Marilyn Jenkins talks with Jason Barnard about Google Business Profiles for lawyers. Marilyn Jenkins is a seasoned digital growth strategist with a career spanning backto 1998 and the founder of MJ Media Group, LLC, and Law Marketing Zone®. Marilyn Jenkins reveals game-changing strategies for lawyers to boost their digital presence. She underscores the importance of accurately selecting categories, maintaining consistent name, address, and phone number (NAP) details across the web, and leveraging reviews and Q&As to bolster the profile's effectiveness. Learn why consistent updates, strategic reviews, and practitioner listings are crucial for your law firm's success. Get insider tips on leveraging Google's free tools to attract clients, establish credibility, and outrank competitors. Plus, discover how to turn your practice's digital footprint into a powerful client acquisition channel. So if you’re an attorney looking to maximize your online visibility and grow your practice, this is a must-watch episode for you. What you’ll learn from Marilyn Jenkins 00:00 Marilyn Jenkins and Jason Barnard 01:34 What Do ChatGPT and Other Assistive Engines Use to Supplement Their Results? 01:44 What Do Google and Bing Use to Supplement Their Search Results? 02:35 What is the Fundamental Difference Between Google My Business and Google Business Profile? 03:36 How Does Google Business Profile Help Google Understand Who You Are, What You Do and Who You Serve? 03:53 What is the First Way to Show Google What You Do? 04:56 What is the Feature in Google Business Profile Where You Could Do Keyword-Rich Images? 06:10 What is the Right Term to Use Instead of Keywords as Mentioned by Jason Barnard? 07:04 What Does Google Value Most When Ranking Business Profiles Aside from Keywords? 08:00 What Should You Do with Reviews, Whether They’re 1-Star or 5-Star? 10:03 How Can You Use Those Reviews to Your Advantage to Help Google Understand Your Business Even Better? 11:41 How Can You Ask People to Leave Useful Reviews that Will Be Helpful for Both Users and Google? 12:30 What is Next After the Reviews? 14:42 What Other Things Must You Do to Build More “Know, Like, and Trust” on Your Google Business Profile? 16:01 How Important is It That Your Name, Address and Phone Number Are Correct Everywhere Else on the Web? 19:01 Why is It Important to Only Give Manager Access to Your Google Business Profile? This episode was recorded live on video December 3rd 2024 https://youtube.com/live/E02oD9zntXo Links to pieces of content relevant to this topic:https://youtu.be/FWXLAJVGjIUhttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-automate-linkedin-to-land-executive-professional/id1717325062?i=1000642909126Marilyn Jenkins Transcript from Google Business Profiles for Lawyers - Fastlane Founders with Marilyn Jenkins [00:00:00] Narrator: Fastlane Founders and Legacy with Jason Barnard. Each week, Jason sits down with successful entrepreneurs, CEOs and executives, and get them to share how they mastered the delicate balance between rapid growth and enduring success in the business world. How can we quickly build a profitable business that stands the test of time and becomes our legacy? A legacy we're proud of. Fastlane Founders and Legacy with Jason Barnard. [00:00:31] Jason Barnard: A quick hello and we're good to go. Welcome to the show, Marilyn Jenkins. [00:00:37] Marilyn Jenkins: Hi, how are you? [00:00:37] Jason Barnard: I'm fine, thank you very much. Welcome. We're going to be talking about Google Business Profiles for Lawyers. I'm really curious because from what I understand, it's the easy win for a lawyer. [00:00:53] Marilyn Jenkins: It is, absolutely. And it's a free service. [00:00:58] Jason Barnard: It's a free service from Google and we can look at how that can be a really quick win to bring clients to your law firm. [00:01:06] Marilyn Jenkins: Exactly. [00:01:07] Jason Barnard: Right. Wonderful. But before we do that, I wanted to show you this. We specialize at Kalicube in optimizing people's personal brand for Google search and AI. And I had a look in ChatGPT and this happens a lot. It isn't clear about which Marilyn Jenkins I'm talking about. But as soon as I specify, you get a delightful description when it searches the web. And that's really interesting from our perspective, and I think for anybody who cares about their personal brand, that ChatGPT and other assistive engines are now using the web to supplement their results. [00:01:43] Marilyn Jenkins: Exactly. [00:01:44] Jason Barnard: And the web, Google and Bing are using engines like ChatGPT to supplement the search results. And it's all kind of coming together, which I love. [00:01:53] Marilyn Jenkins: Yes, exactly. [00:01:55] Jason Barnard: I see you love it too, don't you? [00:01:57] Marilyn Jenkins: Yeah, I do. I mean, and the power of using the Google Business Profile for your branding