Use Social Media to Improve Local Search Visibility

Gyi Tsakalakis
November 26, 2014

Last week I was in Dallas talking local search and social media. The gist of that talk was that social media can be a powerful tool for improving local search ranking factors. You can reviews the slides here:

Going Local with Social from Gyi Tsakalakis

Admittedly, without the talk or a transcript, the slides are a bit tough to follow. So, I thought I'd elaborate.

"The essence of social media is really a public conversation with your customers and prospective customers..."

- Moz Local

I really like viewing social media from this perspective. Obviously, this doesn't encapsulate all of the ways that we use social media. But from a local business perspective, it is critically important.

More and more people are turning to the web to talk about the products and services that they use.

If you think about it, local search is also a public conversation with clients and prospective clients.

In my deck, I used Primo's Pizza, a popular pizza joint from my hometown of Birmingham, MI.

A search for primo's pizza birmingham demonstrates what I'm talking about. The SERP prominently displays reviews of Primo's on Google Plus and Yelp. As you probably know, business owners can (and often should) participate in online discussions with customers and potential customers. This is essentially social media in a local search context.

And if you've been tracking recent changes by Google, you probably have recognized the increasing importance they seem to giving to ratings. After all, when you're looking for a local business, don't you regularly compare by ratings and reviews?

SEOs tend to celebrate #1 rankings in local SERPs. In the example from the deck, I illustrated how Pizza Hut holds the top spot for a search for pizza. However, in the new Google results, more users will likely be compelled to filter ratings. When I filtered the pizza results by 4.0+ rating, Pizza Hut, the unfiltered #1, is nowhere to be found.

consistent-nap

Local SEOs tend to focus on getting name, address and phone (NAP) information right across the web. Now don't get me wrong, this is extremely important. But it's also really just table stakes. Consistent NAP is not a substitute for delivering an exceptional client / customer experience.

In fact, getting your local SEO citations right, but creating poor client / customer experiences is actually a recipe for disaster. It's a sure-fire way to get negative reviews to the top search results!

Another part of my talk was aimed at whether or not social signals are direct search ranking factors.

There's no shortage of correlation studies that seem to indicate that search might be taking some social signals into account in ranking results. However, to me, it doesn't really matter whether they're direct ranking signals or not. As AJ Kohn puts it:

"It's not the actual social activity that matters, but what happens as a result of that activity."

Turning to Moz's Local Search Ranking Factors survey, we can begin to make the connections between social media and local search in the post-pigeon world.

If you've reviewed the survey, you may have noticed that the importance of one factor seems to have increased more than many of the others: Domain Authority.

In a nutshell, Moz calculates domain authority by combining all of their other link metrics. This is part of the reason why big directory sites seem to have gained such an advantage after Pigeon.

Looking at domain authority through the lens of local SEO and social media, it's reasonable to conclude:

domainauthority

"The essence of domain authority is really a public conversation with your customers, prospective customers and other people."

Oversimplified: People talk about you. For better and worse, those conversations spread. In some instances, they motivate people to link to your pages. Links seem to have gained importance as they relate to local search ranking factors.

Next I turned to a few good examples of law firms that created local content, got it in front of local audiences on social media and earned links.

Finally, I spent a little time chatting about the future of social and local with particular attention paid to Facebook Places.

Discover great places in every city   Facebook

Facebook Places has the advantage of users. More specifically, users that are regularly engaging with one another socially. Needless to say, Facebook has more users than, say for example Yelp. But the more important difference is that, for many folks, Yelp users are strangers. Alternatively, Facebook users tend to be people who they know. Does this give Facebook a leg-up in the social-local game? I think so.

One of the critiques that I often hear is the "I don't use Facebook for that." So, are people actually using Facebook to review and rate businesses? They are for Da Coach:

Ditka s Chicagoland

Facebook recognizes the inextricably intertwined nature of the local-social web. If you serve clients or customers at a local level, it would be foolish to ignore how social networks impact your local visibility in search engines and around the web.

Gyi Tsakalakis
Co-Founder of AttorneySync
Subscribe
Notify of
guest
0 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Let's Discuss Your Growth

Helping law firms grow profitably with digital marketing and can prove it.

Barry Conybeare

We are so impressed with AttorneySync and their digital marketing services. We started with an audit of our digital presence and hired them thereafter. Fixes to the website and other platforms quickly followed and we have seen a substantial increase in online traffic, new client calls, and new client contracts. Strongly recommend AttorneySync!

Let's Talk

How can we help?

