Local Citations are your Law Firm’s online mentions on the Internet. It can be any listing on Social Media like Facebook, directories like Avvo, or your Google My Business (GMB). Apart from the general citations, the legal sector offers a wide variety of specialized directories.

We’ve previously covered the value of Citations Management for Law Firms. It’s a critical component for your localization strategies, local SEO, and discoverability in a few words. You need to keep them accurate across all online platforms as the search engines crawl your listing and favor those that are always consistent. That can, later on, be translated to potentially better rankings and customer experience. Some of the significant components are your URL, phone number, address, reviews, hours of operation. You can find a full list in our previously quoted article.

In today’s article, we’ll explore the citations specific to the Legal vertical, exploring some of the most important directories for Attorneys. While for the major platforms, you can use software like Yext, legal citations are mostly manual, meaning that you have to find them and create your listings, so pay attention to your data’s accuracy.

  • What are the most important factors to consider?
  1. Domain traffic. That’s the first indicator of how many people browse the specific directory and potentially click on your listing. After all, their original objective is to drive searchers to your website (and potentially prospective clients).
  2. Domain authority. That’s among the most important signals of a website overall standing, and as the name implies, authority. The links there will most likely be no-follow, meaning that they won’t pass running to your Law Firm, but still valuable. Any domain authority over or around 50 is excellent.
  3. Keywords. Explore what they rank for. You can perform some relevant queries to your Law Firm, location, and practice, and identify if the directory ranks well on the first page.

Tip: You can use software like SEMrush.

Let’s get started with some of the most important directories for Law Firms.

  • Avvo

It’s one of the first directories to come in mind for all Attorneys across the US. With a domain authority (DA) 75, over 1.3 million keywords, and 950.000 traffic, one can easily understand that every lawyer needs to have a listing on Avvo.com. Your first step is to either claim your profile (if they prepopulate it) or create it from scratch (check photo below). Ensure that you add all details, including your practice areas, all locations, and languages that you can accommodate. Additionally, connect your website and social media to create a better user experience and enhance your professional profile.

Cost: Basic listing is Free. You can get a premium for a fee.

  • Justia

Another major player in the legal directories vertical. You’ve already heard of it, but is your law firm on Justia.com? Their DA is 75, their traffic over 4 million, and their keywords close to the 6.3m mark. When looking more specifically at the directory part (their website shares general information), we see the same DA and around 185.000 organic traffic, plus 360k keywords. To create your profile, you get to fill in your details in a similar process to Avvo.

Cost: All listings are Free.

  • Lawyers.com – Nolo – Martindale

These directories are under the same umbrella. The main difference compared to the previous ones is that they don’t offer a free listing. To be on these, you have to work either on a subscription basis or pay per lead.

Cost: Paid

  • BestLawyers

With a DA 64, 190k traffic, and 157k keywords, Bestlawyers.com is one of the top free choices. To get listed, you have to go through a nomination process. The personnel will review the information, and if they comply with their policies, they will add your Law Firm on the directory. That’s a yearly process, and they review qualitative data, such as reviews, feedback, and peer voting. If you plan on applying now, your nomination will be published for 2022, if successful.

Since we always talk about Hispanic digital marketing and the value of reaching your local Latinx prospective clients, we’ll look into the most prominent options for Hispanic-specific legal citations.

  • Abogado.com

With a DA 46, over 100k traffic in the US, and 50k keywords, we have a reliable directory for the US Hispanic. Findlaw, another English legal directory own it, and to get listed, you have to fill in a contact form to talk to a representative.

Cost: On a paid basis, it depends on practice areas, location, and availability.

  • ElAbogado.com

It’s a smaller directory in terms of traffic and keywords (10.3k, 5.7k) but with DA 47. It operates on a pay per lead model, and you’d need to pay to activate your listing and receive leads.

Cost: Paid, pay per lead.

Remember: For a legal-specific citations management strategy for your Law Firm, you’ll have to follow an active Approach, meaning that you or your team will have to create your listings. If you need help, don’t hesitate to contact us, and we’ll help you create a strategy as part of your Law Firm’s SEO campaigns.

The million-dollar question for directories: Is it worth paying? We can’t give a yes or no answer. It all depends on your strategy, marketing budget, and goals. We recommend you first concentrate on your Spanish PPC strategy, and then potentially review it as part of your SEO plans.

It’s time for our key takeaways:

  • Your Law Firm needs a citations management strategy to increase its chances with local SEO.
  • The legal vertical offers industry-specific directories that are important for your rankings and, potentially, your discoverability and user experience.
  • Some operate on a free basic listing with additional features for paid users, while others only offer paid memberships.