How to Do an SEO Competitive Analysis for Law Firms

In today’s intensely competitive online landscape, potential clients often turn to Google before ever speaking to a solicitor. For law firms, this means a robust SEO strategy is no longer optional—it’s essential. But no matter how well-optimised your website is, knowing what your competitors are doing holds the key to dominating local and national search results. Conducting a detailed SEO competitive analysis tailored specifically for law firms provides crucial insights to help your practice rank higher, attract more traffic, and ultimately, convert more clients.

This article will give legal professionals a comprehensive roadmap to analysing competitors’ SEO in a methodical and strategic manner—ensuring your firm always stays one step ahead.

What Is SEO Competitive Analysis and Why Is It Critical for Law Firms?

An SEO competitive analysis involves dissecting the SEO strategies used by rival law firms in your practice area or geographical region. The goal is not to copy but to understand what’s working and identify gaps in their strategy that your firm can exploit. Consider it legal reconnaissance, allowing you to adopt smarter tactics that improve rankings, visibility, and client acquisition.

For law firms, the stakes are higher. The legal sector is fiercely competitive, comprising firms investing heavily to appear on top of key SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). Your competitors aren’t just other businesses—they’re other lawyers fighting for the exact same clientele. Without regular and focused SEO analysis, even the best law firm websites risk being relegated to page two or beyond—where visibility drops dramatically.

Step 1: Identify Your Real Online Competitors

Your traditional competitors aren’t necessarily your SEO competitors. For example, a local high-street firm may not appear anywhere near you online, while a national claims firm might dominate Google for keywords like “personal injury solicitor London”. The first task is to identify who’s ranking for your target keywords—these are your real online competitors.

Search Google (using incognito mode to prevent personalised results) for your main practice areas and see who’s consistently ranking on page one. Focus especially on those appearing in:

• The organic listings below the local map pack
• The Google Map “3-pack” if you’re targeting local SEO
• The “People also ask” or featured snippet sections

Make a list of these sites, ideally 5–10 competitors, noting their domain names and service focus areas. These firms will form the core of your SEO competitive analysis.

Step 2: Benchmarking Their Technical SEO

Technical SEO refers to how well a site is built from a search engine’s perspective. For your law firm, ensuring that your website is properly indexed, mobile-friendly, fast-loading, and structurally sound sets the foundation for search rankings.

Use tools like Screaming Frog or Sitebulb to crawl competitor websites. You’ll want to assess aspects such as:

• Page load speed (especially for mobile users)
• Site structure and internal linking architecture
• URL naming conventions and keyword inclusion
• Duplicate content or thin content pages
• Mobile usability and responsiveness

Pro Tip: Look for schema markup on their pages—it helps enhance search snippets (e.g. displaying review stars or FAQs) and could give you a competitive edge.

By identifying strengths and weaknesses in competitor websites, you can prioritise technical improvements to your own site or demand more from your SEO provider.

Step 3: Content Depth and Strategy Evaluation

Legal content must satisfy two audiences: humans and search engines. Your competitors that rank highly are doing one or both well. Analyse their pages to determine how content is structured, what topics they cover, and the depth of information they provide.

Key questions to ask include:

• How comprehensive are their practice area pages?
• Do they maintain a legal blog, and how often is it updated?
• Do they incorporate FAQs, videos or downloadable guides?
• Are they optimised for long-tail keywords like “no win no fee housing solicitor”?

Also assess the tone of voice—is it legalese-heavy or client-friendly? A winning content strategy for legal SEO will balance professionalism with plain English that resonates with prospective clients.

This is an opportunity to identify content gaps and outperform competitors with better-organised, more informative, and more relevant copy. Our full law firm SEO guide dives even deeper into content opportunities for the legal sector.

Step 4: Keyword Profiling – What Are They Ranking For?

Using tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs or Ubersuggest, plug in your competitors’ domains to find out what keywords they rank for. Focus not just on high-volume keywords, but also on those with clear search intent related to legal services.

Identify:

• Branded vs non-branded keyword traffic
• High-ranking keywords in specific practice areas
• Local modifiers (e.g. “employment solicitor Manchester”)
• Informational search queries (e.g. “can I sue my employer?”)

Build a master keyword list of terms relevant to your practice. Compare this against the pages you currently have on your website. Where the gaps exist, develop content specifically targeting those terms.

Step 5: Analyse Their Backlink Strategy

Backlinks remain a powerful Google ranking factor. In the legal sector, trust is paramount, and gaining links from authoritative, credible sources can dramatically impact your visibility for competitive terms.

Analyse your competitors’ backlink profiles using tools like Ahrefs or Moz. Look for:

• Law directories where they’ve submitted listings (e.g. The Law Society, Legal 500)
• Relevant guest posts or citations in legal publications
• Mentions in legal blogs, journals, or news outlets
• Link foundation—diversity across domains and types of links

If they have placement on niche legal directories or industry-specific sites, you should seek the same. Also, explore partnership and PR opportunities to gain comparable backlinks through solicitor awards, community support, or speaking engagements.

Step 6: Local SEO – How Well Are They Optimised Geographically?

For most law firms, local SEO is just as—if not more—important than national visibility. People often search for solicitors nearby or with location-based services in mind. Competitors doing well in local SEO have likely invested time optimising their local listings and content.

Examine their presence in:

• Google Business Profile: Are they active with images, posts, FAQs and reviews?
• Citations: Are they listed accurately across online directories?
• Localised content: Do they have location-specific landing pages?
• Google Maps pack: Do they rank in the top 3 for local terms?

If your competitor ranks better, reverse-engineer their local presence. Matching and exceeding their efforts in local citations and GBP optimisation can yield faster visibility improvements in your city or region.

Step 7: UX and CRO – Are They Designed to Convert?

Getting traffic is important. Converting that traffic is critical. A thorough SEO competitive analysis for law firms doesn’t stop at rankings—it also examines how websites guide visitors towards becoming clients.

Observe their layout, calls to action, contact form placement, and use of live chat. Do they use trust signals like testimonials, accreditations or client results? Also pay attention to how they structure navigation—clear paths for different legal services, and minimal use of jargon can significantly affect conversions.

Pro Tip: Many law firms overlook simple CRO (conversion rate optimisation) tweaks like integrating appointment scheduling tools or offering free consultation pop-ups. If a competitor does this and you don’t, you may be missing easy wins.

Turning Insight into Strategy

Once you’ve collected and analysed all of the above data, take a strategic approach to respond. Prioritise opportunities based on what’s achievable in the short, mid, and long-term. This may include producing better content for under-served keywords, improving site speed, building out location pages or pursuing a stronger backlink profile.

Remember—SEO is never set-and-forget. Law firms that invest in continuous improvement informed by competitor benchmarking tend to pull away and dominate their category. Consider a quarterly competitive analysis to monitor shifts in ranking, new entrants, and changes in algorithm priorities.

The Value of Working With Experts

While much of this analysis can be done independently or in-house with the right tools, law firms often benefit from specialist support. A law firm SEO agency understands sector-specific challenges, from regulatory considerations when creating content to ethical marketing and advertising rules. Such insight allows for faster execution and compliance whilst ensuring lawyers attract high-quality leads through advancing their online footprint.

If you’d like specialist hands-on help to analyse and surpass competitors in your area, speak with our dedicated seo agency for law firms today.