More From Our Blog

May 3, 2025
Non-Brand ๐Ÿ“‰ ๐—•๐—ฟ๐—ฎ๐—ป๐—ฑ ๐Ÿ“ˆ

Here's a recent Google SERP for "๐˜„๐—ต๐—ผ ๐—ฎ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ ๐—ฏ๐—ฒ๐˜€๐˜ ๐—ฐ๐—ฎ๐—ฟ ๐—ฎ๐—ฐ๐—ฐ๐—ถ๐—ฑ๐—ฒ๐—ป๐˜ ๐—น๐—ฎ๐˜„๐˜†๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐˜€ ๐—ถ๐—ป ๐—ฝ๐—ต๐—ถ๐—น๐—ฎ๐—ฑ๐—ฒ๐—น๐—ฝ๐—ต๐—ถ๐—ฎ." Ads? โŒLSAs? โŒLocal Pack? โŒLinks? โŒ ๐Ÿ”ท AI Overview? โœ… 6 firms listed. Only one tiny ๐Ÿ”—. Click the ๐—ฆ๐—ต๐—ผ๐˜„ ๐—บ๐—ผ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ button? ๐—ฌ๐—ผ๐˜‚ ๐—ด๐—ฒ๐˜: Here's a more detailed look at some of these firms: THE PEARCE LAW FIRM, P.C.Edith Pearce, […]

Read More
April 25, 2025
Do Confidentiality Rules of Professional Conduct Prohibit Use of Google's Local Services Ads?

On April 22, 2025, Google sent an email updating Local Services Ads Additional Terms for Providers: Subject: Action required: important updates to Local Service Ads Additional Terms Many people are arguing that lawyers cannot participate in Local Services Ads, as this would constitute a per se violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct related to […]

Read More
March 13, 2025
Lawyerist + Lunch Hour Legal Marketing Collaboration

Conrad and I recently joined Zack at Lawyerist to record a conversation about AI and marketing. You might think that we spend the whole time on how lawyers can use AI to publish content. You'd be wrong. While AI can certainly support publishing, there are many more interesting ways to use it in legal marketing. […]

Read More
March 11, 2025
ChatGPT Legal Services Consumer Journeys and Marketing Attribution

As more legal services consumers turn to ChatGPT for local law firm recommendations, a fascinating intersection between AI, search, and maps unfolds. While Google remains the undisputed leader in local business data, ChatGPT is increasingly becoming an entry point for searchers seeking legal representation. But hereโ€™s the kicker: instead of keeping users within its ecosystem, […]

Read More
March 10, 2025
Law Firm Brand Amplifies All Marketing

When law firms contact us, they usually want to talk: โ€ข PPC Ads โ€ข SEO Rankings โ€ข Lead Generation Very few want to talk: โ€ข Brand โ€ข Trust & Recognition โ€ข Emotional Connection Admittedly, much of this concerns that AttorneySync is known for lead generation across those common digital channels. But even when we start […]

Read More
March 6, 2025
Artificial Intelligence Overviews (AIO) in Legal SEO

According to an October 2024 study by SE Ranking: "The legal niche triggers the highest percentage of AIOs (77.67%). The average number of links matched between the AI Overview resources and the top 20 search results was 6.49 for legal topics. AI Overviews for legal topics most frequently link to NYCourts.gov (114 links), YouTube.com (48 […]

Read More
February 27, 2025
You Canโ€™t Hire for Law Firm SEO If You Donโ€™t Understand It

I'm grateful for my friend, Charley Mann of Law firm Alchemy. If you're a lawyer, subscribe to his Free Email List. In a recent email, Charley calls out bad guru advice on hiring: "Trying to execute a major SEO improvement? You need to find people who will help you, instead of trying to DIY it […]

Read More
February 26, 2025
Law Firm SEO Success Isn't What You Think It Is

If youโ€™ve spent any time on LinkedIn, youโ€™ve likely seen posts from law firm SEO experts showing off charts with an โ€œup and to the rightโ€ trajectory. These screenshots, often pulled from tools like Semrush or Ahrefs, are meant to signal SEO success. And itโ€™s not just the agencies celebratingโ€”๐—น๐—ฎ๐˜„ ๐—ณ๐—ถ๐—ฟ๐—บ๐˜€ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฎ๐˜ ๐—ต๐—ฎ๐˜ƒ๐—ฒ ๐—ต๐—ถ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ๐—ฑ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ๐—บ […]

Read More
February 15, 2025
What "Meh, Links" Means

Meh, links! All things being equal, links still tend to move the dial more than any other factor in legal SERPs. Maybe links are having a diminishing impact internet-wide. But in my experience, quality links, especially relevant links (both topically and geographically), tend to improve law firm visibility in search more than most everything else. […]

Read More

Let's Discuss

Questions or comments? Let's discuss on social!
Testimonials on this site are from examples of real client results. The results you see are not typical. They do not guarantee similar results. Individual results may vary based on a variety of factors. Your results may vary.
envelope
linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram