Matter pages with a spine
Each service page should read as if a solicitor explained it to a bright client, then an editor removed the waffle. Process, likely costs or ranges, timescales, and who acts. That is what ranks and what gets quoted.
Law firms · United Kingdom
SEO for solicitors: be found for the matters you actually want
Legal search is unforgiving. People arrive anxious, comparison-minded, and increasingly willing to ask an AI tool “who should I instruct for a sale in Bristol?” If your site cannot name the matter, the town, the team and the next step, directories and national brands will do the talking for you.
Directories are eating the answers that should be yours
Many firms still treat the website as a digital letterhead. Practice area pages are interchangeable, fee transparency is a PDF from 2019, and the only structured data Google sees is a pin on the wrong floor. AI overviews happily cite Legal 500-adjacent content or a lead-gen marketplace instead of you.
- 01Conveyancing, family, employment, wills — all live on pages that could be swapped between firms with a find-and-replace.
- 02You are paying for directory listings that outrank the pages you already wrote, because those listings are clearer.
- 03Partners want “thought leadership”; the site still cannot answer how much probate costs or who to email.
- 04SRA transparency rules are met in the footer and ignored in the places clients actually look.
Legal SEO with the volume turned down and the precision turned up
Local and multi-office sanity
Offices, catchments and “near me” intent without spinning six fake towns. Maps, entities and landing pages that match how the firm actually takes instructions.
Answer-engine readiness
FAQs that are real questions from first meetings, marked up honestly. Authors who are people, not “the team”. Citations become possible when the page is the best short answer in the market.
A site that survives compliance review
No invented case studies, no guaranteed outcomes, no scraped competitor copy. We would rather under-claim than write something the COLP has to unpick.
Most firms start with an audit (£700–£1,200) so we can see whether the current CMS can carry the work. Rebuilds and optimisation projects typically sit in the £2–5k range; ongoing instruction from about £750 a month.
Questions we actually get asked
Is SEO appropriate for reserved legal work?
Yes, if it is accurate. SEO does not require slogans or prize badges. It requires pages that describe the work you are allowed to do, in language a client understands, with the disclosures the SRA expects.
We already have a national directory programme. Why bother?
Directories are rented land. When they change the rules — or when an AI tool prefers a first-party page — you have nothing to show. A firm site that can be cited is an asset. Listings can still play a part; they should not be the strategy.
Can you work on a single department rather than the whole firm?
Yes. A focused conveyancing or family programme is often a better first instruction than boiling the ocean across every partner’s pet page.
Do you produce legal content with non-lawyers only?
Strategy, structure and drafts can be ours; anything that states the law should be reviewed by the relevant solicitor. We are not a substitute for professional judgement, and we do not pretend otherwise.
Next step
Book an audit. We will say if the site can carry the work.
Audits from about £700. Websites about £2–3k. Retainers from about £750/month. If a rebuild is the better path, we will say so before anyone is out of pocket.