People continue to ask me why Google has made such a drastic change and my response is simple: to make more money. Google knows that 92% of all businesses in the United States serve a radius of only 50 miles from where they are located – most law firms are no different. With the new release, Google now looks at your location and behavior online and includes a greater number of local based results for you to see. As yellow pages continue to decline and more people turn to the web for local searches, local businesses will be more compelled to compete online and pay more for paid advertising.
So how have the new changes impacted law firm search results?
Some law firms that were once #1 for organic results for a particular search can now find themselves near the bottom of the page – below those listings with Places appended to them. Conversely, those firms that relied on highly optimized Places listings now find themselves struggling for visibility without an equally optimized website. All this of course depends on the search and how the results are displayed. Here are three examples:
Head Term Search Results
A head term search result is simply a more commonly searched keyword or phrase in Google. An example of this is “New York City Personal Injury Attorney” - which also happens to be the highest pay-per-click ad to run in Google for NYC. For these results, we see ten results on the first page – 7 of which have a Google Places ad appended to them.
Second Tier Terms
Second tier terms are simply search terms that are less commonly used than Head Terms but are still repeated. An example of this would be “New York City Bus Accident Attorney” – A far less searched term in volume than a typical header term but still garners a relatively high pay-per-click cost in Google for NYC. In this display, three Places listings are independently displayed at the top of the organic results followed by 10 organic results
Long Tail Terms
Long Tail search terms are those terms that are rarely repeated in search volume. An example of this would be “New York City Crane Accident Attorney.” Due to the relative infrequency of these types of accidents, there is less competition for these or organically and in paid adverting. As a result, there are no Places listings on this search results page in Google and no map. There is however videos displayed in this search result which indicates that good video optimization can better support your results here.
What Can Law Firms Learn From This?
There are a number of conclusions law firms can derive from all of these changes in Google:
- If you don’t have an optimized website for your practice, you need to get one now. The Google algorithm rewards length of stay online and the longer you wait, the more it will take to eventually catch up to your competition
- Both websites and your Google Places listings must be fully optimized. It is relatively easy for an attorney to claim their local listing but very few know how to fully optimize these properly and build citations for better performance. Moreover, most website developers don’t understand this either so you are best to work with an SEO consultant who can help you.
- Google Places Optimization should take into consideration what search terms you are targeting and how they will be displayed in the new Google search results. For example, there is no point in optimizing a Google Places listing for long tail terms if they do not display in the search results. Moreover, Head terms should also be weighed based on your level of competition for these as well.
- Local results are not limited to just your Google Places listings. This also includes how you use your local information on websites, directories, videos, images, inbound links, and other web properties. It is important to make sure that they are all consistent, localized and ultimately sends the same signals to the search engines.