SEO for law firms

Most law firm websites describe the firm: its history, its departments, its values. Search does not work that way. Somebody whose marriage is ending, whose employer has just dismissed them or whose parent has died types the situation into Google, often late in the evening and usually on a phone. Law firm seo is the work of being the answer to that search, and then being trusted enough to get the call.

Clients search their problem, not your department

Nobody searches for a family law department. They search for how to get a divorce, what happens to the house, whether they can be dismissed while off sick, or how long probate takes. A firm whose pages are named after its internal structure is invisible to every one of those searches, however good its lawyers are.

So start from the questions clients ask at the first meeting. Every fee earner can list them without thinking. Those questions, in the client's own words and with a place name where it matters, are the map of what the site should say. The technical term can come second: a page that meets somebody at their ex refusing to let them see the children can then explain what a child arrangements order is.

A client never searches for your family law department. They search for what has just happened to them, and the firm that answers in their words gets the call.

Practice-area pages, and problem pages beneath them

Every practice area you want more work in needs its own page, and the busiest need several. Divorce, money on separation and arrangements for children are three different searches with three different worries, and one family page trying to answer all three answers none of them well. Beneath each practice-area page, build pages for the situations clients most often describe, and link them so a reader can move from their problem to the service and on to the person who handles it.

Consumer and commercial work behave differently in search. A private client in a crisis searches the problem plus a place and chooses quickly, often from the map results. A business buying employment, commercial or dispute work searches less, compares more and wants proof you have handled its kind of matter before. One site can serve both, but not with the same page or the same tone.

Local search, one office at a time

For a search like a divorce solicitor plus a town, the map results come first, and they are driven largely by the Google Business Profile. Each genuinely staffed office should have its own, with accurate hours, real photographs, the right categories and a link to that office's own page rather than the homepage. A profile for an address nobody works at breaks Google's guidelines and tends not to last.

Reviews carry a lot of the weight, and firms are entitled to ask for them. Ask at the natural end of a matter and make it easy with a direct link. Never offer anything in return and never write them yourselves, because UK consumer law bans fake reviews and undisclosed incentivised ones. Replies need care too: a reply that confirms somebody was a client, or touches on their matter, can breach confidentiality, so agree a short form of words with your compliance officer and use it even when a review is unfair.

Expertise a client can check

Google's own guidance talks about experience, expertise and trust, and in legal work those are exactly what a client is judging too. Show them. Give each solicitor a page with their genuine qualifications, the matters they handle and how long they have handled them. Name the person who wrote or reviewed each guide. List accreditations only where your people actually hold them.

Regulatory information belongs in plain view, and firms already have duties here. Firms regulated by the SRA must display certain information online, including the SRA's digital badge, and the SRA number and complaints information usually sit beside it. Check the current requirements with the SRA rather than copying another firm's footer. A site that shows who regulates the firm reads very differently, to a client and to a search engine, from one that hides it.

Directories, citations and earned links

Legal has its own directories, and the right few matter more than a long list. Keep your firm and your people current on the Law Society's Find a Solicitor. For commercial work, Chambers and Partners and the Legal 500 are read by the buyers themselves, and a listing there links back to you from a site with real standing. For consumer work, a well-kept profile on a legal review site does a similar job.

Make the firm's name, address and phone number match exactly wherever they appear, which is dull work that most often breaks after an office move or a merger. The links worth having are earned the way a firm already earns its reputation: a partner quoted in the local or trade press, a talk to a business group, a guide another site wants to point to. Links bought in bulk are a risk to the domain, not a shortcut.

Answering questions without giving advice

Legal content earns search traffic because people have questions and firms have answers. The care is in how it is written. Explain the process, the options and what usually happens next, in plain words, and be clear that every matter turns on its facts. A guide should never read as a promise about an outcome, or as advice somebody could rely on without speaking to you.

This is where legal seo differs most from other sectors. The substance has to be written or checked by somebody who knows the law, and the publicity has to follow the rules that already bind the firm: the SRA's requirement that it is accurate and not misleading, and the CAP Code for marketing more widely. Have the finished copy checked before it goes live. A confident sentence about the law that turns out to be wrong costs a firm more than a missing page ever will.

Why it takes months, and how to measure it

Law is one of the most competitive markets in search. National firms, claims businesses and directories all chase the same head terms, and the value of a single instruction means everyone is prepared to spend. The winnable ground is narrower: a practice area plus a place, or a situation described the way a client describes it. Even there, expect months rather than weeks. The profile and reviews move first, the problem pages later, and nobody can honestly promise a position. In the US the same work is usually searched as SEO for lawyers or SEO for attorneys; the method holds, and the advertising rules are set by each state's bar.

Measure the result in instructed matters, not traffic. Record which search and page each enquiry came from, carry it into your case management or CRM system, and see which enquiries became instructions and in which practice area. A page that brings ten visits and two new matters is worth more than one that brings a hundred and none.

A partner asking about SEO for law firms usually wants five things, whatever words they use: to be found when a client searches their problem, ads that bring in matters rather than clicks, a site that makes the firm look as good as it is, a site that works quickly on a phone and passes enquiries straight into the case management system, and more of the right enquiries with fewer of the wrong ones. SEO is one of those, and it works best alongside the rest. The paid side is in our guide to paid search for law firms, the site side in our guide to building a law firm website, and how we run all of it is on our law firm marketing page.