[Author: Noreen Fishman]
It is very important for law firms to make their website visible online. Any organization can have a strong web presence and the goal of being easily found on the Internet. For companies that operate in certain regions – such as law firms – local discovery is even more important. Legitimate businesses should prioritize local visibility, and a local business plan can be a powerful tool in their arsenal.
What is a local business plan for law firms? 
A local business plan is basically a type of structured data markup code added to a company’s website to make it easier for search engines to identify certain things, such as which company the site belongs to or the services it offers.
Schema markup was originally created by search engines to better understand and display information using common tag groups. Your organization can use schema markup to better optimize your website for local SEO. This is because local design markup is one of the factors that determine how your content is ranked and displayed in search engine results pages.
When you include a local business plan in your website code, search engines like Google, Bing or Yahoo can better understand your business and rank it higher in search results.
But how does one go about adding a local business design to a website?
Adding a local business plan to your site
Here’s a good guide to adding local business designs. Simply put, you can follow these steps:
1. Identify your category for your organization
Hopefully, you’re optimizing your website for a specific niche audience, and that’s what you’re looking for. Be as specific as possible. There is a “legal services” category that you want to choose from, and you should be able to narrow it down further.
2. Create an “About” page
Your “About” page should be full of information about your organization and include a unique “About Page” design element. Make sure any content on the page is easily readable by visitors, and take the time to add additional relevant schema features as needed to properly inform search engines about your company.
3. Check your code
There are two tools you can use to preview how results will look in search results. Try submitting your code to the rich results test to see which Google rich results are generated by the structured data on your page. Or, if you want to test your structured data without Google’s attribute-specific warnings, enter your code in the Schema Markup Veridator.
4. Publish your local business plan to your site
To do this, add your schema directly into your HTML code or use a managed user interface, schema application, or plugin.
5. Use Google Search Console to visit and test your local business plan
You need to see if there are any issues or elements that need improvement. To measure your website’s search traffic performance, start by entering your domain or URL prefix. Then, continue to monitor the results of your program so you can adjust as needed. It’s important to remember that this is an ongoing process, especially as Google changes its formulas and approach to schemas. If something changes in your listing, be sure to update your local business plan.
Or for a comprehensive overview of your website’s performance, sign up for a free SEO audit.
take away:
Developing a local business plan for law firms can seem complicated, and sometimes it is. This doesn’t mean it’s something you can skip. Law firms should do everything they can to improve ranking and visibility for local search results, and a local business plan can help. If you’re not sure how to include the right code on your website, talk to the experts.
