Guides · Updated 06 Aug 2026
Your Google Business Profile matters more than your website
For someone searching "divorce attorney near me", the map results appear above the website results. They show your name, rating, hours and phone number. A meaningful share of those people phone directly from that panel and never visit your site at all.
We build websites. This article argues your website is the second thing that matters.
That's uncomfortable to write and it's still true.
What actually happens when someone searches
Type "attorney in Pretoria" into a phone.
Before any website appears, you get a map and three businesses. Name, star rating, review count, hours, and two buttons: Call and Directions.
That panel is built entirely from Google Business Profiles. Not from websites.
A person in that moment is not researching. He has a problem and wants to speak to someone. He taps Call.
Your website — however good — was never part of that decision.
The uncomfortable arithmetic
A firm with a mediocre website and a complete, well-reviewed profile will take more calls than a firm with a beautiful website and a neglected profile.
Not because design doesn't matter. Because they meet the client at different moments.
The profile wins the client who is ready now. The website wins the client who is deciding between three firms.
Both matter. Only one of them is free, and it's the one most firms ignore.
How much this matters depends on your practice area
We searched three head terms in Pretoria on the same afternoon. The pages looked nothing alike.
| What sits at the top | |
|---|---|
| Labour | The map block, above every organic result |
| Divorce | Five paid ads, then an AI summary, then a directory |
| Conveyancing | Straight to organic — a directory holding two of the top three |
If you do labour law, this article is about the most important thing on your marketing list. The Places block sits above everything. Your profile isn't an adjunct to your website — it is the result.
If you do family law, it's one of several. Ads occupy the top, and a client scrolling past them meets a summary before any firm.
If you do conveyancing, it matters less — and your work probably arrives through estate agents and bond originators rather than people searching. Worth having right; not worth building a strategy on.
There's a second reason to care regardless. When we asked ChatGPT for divorce attorneys in Pretoria, it answered with a map, star ratings and open/closed status — 5.0 for one firm, 4.9 for the next. That's profile data. It appeared to be ranking substantially by rating.
What a complete profile has
Work down this list. Ten minutes gets you most of the way.
Claimed and verified. If you've never claimed it, Google may have generated one from public information — with whatever address and hours it found. Search your firm's name and see what exists.
The correct primary category. "Attorney" and "Divorce Lawyer" and "Conveyancer" are different categories and they surface for different searches. The primary category does most of the ranking work. Choose the one that matches what you most want to be found for.
Name, address and phone identical to your website. Character for character. "Suite 3, 14 Church Street" on one and "14 Church St, Suite 3" on the other is a mismatch. Google uses consistency across the web as a confidence signal.
Current hours, including public holidays. A firm showing "Closed" on a Tuesday because nobody updated the December hours loses every call that day.
Photographs. The office exterior so people can find the door, reception, and the attorneys. Profiles with photographs get engaged with more than profiles without. Ten is enough.
Services listed. Each practice area as a separate service. This is a free, structured description of exactly what you do, and most firms leave it blank.
A description that says what you do and where. Not a mission statement.
Reviews, and replies to them. See below.
The Q&A section answered. Anyone can ask a question on your profile. Anyone can answer it — including people who aren't you. Unanswered questions sit there permanently. Answer them yourself.
Reviews are the part that compounds
Review count and rating are visible in the map panel before any click. They're the first comparison a client makes between you and the two firms beside you.
On one Pretoria search result page we found three firms:
- One with 162 reviews at 4.9 — holding the free knowledge panel, and named second by ChatGPT
- One with 161 reviews at 5.0 — cited by both ChatGPT and Gemini for divorce, and in the map block for labour
- One with 5 reviews at 5.0 — paying for multiple ad placements on the same page
Two firms at around 160 reviews were winning positions across practice areas and across AI systems, for nothing. The third was buying them.
Two things to know:
Replying matters as much as receiving. A firm that responds to reviews looks present. A firm with fourteen reviews and no replies looks like nobody's home.
Asking is allowed. How you ask needs care. A review confirming someone was your client is a disclosure about that person. That deserves more thought than the generic "just ask every client" advice you'll find elsewhere.
→ Asking clients for Google reviews without breaching the rules
The thing nobody checks
Anyone can suggest an edit to your profile.
A competitor, a former client, a stranger who thinks they're being helpful. Google sometimes accepts these edits without telling you. Addresses change. Hours change. Categories change.
Check your profile monthly. It takes two minutes and it's the check we find the most surprises in.
Where your website still wins
The profile gets the call. The website decides what happens when the client isn't ready to call yet.
- Someone comparing three firms before choosing
- Someone researching a maintenance claim at 11pm who isn't going to phone anybody tonight
- Someone referred to you who wants to know you're real
- Anyone searching for something specific — "antenuptial contract Centurion" — where a practice area page can rank
- Every AI assistant answering a question about your area of law, which draws on written content
The profile handles urgency. The website handles consideration. Firms that only have one are only meeting half their clients.
In order
| Task | Time | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Search your firm's name — does a profile exist, and is it claimed? | 2 min |
| 2 | Check the primary category | 2 min |
| 3 | Match name, address and phone to your website exactly | 5 min |
| 4 | Fix hours, add public holidays | 5 min |
| 5 | Add ten photographs | 15 min |
| 6 | List each practice area as a service | 10 min |
| 7 | Answer anything in Q&A | 5 min |
| 8 | Reply to every review you've ever had | 20 min |
Roughly an hour, once. Then two minutes a month to check nothing has been changed underneath you.
It's free, and for a local practice it's likely worth more than anything else on this list of ours.
We set profiles up properly for R2,500 once-off, and keep them current as part of our monthly plan. But there is nothing in the list above you can't do yourself in an hour, and you should — whether you ever speak to us or not.
If you'd like us to check your profile alongside your website, send us your URL.
Related guides
Asking clients for Google reviews without breaching the rules
You may ask. But under the Code of Conduct a review is publicity — and that creates an obligation most firms have never heard of.
Will clients find your firm when they ask ChatGPT?
We asked five surfaces the same question about Pretoria divorce attorneys. Between them they named 18 different firms. One appeared in three answers. Fourteen appeared in one.
Check your own law firm website in twenty minutes
Twelve checks from our sixty-check audit — the ones that need nothing but a phone. Most firms find three or four faults they didn't know about.