Since law firms often rely heavily on local interest in their firm, placing high on Google’s local ranking is crucial. But let’s say that you’re not, that given the relevant key words associated with your business and location, you simply aren’t showing up: what to do?

First, check to see if there are duplicate listings for your business. Google will lower the relevancy of a business that has multiple listings, so simplify matters by posting only one local listing. Search out other listings through a query of your business name or address, or variants of your name and phone number.

Listings that include former addresses or former numbers don’t only lower your ranking with Google, but they also confuse potential customers who don’t know how to properly contact you.

Businesses such as Yext, Moz Local, Bright Local Citation Tracker, and others can go through the process of rendering your business’s online presence consistent. They will correct all your listings and ensure all your numbers are correct, giving you legitimacy not only with Google, but with prospective customers as well.

Secondly, and as always, ensure you have a quality site going on, one that Googlebot can readily crawl, that has proper keyword placing, and has well-edited, simple-to-read content that visitors can access readily, linking to precisely what they want without a fuss. Having such a quality page will bump your rank, as a matter of course. However, being objective over such matters might by tough, so have an outsider review your site for you.

If you are fresh on the market, give Google some time to catch up with you. They will rank poorly newcomers, but you will get higher on the list soon.

In the meantime, do what you can to generate a reputation. Get some reviews, as Google ranks highly businesses that are reviewed, and have some presence in the buzz, especially the local buzz.

Through these strategies, you can bump yourself up on Google’s SERP, ensuring those searching for you locally will find you.