Testimonials, Reviews, & Ratings as They Relate to Your Law Firm Online
As Google continues to become more social and local, testimonials, reviews, and ratings of your law firm online become increasingly important to maximizing your local search visibility.
While it remains difficult to tell exactly to what extent reviews and ratings of your law firm will influence its ranking position in search engines, there is no question that these endorsements play a vital role in your web visibility. The difficulty in ascertaining their importance is partly attributable to the fact that reviews and ratings are are pulled from some many different locations on the web and displayed in so many different ways.
However, it's important to keep in mind just how and why these reviews and ratings are so important to your professional reputation online. For one thing, client and professional reviews can be very persuasive in terms of convincing a potential client to contact your firm via a call or email. A negative review of your law firm may cause a potential client to bounce from your professional listing and search for another legal professional. On the other hand, a positive review may be what was necessary to convince a potential client to convert from simply traffic to an inbound potential client inquiry to your firm.
It's critically important to engage your potential clients online, and to encourage your most satisfied clients to write reviews of their experiences working with you on their preferred search engine or legal review site. Further, you should also manage your online reputation so that you will recognize when someone has left a negative review. You might consider reaching out to that client and find out why they had a bad experience with your law firm.
Finally, make sure to consult your state's rules of professional conduct regarding testimonials and reviews. Different states have different rules for how, what, and when legal professionals can display client testimonials, ratings, and reviews. Some states will require specific disclaimers depending on the content.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Gyi Tsakalakis
Gyi Tsakalakis is a law firm SEO consultant with AttorneySync.
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Disclaimer: While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of this publication, it is not intended to provide legal advice as individual situations will differ and should be discussed with an expert and/or lawyer.For specific technical or legal advice on the information provided and related topics, please contact the author.
