Service
Local SEO for solicitors: the map with three firms on it, and how an office gets there
“Solicitors near me” and “solicitors in <town>” on a telephone show a map with three firms before anything else. The three are chosen from the Google Business Profile of each office: what it says, what clients say on it, and whether the office looks real. A firm has an address clients visit, which makes the set-up simpler than a tradesman's and the mistakes more visible. We fix the profile for each office, keep it right, and run the routine that keeps it in the three.
Not ready for a monthly retainer? The profile build on its own is £200 per office, one-off. What it includes
What we find
Six faults in most firms' profiles
From the profiles we audit. Each is cheap to fix and each is costing the map.
- One profile for three offices
- Google treats each address as a business. One profile means two offices are invisible on the map, and the one that exists carries the wrong hours for the others. One profile per office, each with its own people and photographs.
- 'Law firm' and nothing else
- One category means one set of searches. Add the true ones: conveyancer, family law attorney, estate planning attorney, employment attorney. Google's category names are American; the searches they catch are yours.
- No services, no fees
- Google's predefined services list climbed the ranking-factor surveys sharply this year. Tick the practice areas, add your own in plain words, and add the from-fees the Transparency Rules already make you publish.
- The pin on the wrong door
- Shared buildings, business parks, a move two years ago. If the pin is not on your door, a client walks to the wrong one and Google trusts the profile less. Checked on Street View, corrected.
- Photographs of the logo
- Ten photographs of the office, the reception, the meeting room and the people outrank a logo. Clients want to see where they will sit and who they will meet.
- Reviews asked for never, or all at once
- A steady review at the end of matters, mentioning the work and the office, is the pattern Google rewards. A burst after a partners' meeting gets filtered and looks like what it is.
The end-of-matter routine
Every closed file is a review, if someone asks at the right moment
The moment is the closing letter, or the call that says the money has arrived, the decree is through, the grant is issued. The ask is one line from the fee earner, with the link, and a mention of what to say: the work and the office. No incentives, no selecting, no staff accounts, no bursts. A firm closing forty matters a month has forty reviews a month waiting to be asked for, and most ask for none.
The reviews routine, and what the rules allowWhat a quarter of upkeep contains
- Categories and services re-checked against Google's updated list, per office
- Hours, holiday closures and the appointment link corrected
- New photographs of the office and the people; the logo retired from the photo grid
- Questions and answers extended from what reception is asked
- Competitor profiles with keywords in the name reported
- Find a Solicitor, ReviewSolicitors and directory entries checked for one name, one address, one telephone
Where the website fits
The map sends the office; the pages send the practice
Each office profile links to its office page, and Google reads that page as evidence for the profile. A profile pointing at a homepage that lists twelve services is weaker than one pointing at an office page with the address, the people who sit there and the practice areas they take. The profile and the pages are one system, which is why every tier includes both. The pages side is on SEO for solicitors; the tiers are on the pricing page.
Questions firms ask us
How long to get into the map pack?
Profile fixes register within a couple of weeks. Whether that is enough depends on the three firms already there; if each has two hundred reviews, the gap is reviews, and that is months of asking at the end of matters. The audit says which.
We share a building with other firms. Does that matter?
It matters that the pin is on the right entrance and that the suite or floor is in the address line. It does not stop the profile ranking; it stops clients getting lost.
Can a solicitor ask for Google reviews?
Yes. The SRA does not prohibit inviting reviews; the rules that apply are the consumer-protection ones: no incentives, no selecting only the happy clients, no writing them yourselves. Ask everyone at the end of the matter, in the same way.
Our profile was suspended after a move. Can you get it back?
Often, if the cause is fixable: an address that did not match the Law Society record, a category that did not fit, a name with extra words. Weeks, not days, and it needs evidence. We have done it; we do not promise it.
Only want the profile fixed?
That is the £200 one-off profile build on the pricing page: done in 5 working days per office, no retainer, and credited against the first month if you start Local within 60 days.
Find out why the office is not in the map pack
Send us the firm's name and the town. You get the profile audit, the three firms above you, and what it would take, in plain English.