With more consumers using the web to post reviews, you need to make sure you are protecting your good reputation. Avvo, LinkedIn, and your own website are the best places to have reviews. When someone searches for “your name and review” you want these websites to come up first. I can’t emphasize enough how important reviews have become, especially for attorneys. In fact, 85 percent of consumers say that they read online reviews for local businesses to determine whether these businesses are good or not. (This is up from last year’s 76 percent).

Yelp is a common review site for everything from restaurants to hair salons. They have recently started to expand in to professional services including attorneys and law firms.  It’s the least friendly to account holders in terms of managing your reviews compared with Avvo and LinkedIn.

Being proactive and having several good reviews is critical. Many times I see that the first review of an attorney is unfavorable, followed by a spurt of positive ones. I know that instead of asking clients for reviews regularly, he or she has had to scramble to get good reviews published so as to push the negative one down. Take the time now to get some good reviews before this happens to you. Remember, given the nature of your business one party usually is not pleased with the outcome.

You may learn more about client reviews in my blog post, “How to Manage Your Online Reputation.”