Combining Law websites to boost local results?

[MyOwnSEO]

So we currently have 2 separate websites for the 2 areas of law we practice, Criminal Defense and Family.  Currently our Criminal Defense website is the one affiliated with our google+ page and so it ranks well in local results, where as our Family website does not rank at all locally.

Would it be best for our Family practice if we merged it with our Criminal site?  We all work out of the same office and share address and phone number, so I don't believe we can associate the Family website with a google+ page, but I am wondering if each site would show up in Local results for their individual keywords if the criminal site and law site were both subdomains of a main Firm website.

[MyOwnSEO]

You have answered many questions I wasn't even sure I was asking!  Thank you for being clear and detailed, so many great people at Moz!

[MiriamEllis]

Hey There,

I agree with Hutch and Linda regarding the single site approach typically being more powerful than a multi-site approach. What shows up in the local search results is completely dependent on your Google+ Local page, and as your practice is only allowed 1 Google+ Local page (you can't have multiple listings covering multiple specialties) whatever is on that page is what will appear in the local results.

Now, that being said, something for you to consider is the multi-practitioner listing scenario. If there is more than one lawyer at the firm, you are allowed to have a Google+ Local page for each practitioner as well as the one for the practice. Google's most recent guideline update specifies that you must split up the categories between practitioners/practice. This has long been considered a best practice, but now it is a guideline. Without knowing the details of your specific scenario, I can only estimate how you would re-fashion the business to fit this marketing approach, but it would probably look something like this:

1. You consolidate your sites into a single site, with your brand being the unifying factor rather than your specialties being a cause for division.

2. You create a unique page on the website for each partner in the practice, including a unique phone number for each of the lawyers at which he/she is directly contactable.

3. You research Google's categories (the Moz Local category tool is great for this: https://moz.com/local/categories) and discover if there is an authentic way to divvy up categories like Family Law Attorney, Criminal Justice Attorney, etc between the partners and the practice. Remember - they cannot share categories.

4. You link the practice listing to the homepage and link the partners to their own landing pages on the site

In this way, you might be able to represent your practice, your partners and some of the specialties each of the lawyers has with Google+ Local pages and increase your chances of this business appearing in the local results for more than one category of terms.

*Now, all this being said, before you take such a step, you should spend some time researching two things:

1. Historic problems that have occurred over the years surrounding multi-practitioner listings. Linda Buquet's Local Search Forum would be a good place to look this up, as she has covered this topic many times and with great insight. Search other sites as well to get a sense of the potential issues with the multi-practitioner listing scenario.

2. Study Google's most recent guideline iteration in minute detail (https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en). I recommend checking out Mike Blumenthal's 2-part post comparing the older iteration to the latest one: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2014/12/05/google-my-business-guidelines-a-detailed-comparison-new-old/

This will be a big decision to make, involving a change in direction for how you think about marketing your business, and should only be undertaken if it truly feels like the right fit for your practice. It may or may not be. But I hope these ideas are helpful to consider in weighing your options!

[MyOwnSEO]

Follow up question, is there a way to have the subsite show up in the local result?  Or will I only be able to have a single url associated with the local result?  for example could www.wearelawyers.com/family show up in the local result for family law web searches and www.wearelawyers.com/defense show up for criminal defense searches?

[LindaBuquet]

Yes I agree with Hutch.

Many companies feel like "divide and conquer" is the name of the game - but with Google Local "united we stand" typically works better. Then you are driving all your energy into one strong site instead of fracturing it. Many attorneys have a single site with multiple practice areas.

You are right, you can't have a separate G+ L page for the other practice area, but as long as the home page is optimized for both practice areas and you have the right categories you should be good.

[Hutch42]

Combining them will help your Family Law side.  You can then create distinct landing pages for each type of law the firm practices instead of just having a generic home page for both, that way you can give a better user experience and better target specific keywords which I will assume are pretty different from the two law types.