Today our guest Rev Ciancio, Director of Industry Insights at Yext, talks about digital knowledge management for lawyers, how to rank highly on the Google Map Pack, and the value of managing your online reputation.

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Shownotes

Rev Ciancio is the Director of Industry Insights at Yext,  and previously was the owner of an agency that successfully helped small businesses with local marketing. He also used to own a bar and restaurant in New York City.

Connect with Rev on  Twitter | LinkedIn | Email

What is digital knowledge management?

Digital Knowledge is all of the information about your law firm that exists online such practice areas, bios, client reviews, and services. Management is the method in which you sort that information to help clients find it.

The Map Pack

Searches for lawyers near me are at an all time high and 20% of people choose an attorney based on location which makes it even more important that people are able to find your law firm.

The Google Map Pack is structured information that’s built on a knowledge graph – everything that Google can find out about your law firm based on all search engines and websites. The Map Pack allows your firm to let Google know the correct information about your company. Google chooses the information that seems the most accurate which is why it’s important that your details are updated and consistent among all search directories – from Bing to Yelp.

When ranking listings, Google considers distance, relevance, and prominence of the business. Prominence is your ranking against competitors based on your public reputation. Businesses with the most recent positive reviews rank higher. If you want to get into the map pack, you must manage distance, relevance, and prominence and the only way to do so is through some digital knowledge management solution.

The Value in Managing Your Online Reputation

Client reviews are important for several reasons. First, they inform customer decisions. For 22% of people, it only takes one negative review before they decide against a business.

If you’re an attorney not reading your online reviews, you’re missing critical feedback about your firm, you may be missing out on SEO value, and you’re definitely missing out on new clients.

What Legal Marketers can do to prepare for voice search?

While people aren’t necessarily asking their voice assistants to search for lawyers yet, voice search is certainly growing in importance. Voice systems, like search engines, are still getting information from knowledge graphs which only reinforces the importance of digital knowledge management for lawyers. The best thing you can do today is manage your firm’s information anywhere that it exists.

The steps to beginning digital knowledge management

Until recently you had to manually update and manage knowledge on each individual directory. Unfortunately, listing information can change without your law firm knowing, as Google changes info based on a compilation other sources. Yext is a top digital knowledge management  service that allows you to update and manage knowledge and monitor reviews, and analyze map pack data all in one place. It’s the easiest and most efficient method for updating and locking in information among search engines.

Yet, digital knowledge management for lawyers still takes time, which is why smaller firms without large marketing departments may want to consider an agency to manage their online presence and implement continuously changing best practices.

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