If you own a law firm, at some point you will consider the question, “Should my law firm join review solicitors or one of the other review websites?” As a former solicitor, now non-practising, and full time law firm growth consultant, my answer may surprise you.
I am Nick Jervis, a former solicitor and since 2003, full time law firm marketing consultant to the owners of legal services businesses.
To understand my thoughts on solicitor review websites, it is worth knowing my main aim when working with a client, which is this:
I want my clients to be found at the precise moment in time that someone is looking for the legal services that they provide.
I call this ‘easy life client attraction’.
Now that you know that I want my clients to attract new business easily and cost effectively, how does this fit into the solicitor review websites world?
Solicitor Review Websites – How Do They Work?
We are all, now, hard wired to look for reviews of products or service providers before we use them. Amazon, Trip Advisor, Trust Pilot have all taught us the value of reviews.
So, even if you undertake no marketing and only generate new clients from referrals (relying on only one form of any marketing is not a healthy place to be), when people are recommended to you what is the first thing that they will do?
They will head to their search engine of choice, for most people still Google by a country mile, and enter your firm name and location.
When they do this, what is the first thing they will see?
I can tell you what it absolutely will not be, so long as you have done the very basic level of Search Engine Optimisation For Solicitors, it will not be a solicitor review website.
Why?
Let me show you what happens with my own business.
Someone is recommended to me, heads to Google to check me out, enters the name of my business and this is what is presented:
The crucial things to notice are the following:
- The first item that you see is a Google Ads advertisement for my business. If you do not at least bid on your own law firm name using Google Ads, your competitors will. Are you happy for them to do that? See my PPC for Law Firms Guide to discover more about Pay Per Click/Google Ads.
- The next item that you see is my organic (free) listing for my business. I achieve this using SEO/Content Marketing.
- The final item that you see is the one on the right hand side of the page. This is important as it answers the question at the top of this article “Should I join a solicitor review website?”. The answer is “No”, let me explain why.
Why You Should Not Join A Solicitor Review Website
If you carry out the same search for your business name, you should come across the same results.
Your Google Ads listing should be first if you sensibly have one, then your organic listing and then on the right hand side, your Google My Business listing with all of your wonderful reviews.
If you have all three of those bases covered, why would you ever go on a Solicitor Review Website?
The Solicitor Review Websites, if they appear at all in the search results, will be further down the page.
If you follow my Google My Business training, you will have lots of healthy reviews, and your prospect will jump onto your website and call you without hesitation – no solicitor review website required.
The Other Benefit Of An Excellent Google My Business Listing Over Solicitor Review Websites
I mentioned at the start that I train my clients to only follow ‘easy life client attraction’ practices. I show them how to appear in front of their ideal prospects at the precise moment in time that they are looking for their legal services.
If someone searches for your type of service in your geographic location, this is an example of what happens:
What are these location listings that you see at the top of the search results for a conveyancing solicitor in Bristol?
Are they Solicitor Review Websites?
No!
Are they Google My Business listings?
Yes!
This means that not only will a fantastic Google My Business listing convince people who are referred to you that you are a good choice for their legal service needs, but it will also bring you brand new leads, who before their search, may never have heard of your law firm before.
It is for these two reasons that my very strong advice, if you want to take advantage of ‘easy life client attraction’ is to ignore the Solicitor Review Website emails you regularly receive, suggesting you part with some hard earned income to join them, and instead focus all of your efforts on your Google My Business listing for your law firm.
However, there is one more important reason why you should do this!
On Solicitor Review Websites, You Fish Where Others Are Fishing.
I am sure you have heard the saying, that if you want to catch fish then fish where no one else is fishing.
Well, with solicitor review websites, you very much are fishing where other solicitors are fishing, so your chance of catching fish is greatly reduced.
Imagine your prospect’s journey in deciding whether to ask you to help them with their legal needs.
They find your website, and see your reviews from a solicitor review website.
They click on one of the reviews, which takes them off your website (a terrible thing to do at the moment someone is thinking of calling you) where, not only are they presented with your reviews, but now also reviews from your competitors too.
They decide that Firm B’s reviews are better than your own, so off they pop to Firm B’s website.
A prospect who was just about to call you is now lost for good, all because you sent them off to the solicitor review website.
Summary
I hope that you can see that these are three good reasons why you should not join solicitor review websites.
If you would like to see the only four marketing tactics that you need to grow a law firm beyond £1 million or even £10 million in turnover, click the link or image below to download my free guide now:
