Google My Business (GMB) Posts & Your Law Firm

Google’s algorithm weighs a host of factors when determining which sites to rank at the top, so it makes sense that it wants a comprehensive overview of the sites it recommends through its algorithms. Establishing a Google My Business page on their platform and consistently publishing posts is an easy opportunity to help Google become more familiar with your law firm.

Google Posts allow you to connect with existing clients and prospects by posting different types of messages to your law firm GMB listing. You can create and share blog posts, invitations to seminars/events, and law firm news and announcements. You can even highlight a special offer, such as a free consultation.

Benefits

There are four main benefits to Google Posts:

• Direct communication between your firm and local clients and prospects is simplified
• User experience is improved with timely information
• Your events, news, and offers are promoted
• Engagement with your online community increases, especially via the use of videos and photos

How Do Google Posts Work?

When someone googles your business, information about your law firm shows up on the side of the search results. Using Google My Business, you can control much of what shows up in this side box. The box includes your address, the hours you’re open, and the telephone number. And now, thanks to Google Posts, you can also include customized updates or information.

Your Google post could include text only, or text with images. It will not only be posted on the right side of the search results when someone searches your company, but will also show up in the Local Finder page if someone clicks on your business name.

Publish a Google Post in Three Easy Steps

1. Log into your GMB account and select Create Post from top navigation bar
2. Create your post and upload your image or video. The post can be displayed as text (up to 300 words), text with an image, an event, or an offer or special. The event option allows you to set a date and time and the specials or offers section allows you to link to specific website pages.
3. Add a call-to-action button, along with a link to the relevant page on your website. Options include “Learn more,” “Reserve,” “Sign up,” “Buy” or “Get offer.”
4. Preview and publish!

Google intends for Posts to be used by companies to promote special events, share updated news, or share details about special offers. Law firms can also make use of the Posts section to accomplish lots of different goals including:

• Announcing updated business hours.
• Announcing new services you’ll be providing.
• Announcing classes, freebies, and special events or offers at your firm.
• Making a call to action and providing potential clients with a link to a contact form.
• Promoting local news like you would do on a social media page.
• Highlighting case results when your firm has a big win.
• Publicly recognizing employees at your firm who’ve had big achievements.

Best Practices

• Make posts visually appealing. The best size to use for the image is 750×750. Images smaller than 250×250 will be rejected.
• Include an engaging headline that gives the reader an introduction to what you are offering and a reason to check out the rest of your post.
• Only the first 100 characters are visible up in the Knowledge Panel in search results, so be sure your sentence doesn’t get cut off.
• The newest posts will show first, and the older ones will show in a carousel format.
• While Event postings remain visible until the event date has passed, other types of Google Posts expire within seven days, meaning they disappear from search results, so be sure to have a strategy for publishing on a consistent basis.

GMB Insights

As with the rest of your marketing efforts, you’ll want to monitor how successful you are. GMB provides some very basic insights, such as the number of Views and number of Clicks for each of your posts. While Google posts aren’t currently integrated with Google Analytics, there is a workaround. You can easily create a custom URL to use in the call-to-action link.

Doing so will give you more information about the prospects in Google Analytics and enable you to see if they converted after visiting your site. That insight will allow you to determine which types of posts are most effective.

Rita Chaires

Director, Web and Online Marketing Services
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com