You’d be surprised how many people define Local SEO differently or think it’s one thing. That’s like saying all noodles are spaghetti. Understanding Local SEO is, in fact, simple; how you execute a good and effective strategy for your business is where the skill – and data – come in.
Nearly all clients seeking legal counsel search locally online, making Local SEO one of the most critical digital marketing channels for law firms. Whether it’s in the Maps app on a phone, on Google, or in ChatGPT, queries like “personal injury lawyer near me” and “family attorney in Miami” take place in the thousands daily. And in the markets you serve, this search is a vital first step toward clients finding you.
Before having expectations about Local SEO results as part of your overall law firm SEO strategy, it’s important to understand what it is and how to achieve results.
I sat down with Michael Cipielewski, Hennessey Digital’s Director of Off-Page SEO and Paid Media, to help law firms understand what an effective Local SEO roadmap looks like (one that drives leads, boosts local visibility, and debunks common myths), explore AI’s impact on Local Search, and ponder what the future holds for local.
Plain and simple, what is Local Search, and how does Local SEO play a role in it?
Local Search is an entire ecosystem of how users find local businesses and services. It’s the practice of someone doing a query to find a company, service, or product within a specific or nearby geographic location.
From a digital marketing perspective, it’s applying the combined channels of Local SEO and Paid Media to optimize a company’s website and digital presence for prominent placement of that company to users searching for a local business or service.
So many people think Local SEO is their Google Business Profile (GBP). GBPs are an important piece of the puzzle, but they aren’t the only piece. What else goes into a strong Local SEO strategy?
Given Google’s market share, a GBP is an important part of a strong Local SEO strategy for law firms, but your Local SEO strategy can’t stop there. We dive into that in Hennessey Digital’s Guide to Local SEO for Law Firms and an article on Local SEO strategies every law firm needs to stay competitive. How the firm’s website and all other 3rd party sites are optimized and interconnected, is critically important to get maximum results.
Where is Local Search happening? It used to solely be on search engines, but now you have Maps, AI, and even Yelp.
That’s exactly it. Local Search happens where the users are: in the search bar on search engines, app ecosystems like Apple Maps, Waze, and the Google Maps app; respected web-based business directories like the Better Business Bureau and Yelp, and even authoritative legal directories such as the Thomson Reuters Network, the Martindale-Hubbell Network, YP, and many others.
It’s important to note that AI chatbots love these sources and cite them often – which is another place where Local Search is happening – on AI large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google’s Gemini, and Microsoft’s Copilot.
Organic local results on Google or in Maps are some of the most competitive real estate, especially for law firms. How much weight should a business put on these two channels? And is that something that once it’s done, it’s set-it-and-forget-it, or requires ongoing optimization and maintenance?
Organic local results should be the #1 focus for any firm looking to invest in a channel that directly generates leads. There’s a compounding influence of Local SEO efforts that impacts optimal results. For example, the most obvious is that at Hennessey Digital, we’ll recommend and optimize listings on Superlawyers and Findlaw, which generate leads themselves but also improve your firm’s GBP and website performance. Link building and Digital PR are also effective strategies to drive local visibility that don’t get enough attention.
As far as how often you should be optimizing your strategy, Local SEO is similar to going to the gym: you won’t see results (usually) right away, but if you do it as a continued and regular practice, the results get better and better.
If I had to choose between a billboard and Local Search, it would be Local Search every time.
Why do you think so many agencies and strategists put so little effort into strategies that aren’t GBP or Maps? It’s important to focus there, but our data and results at Hennessey Digital show how incredibly valuable on-page technical SEO and off-page SEO strategies are in a holistic Local SEO strategy in order to improve a law firm’s ranking in local search, including their GBP performance.
I think there are a few reasons. It’s more difficult to sell a strategy that spans multiple platforms and disciplines, so marketers (and the companies that make the tools) tend to push things that are easily counted or easy to sell, whether they’re a ranking factor or not. For example, it’s easier to tell a firm “You should post X times per week to your GBP” than to say, “We need to reduce the DOM (document object model) size so your site loads fast, restructure your website so Google understands the correlation of your topic clusters, and we need to align your NAP across 70 different websites.”
That’s pretty technical – but you want a partner like our team who studies the algorithm, studies performance, and gets it.
The problem is, posting to your GBP doesn’t influence your ranking, but everything else mentioned does. We’ve done extensive research that revealed this. We still get firms that come to us who have been misled and will cling to GBP posting as a factor because a previous agency or a tool they used said it was important.
How important is data when it comes to Local SEO? More importantly, what data is important?
