Online reviews for lawyers

Anyone who does business on a professional level can tell you that reviews for your business are important. No matter what you do, reviews are something that your clients are going to look at before they decide if they want to do business with you.

As a lawyer, these reviews are going to be the way that people who need someone to represent them are going to decide whether your law firm is the one for the job. Online reviews are the new word of mouth, so if you want to have a successful law practice, you need to make sure that you have plenty of reviews across social media platforms and search engines.

Effects reviews have on your law practice

How often do you take the advice of your friends when it comes to whether a business is worth your time or not? In most cases, the word of your friend often determines if you check out the business. Did you know that 84% of all consumers trust online reviews as much as they trust a recommendation from a trusted friend or colleague.

That’s a lot, so if you have a large number of bad reviews, they may choose another law firm to deal with for their legal issues. Additionally, having no reviews at all can be just as detrimental to your practice as having bad reviews. Let’s face it, no one wants to be represented in a court of law by someone who is not experienced, and reviews validate that you’ve worked with real clients.

The reviews that your potential clients read are often a large deciding factor when it comes to whether they are going to trust you as a lawyer to defend them or not.

75% of the individuals who were looking for an attorney to help them with their legal issues within the last 12 months have used online resources to find or contact a lawyer at some point while they were searching for representation. Searching online is easy, which means that they don’t have to settle for an average lawyer in their town when they can travel to the next town over to a law office with highly recommended law professionals. In fact, about 70% of people who are looking for a lawyer are willing to travel further to find legal counsel with better reputations.

How to get more reviews to your law practice

You need to get more reviews for your law practice, and you want to do it honestly because fake reviews will be noticed. So, how do you go about getting more positive reviews?

The best way to start getting reviews is to simply ask your customers to leave them; in fact, 7 out of 10 consumers will leave a review for the business that they were just at when asked.

Don’t wait a long time to approach your clients about leaving a review because you want them to remember their experience and give an honest review. The best time to ask them about writing a review is typically when they are leaving your office. You want to ask your clients for reviews when they are happy with your service.

When a client leaves a review when they are disappointed or upset about something that happened with their case, those negative emotions can easily be transferred into their review. Also, make it easy for your clients to give you feedback; in the technologically advanced world that we live in, using an online review management software to send a review request by text or an email is pretty common.

After you take the steps and ask for reviews from your clients, make sure that you take the time to monitor the comments and the reviews that are left behind on your website as well as other review platforms. Make sure to respond to both positive and negative reviews that you receive; this shows potential clients that you are involved with your clients and that you care about how they feel.

Most important review sites for lawyers

As a lawyer, you will want to have reviews on some platforms so that you can reach as many people as possible who may need your services. Obviously, your website is a good place to have some reviews, but you will want the majority of the reviews that you can find online for your law firm to be seen on review sites and places where search engines will direct potential clients.

Google Reviews

First, what is the number one search engine on the internet? You’ve guessed it – Google, which means that you want to have a positive Google reviews that can help you build your client base. Local business ratings are the first thing that shows up when you do a search for businesses on Google.

After Google, what is the next review site that you would want to be sure to have a presence on?

Facebook Reviews

Facebook is the largest social network in the world, so you will want to make sure that you have an online presence there as well. On this platform, you can stay in touch and even create connections with your clients.

Yelp Reviews

You are probably also familiar with Yelp reviews. They are extremely common for reviewing a restaurant, but they are also great for law firms that need to bolster their review site presence.

Other Lawyer Review Sites

Finally, there are lawyer specific directories like FindLaw and Avvo which are online marketplaces that are designed specifically for lawyers to build their client-base. Potential clients may go directly to Avvo or Findlaw, so make sure that you have some reviews for your law practice available several of the lawyer review sites.

Negative reviews

When you are looking to build your practice, of course, you want positive reviews, but you cannot always control what clients say about your practice. That being said, getting a negative review about your law firm is not the end of the world; in fact, it makes your business seem more authentic when you have a few negative reviews. This means that you are not purchasing reviews to make your company look good and those actual clients are giving their opinion about your services.

As long as the majority of the reviews that your practice attracts are positive, you will still interest new clients. The main thing that you need to do is monitor the reviews for your practice. A single negative review can cost you up to 30 customers, but if you handle the situation correctly by responding to the person that left the bad review, you can build a relationship as well as trust with potential clients.

Always directly address the issue and apologize to the client who left the bad review for the negative experience that they had. If there is a way to make the situation better, then do it because making the unhappy client satisfied will only put you in a better light for potential customers to see that your clients are important to you. Some negative reviews are unavoidable, but most can be addressed and rectified.

Final thoughts on reviews for lawyers

No matter what type of law practice you have, whether it is a large law firm or a one-man show, you need positive online reviews so that new clients can find you. Follow these tips to boost a number of reviews for your practice, and you will see just how much of an impact online reviews can have for you.