is just amazing. And the fact that Google provides that and we think of Google My Business, or a lot of people think of Google My Business, which is the old version. The Google Business Profile is like, I think, the eighth iteration of Google Places. And every time you get more and more features, more and more opportunities to tell Google what searches you're relevant for. [00:02:25] Jason Barnard: Okay. Which is brilliant. Question number one is what's the difference fundamentally for you when they changed the name from Google My Business to Google Business Profile? Was it just a rebrand or did it actually change? [00:02:35] Marilyn Jenkins: Massive, massive new features. And like, you have a management portal that's different for different areas. They don't roll out the same thing globally. The management portal is so much more simple to use, much more visual, more insights, and you also have a lot more content that you can put on it. It is virtually like your own blog and your own social media. I mean, it's just, it's interesting how, you know, Google is the number one search engine because they provide good results for their visitors. Right. Engagement is what they're looking for and they have to provide good results. So by giving them everything you need that you can on your Google Business Profile. You're saying, I am interested in good user results as well. And they reward you for that. [00:03:21] Jason Barnard: The Google Business Profile is an acquisition channel, a whole acquisition channel just on its own. [00:03:27] Marilyn Jenkins: Exactly, exactly. [00:03:28] Jason Barnard: And you were saying it's a really good way for you to explain to Google who you are and what you offer and to whom. Can you go into more detail there? [00:03:36] Marilyn Jenkins: Yeah. So you want to use your actual business name. Don't use like a keyword or a city in your business name. If it's not your legal business name, that will detract. You want to use your name, address and phone number and use it the same everywhere on the web that you list your company. But the big one is your category that you have. I believe in most places, up to seven categories you can choose. You want to choose your category in priority ordered, what type of customer you want. So say you're a Family Law Attorney, but you really want to do child custody. The new list, the child custody first, divorce second, those kinds of things. Same with personal injury. Choose what you want first and then you keep the rest of them. So the categories is the first way you show Google what you do. Right. [00:04:22] Jason Barnard: The categories from what you just said go actually quite specific. [00:04:26] Marilyn Jenkins: They do, and they're predetermined. So it's not something you can go in and type in. You choose off of a list. And it's worth checking back every so often to see if that number is increased. Because when they first launched the Google Business Profile, it was three. [00:04:41] Jason Barnard: Right. And you find that a lot of attorneys get that wrong. [00:04:47] Marilyn Jenkins: Yes. A lot of them put law firm. [00:04:50] Jason Barnard: All right, very gentle. [00:04:52] Marilyn Jenkins: That tells nothing. Right. It doesn't say anything about what you do. The other big thing is they have, they now have Posts and Products and Services. So think posts, think blogs, blog posts. Right. Where you could do keyword rich images the whole nine years and put content on your Google Business Profile. But on products and services, I've seen Estate Planning Attorneys that we put, you know, their wills and trusts and put those and each services its own separate service. Same for any other attorney. You can put a photo that's got a named as a keyword. You describe the service using your keywords, your city, that sort of thing. Again, every little thing you give it, Google reads and says, okay, if this search comes up, you're relevant for that. [00:05:40] Jason Barnard: I mean, you use the word keyword, but do you really mean the name of my service very specifically stated, yes. [00:05:48] Marilyn Jenkins: So if I am a Personal Injury Attorney. And I want to focus on car accidents or motorcycle accidents. I want to have articles that mention motorcycle accidents in my state or my city. Absolutely. [00:06:02] Jason Barnard: Right. Okay. I mean, because the word keywords I think is something that people don't necessarily understand and often as well, if people get really into the SEO and how to manage Google keywords is not really the term we should be using I believe. It should be words that are key and being very specific and accurate in what you're saying. [00:06:23] Marilyn Jenkins: No, no, no. I mean, you're right, you're right because I'm old school SEO. I've been doing this since the late 90s. Right. So it was keywords and keyword phrases. When I think keyword,