions help you get the knowledge you need for digital marketing success.
What Is Google Business Profile (GBP)?
GBP is your online business listing. Think of it as a directory where people can find a physical business’s location and contact information. For law firms, it allows them to gain more clients outside of referrals and reach a broader audience.
Creating a GBP account is quick and easy.
- Sign up with your business email address.
- Create a profile
- Enter your business name.
- Add a primary business category.
- Pick a location on Google Maps or enter your business address.
- Set your service area.
Get the full instruction on how to sign up for a Business Profile here.
Its name used to be Google My Business. But changing Google My Business to Google Business Profile makes sense because, as mentioned above, it gives you more than a pin on Google Maps. It allows your business to have a profile, which you can use to market using other digital marketing platforms.
Why Do Law Firms Need a Business Listing on GBP?
Most law firms that want to compete in their service area sign up for GBP for various reasons. Here are the two main ones.
It Gives Your Physical Location an Online Presence
Signing up for GBP gives your office a virtual home. It puts it on the map for potential clients to look into. Apart from that, your law firm gets to have its profile where you can list your law firm’s website, contact information, office hours, and other pertinent information.
Your law firm’s Google profile will appear on local searches and Google Maps on desktop and mobile devices. Clients can also leave Google reviews on your GBP profile, boosting your credibility and reputation online.
Allows You to Gain Business Insights You Can Leverage
One of the best features of GBP lies under the Insights section. It’s a sub-menu on the left side of the GBP interface that allows marketers to get data and insights regarding their business profile’s performance online.
GBP Insights present the data visually through charts, allowing everyone—even complete marketing beginners—to easily interpret the data.
How a Law Firm Can Leverage GBP Insights for Marketing
Your law firm’s GBP profile has a lot of potential. Apart from being a standalone profile that can drive traffic to your office, it can also generate helpful insights that will allow you to plan new marketing strategies that support your online presence.
The following are some of the sections in GBP Insights that will be helpful for you when boosting your marketing efforts.
How Customers Find You
Users can find your law firm’s Google Business Profile in three ways.
- They search for your firm’s name and location (direct search). In this case, Google will return your listing as a Knowledge Panel.
- They search for a service or practice area you offer (discovery search).
- They include your firm’s name in the query but not your specific location (branded search). The intent is not as explicit as a direct search, so Google may return a list of local results instead of a Knowledge Panel.
Below is a table with examples of queries and their search types.
| Query | Search Type |
| baker mckenzie palo alto | Direct |
| tax lawyer near me | Discovery |
| tax lawyer palo alto | Discovery |
| baker mckenzie | Branded |
| baker mckenzie tax lawyer | Branded |
| baker mckenzie office near me | Branded |
This section of GBP can give you insights into how your overall digital marketing efforts are doing. For example, if you’re running a brand awareness campaign, you’ll find out whether it’s effective by viewing your direct searches and brand searches, both of which use your law firm’s name in the query. On the other hand, if your discovery searches are low, that could mean an opportunity to target keywords related to your services.
Photo by CardMapr.nl on Unsplash
Where Customers Find You
Metrics you find under this section of GBP Insights tell you where your potential clients search for your law firm and its services. A high volume of View on Search means they’re pulling up the Google search engine to look for your business, while View on Maps tells you how many of them are checking out where your office is located.
The insights gained from this section help you plan out where to optimize and how. Additionally, you can use the data to inform your Google ad strategy.
Search Queries
As the dominant search engine, you can bet potential clients use Google as their primary tool to look for a law firm. You can use this to your advantage by pulling up search term reports that provide data on the popular keywords they use. You can leverage the data as a take-off point for keyword research to improve your local SEO efforts.
Search query insights can also give you more information to boost your Google search ad campaigns. You can test the keywords and target them in your ads until you find out which terms give your law firm the maximum results for your goals.
Customer Actions
This insight provides data on the actions that users take after viewing your GBP listing. It shows how many users completed the following actions:
- Visited your website
- Requested directions
- Called your office
Understanding how potential clients behave after seeing your listing can inform your digital marketing strategy. For example, if you notice that a majority of customers visit your website, you may want to optimize your attorney website content and design. Similarly, if you notice that a majority of customers call you, consider optimizing your call to action to encourage more customers to call.
Google Business Profile for Lawyers Made More Effective
Setting up your GBP is easy, but using the data from Insights to boost your organic and paid marketing efforts takes work. To see holistic improvements in your Google Business Profile, your search engine rankings, and your paid ads, you’ll need experts handling them in a way that supports each other’s performance.
If you want to know how you can leverage GBP for your marketing to get more clients, contact us for a 15-minute discovery consultation today.
