As a marketer for attorneys, I find that many of my clients struggle to get into Google Maps for the same reason. Unfortunately, it’s something that’s out of their control.
It’s their law firm’s address.
I’ll show you why Google doesn’t list your law firm in Google Maps based on your address. In many cases, there’s nothing you can change with your address. It’s a good thing to keep in mind when looking to open a second location or if you’re moving to a new office.
Google Maps And Your Law Firm’s Address
Google will show listings in Maps based on the address, not your service area. Let’s say for example that you are trying to rank your law firm for the search term “Orlando personal injury lawyer.”
You serve the Orlando area, but your law firm is in Winter Park. No matter how hard you try to optimize your website to rank for Orlando, Google will not show your law firm in Maps.
Why? It’s because you don’t have an Orlando address. Google uses your office’s geolocation to determine if you’ll show up in Google Maps listings.
About 99.999% of the time when a person looks for “Orlando personal injury attorney” the results in Maps will all have Orlando addresses.
These might not be the best personal injury attorney lawyers in the area, but they are closest to the search. This is why it doesn’t make sense to optimize your website for Orlando when you don’t have an Orlando address.
Here’s What You Need To Do Instead
It’s almost impossible to rank in Maps for a city that isn’t a part of your address.
The good news is that you can still show up in Google Maps! You just won’t show up in the listings for a city that you are not actually located in.
This means you have to stop wasting your time trying to get into Google Maps for a city you aren’t located in and start optimizing for a different area instead.
This is where unincorporated areas come in.
We love to help our clients rank for unincorporated areas. These often don’t have as high of a search volume but come with less competition.
This is perfect for attorneys that want to show up in Google Maps searches but fail to do so because of their address.
An incorporated area is an area that doesn’t have a real address. For example, there are no locations with Orange County as their address in Florida.
Attorneys that serve the Orange County area can optimize their websites for this county even without their physical address mentioning Orange County.
If your address is preventing you from ranking in Google Maps, then there’s no need to feel discouraged. You have the opportunity to rank in unincorporated areas instead.
