SEO for law firms: structure, pages and intake

Build the site as three connected layers

Most firm sites grow by accident: a page for each partner's pet topic, a news feed nobody updates and an offices page with a map. A better design has three layers that point at each other.

Every practice sub-page should name two or three lawyers who handle it and link to them. Every lawyer page should link back to the practice pages it supports. This internal linking tells search engines which people are linked to which expertise.

Practice area pages that earn their place

A hub page for employment law that lists twelve links is not enough. Each sub-page should be written by or reviewed by a lawyer who does the work and should answer the questions clients actually bring.

• Who the page is for, in plain language.
• What happens in order, with realistic timelines and what the client does at each stage.
• The courts, tribunals or regulators involved in the places you serve.
• How fees are structured, even if only in principle.
• A named author or reviewer and the date it was last checked.

The last point is not decoration. Legal content is treated as higher-stakes by search quality guidelines, so visible authorship and review dates are part of how you show care.

Case results, reviews and what regulators allow

Firms want to show wins. Regulators want to prevent misleading claims. Many US state bars require a disclaimer that past results do not predict future ones, and some limit the way you describe outcomes. In the UK, the Solicitors Regulation Authority expects transparency on price and service for specified work and warns against misleading publicity. Ask your compliance lead to approve a template for case summaries before you publish more than one.

Reviews matter for both local and organic results. Set a process: the case handler marks the matter closed, the client receives a short message with a link to your Google profile, and a partner replies without revealing confidential detail.

Multiple offices without doorway pages

If you have three offices, you need three office pages and three verified profiles. You do not need a separate page for every town within an hour's drive that says the same thing with a new name. Build a town page only when you can add local facts, such as the nearest court, local lawyers who work there and examples of local matters you have handled.

Keep the office name, address and phone format identical on the site, the profile and each directory. A mismatch splits the data about you. For more on structuring a multi-location setup, see our guide on local SEO for multiple locations.

A 90-day sequence for a firm

1. Days 1 to 15: audit and fixCrawl the site, check indexing in Search Console, fix broken redirects, merge duplicate practice pages and confirm profile details across directories.
2. Days 16 to 45: rebuild the top pagesChoose the two or three practice areas where profit is strongest and you have capacity. Rewrite their pages with lawyer input and link the relevant profiles.
3. Days 46 to 70: office and profile workComplete every office profile, add photos, start the review process and refresh attorney pages.
4. Days 71 to 90: earn mentions and measurePitch local press and legal bodies, publish two or three guides tied to client questions, and report leads by practice area.

Most firms do not need more content first. They need the existing content to be accurate, linked and tied to a real person.

Intake decides whether SEO pays

A search visitor who calls and reaches voicemail goes to the next firm. Track how fast enquiries get a response, whether after-hours forms are answered next morning, and how many calls are missed. A call-handling fix often returns more matters than another round of content. Our SEO audit looks at these gaps alongside the technical ones, and the contact page leads to a fixed quote after a short call.