Data is always important when used correctly and should be applied to inform all digital marketing for law firms. I would trust GBP’s reporting concerning call clicks, directions requests, and website clicks above all others. For local rankings measurement, I would suggest using gridscan technology like Local Dominator or similar tools that are able to show rankings across a large area.
A word of caution for those hyper-vigilant with emphasis on rankings in search results: Local rankings can fluctuate by the time of day, the exact latitude and longitude/Long where the search was performed, or even by Google itself testing new layouts. Take these with a grain of salt.
What are realistic goals for law firms when it comes to Local Search and Local SEO?
Compare your firm to where it was yesterday, and use top-ranking firms as a blueprint for future success. What we would usually establish with a firm that is new to us is exactly this: where are they at, and where could they be? We look at things like the location of the firm’s offices, the total addressable market of those locations, and what sort of SEO the competitors are engaging in. Depending on what’s discovered here, it could be months before the effects are felt, or the better part of a year.
A big part of Local SEO success is the firm’s participation. We can provide all the strategy and execution in the world, but if the firm isn’t generating positive reviews or doesn’t actively have a review management program, for example, that’s a huge part of Google’s algorithm that’s working against them.
What types of KPIs and metrics should law firms be tracking to determine the overall health and success of their Local SEO strategy?
Some easy metrics law firms can use to gauge how Local SEO is performing for them include:
-call tracking through systems like CallRail
-lead form submission submitted from GBP and other online citations
-directions requests, and
-rankings using a system such as Local Dominator
Can website leads and phone calls be tracked and attributed to Local SEO?
When set up properly, both can. Quite simply, at Hennessey Digital, we’ve created the ability to track all clicks from a GBP to the website, and any subsequent behavior, including conversions. For phone calls, we use systems such as CallRail and Call Tracking Metrics to provide insights on source. We’ve even developed a process that can pipe these back into a law firm’s CRM, if it’s supported.
We’ve turned Local Search visibility and Local SEO performance around for a lot of law firms. Where should someone start if they feel they’re not getting the visibility, website traffic, or leads from Local Search?
I would first look at my GBP and ensure that it’s completely filled out, meaning that out of all the fields that are applicable, is there something there that speaks to the specific practice areas and/or expertise of the firm? Simple things like the primary category being set to “Law Firm” instead of “Personal Injury Attorney” could be the difference between you getting a million-dollar case or one of your competitors.
Is there a common theme you see in existing Local SEO campaigns when firms have come to us for help to improve their Local SEO?
There is a lot of noise in the industry concerning what is and isn’t a ranking factor. I already mentioned GBP posting, which is a great springboard for the following: We say GBP posting isn’t a factor because we have sourced studies from other prominent Local SEOs and then replicated their results in-house about GBP posts having no influence on ranking.
Our recommendation is that with anything ranking-related, ask for any data-based information that can back up the claims before believing them. This will help cut through the noise and focus on the work that actually matters.
Accurate business information – and the reach of that information – are important keys to Local SEO success. What is Yext, and what do those and similar tools like it do?
Companies like Yext are mostly citation and review management platforms. I’m generalizing here, but Yext’s main focuses are partnerships with authoritative platforms like Yelp, YP, Bing Local, and many others to allow a business to create, optimize, and control their listings across 80+ platforms at once for multiple locations. In addition to this, they can generate reviews for many (but not all) of these networks.
Should optimizing for AI Search results be a part of a law firm’s Local SEO strategy?
Yes, and the great news is that, by doing Local SEO, a business is already doing it. Here at Hennessey Digital, we did a massive, proprietary study of the most common places that LLMs are pulling their information from. What came back was surprising: Superlawyers, Martindale, Justia, Yelp, and many others were cited almost universally across the AI platforms like Grok, Meta Llama, Chat GPT, and others.
These are all 3rd-party sites we would recommend to create presence on and optimize, so Google’s recommendation that SEO is AI optimization holds true right now, especially for Local SEO.
How do you see Local SEO changing in the future?
The way that we have engaged with local businesses has been primarily a list format since the advent of the Yellow Pages (the book) many years ago. Even with the advent of Google Maps, as an app or a webpage, Maps still returns a list of businesses. I think there’s an expectation we have that when we type the word “plumber” into Google, we want a list of plumbers close to where we are.
AI is obviously going to be part of how we search in the future, but I don’t think we are ready to hand off decision-making to the machines just yet. We will still want to see a list of local businesses, their reputations, and ways to solicit their services. The platforms we do this on may shift, but the strategic fundamentals may never change.