The reputation of your law firm or practice relies more heavily these days on your online reputation, or online reviews. Great reviews can bring in new customers, while bad reviews can turn people away. So how do you keep on top of your online reputation?

It’s not always easy, but the best way is to manage your online reviews on the major review platforms like the ones listed below. By manage, we mean keep your business information on these sites up to date and respond to reviewers – whether good or bad (especially bad!).

We put together a list of 5 sites that legal clients tend to leave reviews on more often than others, making this list a great start to managing your online reputation.

Avvo.com

Avvo is only available to lawyers practicing in the United States. It is completely free to claim your profile and allows clients to leave you reviews. It also generates an overall score rating from 0-10 for each lawyer based on customer reviews and other sources across the web.

If you practice in the US, claiming your Avvo profile is a very good idea – 97% of all practicing attorneys in the Unites States are included in Avvo’s database.

Yelp

Yelp is available to the United States and Canada (yelp.com and yelp.ca). It is one of the largest review platforms in North America, which makes it a top contender when managing your online reputation. You can create or claim and verify your profile on Yelp for free as well.

To set up or claim your Yelp listing, visit the Yelp for Business Owners section of the site.

Google My Business

Creating and maintaining your Google My Business listing is not only important to your local Google search rankings, but your online reputation as well. Customers can review your business on Google through your map listing, or straight from the Google search results. If you have 5 reviews or more, Google will display a star rating from 0-5 beside your business name in the local search results and on Google maps.

It’s very easy and free to set up and verify your Google My Business listing. Visitwww.google.com/business and follow the steps to set up your profile.  Google My Business listings are available to Canada and the US.

Lawyers.com

Lawyers.com is available to all of Canada and the US. It is included in the Martindale-Hubble network of websites, so there are multiple ways of getting your information on Lawyers.com. You can search for your profile on Lawyers.com and choose the “edit” option if an existing profile is found, or you can submit your information on the martindale.com website. Basic profiles are free of charge.

LawyerRatingz

LawyerRatingz is a website strictly dedicated to online reviews and ratings of lawyers in Canada and the US. Customers can leave reviews and ratings on your profile. Reviewers give you a score from 1-5 based on your knowledge, communication, tenacity, work quality and values along with a comment about their experience. Although LawyerRatingz isn’t as high quality or as trusted as the other sites we’ve listed, it is still out there and people use it frequently. It is always a good idea to be aware of all your reviews across the web to get a bigger picture of your online reputation.

If you sign up to be a registered user on LawyerRatingz, you can respond publicly to reviews and update your profile information.

With more and more consumers searching online for legal help, it is becoming increasingly important to have a great online reputation. Managing your online reviews establishes trust with your clients even before your first conversation.

Be aware of where your customers are leaving reviews, respond to them, manage your profiles, and you’ll be well on your way to a great online reputation!