The Rainmaker Blog : Law Firm Marketing and Business Development : The Rainmaker Institute : Stephen Fairley : Professional Legal Marketing

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A couple of weeks ago, Google replaced its Google Places with Google+ Local. So if your law firm had a Google Places profile, Google moved it to Google+ Local. And if you don’t yet have a Google+ account, this move makes it more important than ever that you do.

That is, if you still want to be relevant on Google. 

What Google considers important in ranking for search is evolving, based on ways that people use the Internet for search. Social counts for much, much more – in fact, a new study by Searchmetrics found that the 5 of the top 6 ranking factors for Google search are firmly rooted in social media:

Google has also found that more and more people are searching by geography, the reason behind the push to Google+ Local. Your search rankings will now be fairly dependent on social media reviews, and Google has changed the way it does that, too.

The new Google review process is now based on the Zagat 30-point scoring system. Last year, Google acquired Zagat and has now integrated its reviewing process into Google+ Local. Also, there are no more anonymous reviews – anyone wanting to review a business now has to have a Google+ account.

With these changes, it is doubly important for attorneys to get clients and peers to provide favorable reviews for their services. Google doesn’t assign a number ranking to your profile until you get at least 10 reviews. This number ranking will have a definite influence on your ranking in organic search; these are the first four listings in a search for Phoenix car accident attorney:

In addition, when a client or peer posts a review for your law firm, it is also shared with their Google+ circle of friends, family and associates.

Click here to learn more about Google+ Local. You may also want to review my previous posts on Google+:

Why Law Firms Need to Claim Their Turf on Google+ & How to Do It

Law Firm Marketing: Why Attorneys Should Care About Google+

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Attorneys spend millions of dollars every year on Pay Per Click (PPC) and banner advertisements, trying to drive more traffic to their website. Far too often it comes down to how much money a law firm has to spend on PPC to outbid their competition.

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• The ongoing debate between “quality” and “quantity” links
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