SEO for law firms

A practice area page earns its place when the firm takes that work and a lawyer will stand behind the description. Family law, estate planning, criminal defense, immigration, business counsel, and plaintiff work are different practices. Publish the ones you take. A page for a matter you refer out, written as if you handle it, creates the wrong consultation and a credibility problem when the caller finds out.

Subpages make sense when the distinction is real. A plaintiff firm that handles car collisions and medical negligence can explain those separately, because the facts a caller needs to gather are not the same and the lawyers may not be the same. A page that changes only the injury name, and otherwise repeats the same pitch, is thin. It does not help the reader, and it is the legal version of a doorway page.

Write what the consult covers, what the firm does not handle, and how a conflict check works in plain language. If you publish prior results, publish only results the firm can document, with the disclaimers your jurisdiction requires. We do not invent outcomes, and we do not write a promise of victory as a headline. An example of a sentence that does not belong, labelled as an example of a claim rather than as a slogan: "We guarantee a recovery." That sentence is an advertising problem in many states and a trust problem everywhere.

• One page per practice area the firm actually accepts
• Subpages only where the facts and the lawyers truly differ
• Prior results only when documented and allowed
• No invented testimonials and no outcome promises
• A named lawyer responsible for the accuracy of the page

A bio should tell a prospective client whether this lawyer handles their kind of matter. Education, bar admissions, courts, languages, and the matters the lawyer actually works on are useful. A paragraph that lists every practice area the firm has ever touched, including ones this lawyer does not take, sends people into the wrong consult. Representative matters, if you describe them, need permission where the client can be recognized, and they still should not imply a result the rules do not let you claim.

Words like specialist, expert, and best are restricted or easy to overstate. Some jurisdictions allow a specialization claim only with a particular certification. Award badges belong on the site only when they are real, current, and phrased the way the rules allow. We do not supply badges, and we do not tell you that a directory listing makes a claim safe. The person at the firm who owns advertising compliance approves the sentence. We publish the sentence they approve. Bar rules differ by state, and we are not ethics counsel.

The same limit applies to the Google Business Profile. The firm name should be the firm name, not a keyword phrase added to the title. Categories should match the work you take. If every lawyer shares one reception desk, one phone, and one set of hours, the firm profile is the listing to maintain. Google allows some professionals to have their own listings when they operate as a distinct practice a client can contact directly. A profile per associate, opened only to collect more pins on the map, is not that situation.

A location page is for an office where your lawyers work and where a client can go, or for a bona fide office as your jurisdiction defines one. A virtual mailbox, a conference room you rent by the hour, or a city you would like clients from is not a second office. Publishing a street address you do not occupy conflicts with profile rules and with the ordinary expectation that someone will open the door.

Firms licensed in several states still should not build a city page for every market they wish they served. The honest version is a page for each real office, plus a clear note about where the lawyers are licensed to practice. If a lawyer appears in a city only by appointment, say that, and do not dress it up as a staffed branch. People plan travel around these pages. A wrong address wastes a day and produces a review you earned.

This is an example, not a client result. A four-lawyer firm with one staffed office and a once-a-month rented room two hours away keeps one location page and mentions the monthly appointment on it. It does not launch a URL for every city in the state. The profile address matches the staffed office. The rented room is described as an appointment, not as a second firm.

People arrive with practical questions. What should I bring to a consult. How long does the first meeting last. Do you charge for it. What kinds of matters do you decline. Which office should I call. Those questions can be answered on the site because they describe how the firm works.

The site should not tell a reader whether they have a claim, what a matter is worth, which deadline applies to their facts, or what they should file. That is legal advice, and a marketing page is a poor place to give it. A short note that the page is general information, that reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship, and that the answer depends on their facts, is the right kind of boundary. Your firm should approve that note. Ethics rules are not the same in every state.

Publish in a lawyer's voice only when that lawyer reviews the page. Date practice pages that describe process, and review them when the firm's focus changes. An outdated page that describes a consult you no longer offer is a client-service problem before it is a search problem. Content on the marketing site can point someone toward a conversation. It cannot replace the conversation.

Local SEO retainers are often discussed around $750 to $5,000 per month, depending on competition and content. A small estate or family practice with a handful of practice pages and one office is usually discussed toward the lower part of that range. A plaintiff practice in a large city, with several matter types, lawyer bios, and compliance review on every claim, is discussed toward the top, because lawyer time and the amount of original writing both grow.

The range moves with the work. Pages a lawyer must review take more staff time than generic marketing lines. Multi-office firms have more profiles and more addresses to keep consistent. None of that is a promise that spend produces a position. A firm that wants twelve city pages for cities where it has no office is asking for work we will not do, at any fee.

That range is not a CodeHunterz rate card. It is not a quote. It is not a ranking guarantee. It is not a promise of a page one ranking or a map pack position. We quote after we see the site, the offices, the practice list, and who at the firm approves advertising claims.