Your Name Searchability Checklist: Get Found More Easily Online
When your name is your business, as it is for many attorneys, making your personal brand searchable can be a real challenge. If people are searching for you, and if what comes up is thin, outdated, or nonexistent, you've often lost ground before the conversation even starts.
But there’s good news: building a strong personal search presence doesn't require a total overhaul. It's a series of specific, doable steps you can start now. Some other tasks you can knock out this week; others are worth building toward over the next few months.
Here's where to start.
Easy Visibility Wins (Do These First)
These steps take an afternoon, not a quarter, and they move the needle fast.
Set up and optimize a Google Business Profile for yourself.
Not just your firm. You, individually. For local searches like "estate planning attorney near me," this is one of the highest-leverage moves you can make.
Get Google reviews from past clients and referral partners.
You don't need hundreds. Ten to fifteen solid, specific reviews improve how you show up in local search results. Send a kindly written email to your past clients asking if they wouldn’t mind writing a review. Don’t be afraid to follow up again in a few weeks.
Optimize your LinkedIn profile.
Your LinkedIn is no longer just a boring resume. Your headline, ‘About’ section, location, and practice areas are all prime real estate to showcase your business in its best light. You have 220 characters to play with in the headline. So try writing something that captures who you really are beyond your job title.
Consider a LinkedIn headline like this: “Compassionate Family Law & Child Custody Attorney, Mediator in Vermont & New Hampshire.” With a quick glance, it says so much more about who the lawyer is and what they specialize in, unlike the all-too-common “Attorney at Smith & Smith Law” headline.
Standardize your name everywhere.
If your name is formatted three different ways across the internet, search engines have a harder time connecting the dots. Pick one format and use it everywhere: website bio, LinkedIn, directories, etc.
Rewrite your website bio to lead with substance.
Capture whom you serve, what you do, and real examples of your work. There are dozens of credentialed attorneys in your area. Why should they choose to work with you?
Next Steps: Claim Your Place in the Industry
These require slightly more setup, but are still easy enough to do on your own.
Claim your profiles on referral sites.
Resources like Avvo and Lawyers.com help clients (and search engines) find you more easily. On your profile, make sure your practice areas are specific; not just "civil litigation," but the actual areas and niches you handle.
Pursue nominations for industry recognitions.
For attorneys, platforms like Super Lawyers and Martindale-Hubbell AV carry significant SEO authority, and your inclusion carries some of that weight to your name. Linking to award publications from your site is the chef’s kiss of SEO internal linking.
Join professional organizations with public member directories.
Local chamber sites often carry real local SEO value, especially for hyper-local searches. Your inclusion in a directory adds real credibility to your stature in the community.
Confirm you're listed correctly on your state bar directories.
It's an easy one to overlook, and it's often one of the first results that comes up. For example, if the directory still lists your maiden name, but you primarily work under your married name, it’s time to have that updated.
A Little More Work (But Entirely Worth It)
This tier takes sustained effort, but it's where real authority gets built.
Write and publish blogs under your own name on your firm's site.
Relevant blog topics and keywords work to strengthen your name’s credibility online, and people will find your name organically when looking for answers. Hyper-local, specific topics perform best. Think about real questions your clients are asking you. What is coming up naturally in conversations day to day?
Geographically relevant topics, like"What to Know Before Buying Commercial Property in Portland, Maine," are always more impactful than generic overviews anyone can write.
Look for byline opportunities in regional business publications.
Take one of the articles you’ve written, and pitch it to your local business journal. These build credibility and generate backlinks that carry genuine SEO weight — the kind you can't manufacture on your own site alone.
SEO Strategy: Worth Getting Help With
These next steps can take your name and business higher and higher in search results. Some of this is worth outsourcing, not because you can't learn it, but because your time is better spent working with your clients.
A one-time SEO audit and optimization of your website.
Most people’s sites leave visibility on the table…simply because no one has looked under the hood in a while, or ever. An SEO audit identifies improvements to increase your overall rankings in search results. It looks at keyword research for your local industry and competitors, and how well your webpages are currently optimized (if at all) for those keywords.
Next, an audit will observe your site’s link-building strategies and any outside links that point back to your site. Not all links are equal, and high-quality backlinks help to build your website’s domain authority (how it ranks in search engines).
Lastly, your audit will check for broken links and 404 errors that deter visitors and will evaluate your site’s ‘crawlability.’ Crawlability is how easily search engines can read through your pages and index them in search results. A well-structured website is easier to crawl and index, and we can help you with that.
Ongoing SEO keyword management.
Search behavior is always shifting. What ranked well a year ago may not rank well now, and your competitors are likely optimizing for SEO, too. Staying current takes consistent attention that most attorneys don't have room for.
Let’s Get Your Name Out There
You don't need to do everything at once. We always remind our clients that the professionals who show up strongest in search aren't necessarily the ones who did everything overnight or were the first to do it. They’ve been building consistently, one piece at a time.
Start with the easy wins this week. Add in the rest over the next few months. You can even print out this checklist and keep it somewhere on your desk for future reference (and check it off as you go).
And if you'd rather have someone else handle it? That's what we’re here for. From SEO audits to LinkedIn profile optimization, Correnti Marketing helps attorneys improve their online visibility and stay at the top of search results. Reach out to our team to learn more and get started today.
