Why scaling law firms should have multiple offices

An attorney asks about ranking in local searches:

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“You’ve mentioned before that firms should open up multiple office locations and Google Business Profiles.

But, I’ve already got an established location with 300 five-star reviews.

So why should I divert those reviews elsewhere and spread myself thin?”

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This is an excellent question, with a not-so-obvious answer.

If you want to rank highly in the local maps, putting all your eggs into one basket (even with lots of great reviews) can work against you.

Why?

Coverage.

The Maps algorithm is proximity-based.

In other words, it will give the highest ranking to the firms that are closest to the searcher.

So, you’ve got to play offense by “encircling” the area of the town you’re trying to rank in.

For instance, if you’re a personal injury lawyer with three office locations, you might arrange them in a triangle around your city’s downtown area.

You want to show Google that you are literally all over the map — that you serve people in each neighborhood, each area of your city!

That said…

You don’t have to re-route all your reviews to those new locations.

You can just send a few at a time, and trickle them out in a way that makes sense based on each individual office.

If you get most of your cases from, say, the northeastern part of your city, then it might make sense to focus on putting your best reviews in that location first.

All of this gives you the best opportunity possible to rank highly in the Map Pack.

These are the “top three” search results that pop up at the top of the page in local searches… which drive almost 50% of all clicks for local businesses on Google!

And, this is why maximizing coverage is the basis of ApricotLaw’s “SEO Map Attack” strategy.

When we implement this for clients, we:

• Optimize their Google Business Profile(s) with hyper-local keywords and high-quality photos, and update their services, posts, and Q&A sections on a regular basis to boost engagement
• Reach out to local listings in prominent legal directories, filling out profiles with clients’ name, address, and phone number (NAP), also linking back to their firm’s website
• Distribute locally-focused press releases that target news outlets and online platforms
• Create custom authority content for the clients’ site designed to bring in organic traffic from their ideal leads and clients

All of these steps put together will massively boost rankings for law firms in the Maps.

You can steal this strategy for yourself, if you’d like.

Or, if you’d prefer a hands-off, full-service approach instead, we can implement it for you.

For more details:

Book a 15-minute discovery call with me here.

No strings attached. This is just an informal chat about how we can help you bring in more business for your attorneys.

See you soon in the next issue of The Trusted Law Firm!

— Kellen Bachman
Head of Client Strategy at ApricotLaw