Google Related Content Carousel on Mobile Searches for Law Firms
By Peter Boyd on August 26, 2016 in Development
We have noticed that on certain mobile queries a related carousel is now appearing at the bottom of search results for various law firms. These related content carousels feature nearby firms (and most likely competitors).
Related Carousel Content
The carousel of information appears after the firm’s Google place listing and full search results (typically 8 to 10 results). The related carousels appear to have:
- Related Images about the firm (not on all searches)
- Related firms by practice area. Some firms have one related carousel and some have two practice groups. These definitely include other firms and most likely competitors.
- Nearby Places. These appear to be other firms, perhaps not related to the core practice areas, but are close by.
- Related Searches. These are typical related searches that other people have searched. This is standard on all queries now.
Where is this Seen?
This is not for every law firm or business search query. It is only if you search for a firm name. It is only on mobile, too. Moreover, during our internal testing, some users did not see these searches at all.
However, a lot of law firms have this new related carousel information. While currently these results are shown for the firm names only, we would imagine this could easily be tested and rolled out for generic searches like “dallas criminal defense lawyer” or “tampa personal injury lawyer” in the future.
Example #1
Here is a screen shot search for “Lipcon” on mobile. Lipcon, Margulies, Alsina & Winkleman, P.A. is a Maritime law firm in Miami. Note that this is only the bottom of the search page, for a full search page, click here.
Example #2
Here is a screen shot search for “Searcy Denney” on mobile. Searcy Denney is a personal injury firm in Florida. Again, this is only the bottom of the search page, so the carousel appears below all search results. For a full page view, click here.
Why Does This Matter?
Any changes in the layout of search can impact traffic to your firm’s website. It will be interesting to see:
- How will the carousel be integrated for all firms? When will it roll out for everyone? It appears to be tied to those firms who have larger Google Business listings and profiles, but not always. We need to research this more.
- Will this related content be placed into general searches by practice area (and not firm name)? If this happens, it could open up new possibilities for rankings and traffic.
- What firms are related to your law firm? You cannot control this, but you obviously would like to be associated with other quality law firms.
- What practice groups does Google associate your firm with? This is presumably tied to your Google business categories, but may be tied to other factors.
- Where will this be placed? If at the bottom, this is not a real issue. If this is moved to the top, it could negatively affect the amount of clicks to your website.
Stay tuned for more information. We will update this post with more information in the future. Thanks!
