I’ve spent a good part of my career working on legal sector sites, and the pattern is consistent: firms compete hard for their own name and very little for the thing a client is actually typing.
This page is about what I’d look at, what it costs, and whether it’s worth doing for your firm.
People search by problem, not by firm
Somebody who’s just been dismissed, or had a claim rejected, or been served with something they don’t understand, isn’t searching for a law firm. They’re searching for the problem, often in the words they’d use to a friend.
That gap is where most of the opportunity sits, and it’s why one services page per department rarely earns anything. A department covers a dozen different situations, each one a different search, each with a different level of urgency and value attached.
The firms doing well on this have pages about situations rather than about services. That’s slower to build than a rewrite of the practice area pages, and it competes for attention that’s actually commercial.
The words firms use aren’t the words clients use
Try this now, it takes a minute. Search “SEO for solicitors” and then search “law firm SEO”, and look at how different the two pages of results are.
One of them tends to return general SEO material, Wikipedia and beginners’ guides. The other returns the sector: agencies, playbooks, case studies, plenty of them already selling AI visibility work. Same subject, two phrasings, and Google treats them as different questions.
That’s the same thing that happens inside firms’ own content. Pages get written in the language of the practice, when the person searching is using the language of their problem.
Who you’re actually up against
This isn’t a soft market, and I’d rather say so than sell you a plan that ignores it. The broad legal terms are contested by agencies with legal specialisms, by firms running substantial content operations, and by lead generators buying the commercial searches outright.
For a smaller firm that makes the broad terms expensive ground. The realistic way in is narrower: specific situations, specific places, and the questions people ask long before they’re ready to instruct anyone.
Does local search matter for a law firm?
More than most firms assume. For plenty of practice areas the client wants somebody they can actually get to, and on those searches the map listing sits above the ordinary results.
Google says local results depend mainly on relevance, distance and prominence. For a firm with more than one office, that has a practical consequence: each office needs its own profile, accurate and complete, or the offices compete with each other and none of them ranks properly.
How much that’s worth varies a lot by town. I’ve written up what I found in Ormskirk, where the field was thin enough that page one included a page written for a town in Devon, and in Prescot, where the established businesses hold large review counts and catching up takes a deliberate effort. Worth checking your own before assuming either. The rest are on the locations page.
What I’d look at first
The sequence depends on what’s already broken. If the site can’t be indexed, the enquiry form fails, or nobody can tell which matters came from search, that comes first.
After that, roughly:
- Which work you want more of, and what it’s worth. Not all instructions are equal and the content should follow the valuable ones.
- Whether you’re visible for problems or only for your name. Brand searches flatter the reporting and tell you very little.
- Situation pages for the handful of matters you most want, written in the language clients use.
- The profiles, one per office, accurate and separate.
- The measurement, so visibility can be tied to enquiries instead of rankings.
That isn’t a fixed package. If you already get enquiries but they’re the wrong kind, the work is about attracting different searches, not more of them.
Would Google Ads help?
For high-value work, often, because the value per instruction justifies paying for the click, and because it gets you in front of people while slower work builds.
It’s also expensive ground, and lead generators compete hard on exactly those terms. Before spending, I’d want to know what an instruction is worth and whether enquiries are being tracked well enough to tell which ones paid. My Google Ads service covers how I approach it.
What about AI answers?
People increasingly ask an assistant to explain a legal problem before they ask anyone else, which means the question often gets answered before your firm is in the conversation.
It costs nothing to check what those systems currently say. Ask a couple of them the question a client would ask about the work you do, run it more than once, and note whether you appear and what gets cited instead. Where a firm is missing, it’s usually because nothing on the site answers that question in a way a machine can quote. That’s the same work as the situation pages above. There’s more under AI search visibility.
One caveat I’d want to put in writing. Legal content carries risks that most sectors don’t. Anything published needs to be accurate, current and compliant with your regulatory obligations, and that’s your call, not mine. I’d expect everything written for a firm to go through the firm before it goes live.
Who this suits
Smaller and mid-sized firms competing against national brands and lead generators, where the realistic route is specific instead of broad.
Firms with a clear specialism, where the search volume is smaller and the competition is thinner than on the general terms.
Multi-office firms, where the offices are currently competing with each other and nobody has looked at why.
If your work comes through referrals and panels and you’re at capacity, more visibility may not be the right spend, and I’d say so.
What does it cost to work together?
I can’t price this from a sector name. It depends on the state of the site, how much of it there is, how many practice areas are in scope and what turns out to be wrong. I’d look at the site, whatever you can share from Search Console, and the firms you’re actually competing with. Then I’d tell you what I’d do first, why, and what it would cost.
Nearly all of it is remote, which suits a sector where diaries are the constraint. I’m near Liverpool if a meeting is genuinely useful.
Questions people ask
We rank for our own name. Isn’t that enough?
Brand searches mostly capture people who already know you, usually through a referral. They make the reporting look healthier than the position actually is. The useful question is whether you appear for the problems you solve, which is a different and harder search to win.
How long does this take?
There isn’t a date I could honestly promise before seeing the site. Fixing a broken enquiry route can help as soon as people use it. New content has to be found and assessed first. I’d agree what to watch, then review whether it leads to the right kind of enquiries.
Should each office have its own page?
Usually, and its own Google Business Profile. Where offices share a profile or a page, they tend to compete with each other rather than covering more ground.
Can you write legal content?
I can write the structure, the research and the version that answers what clients actually ask. Accuracy and regulatory compliance sit with the firm, and I’d expect everything to be reviewed by you before publication. It’s your practising certificate, not mine.
Do you work with firms outside the North West?
Yes. Almost all of it is remote and most clients are nowhere near me. This page is about law firms because the search behaviour in the sector is its own thing.
Start with an assessment
Tell me which work you want more of and how clients currently find you. I’ll look at the site, at whether you’re visible for the problems you solve or only for your own name, and at who’s taking the work you want. Then I’ll tell you what I’d change first. Request a free assessment, or get in touch. Other sectors are on the industries page.