How to Do SEO Yourself for a Law Firm Website

In the ever-competitive legal sector, visibility can be the deciding factor between a thriving law firm and one that struggles to attract new clients. More than ever, prospective clients are turning to online searches to find legal representation, making strong search engine optimisation (SEO) not just a recommendation, but a necessity for law firms. The good news? Done right, SEO can be performed in-house. With a bit of knowledge, diligence, and strategic planning, your law firm can significantly boost its online presence and climb up the search engine rankings on its own.

This guide will walk you through exactly how to do SEO yourself for a law firm website. It’s written specifically for solicitors, barristers and practice managers seeking to increase their digital footprint and understand how SEO directly affects their firm’s growth and reputation online.

Understanding the Basics of Law Firm SEO

Search engine optimisation is the practice of tailoring your website and its content to appear more prominently in search engine results pages (SERPs). While SEO tactics can apply broadly across industries, legal websites have their own unique nuances. Law firm SEO is highly competitive, and rules around legal advertising in the UK add extra layers to the complexity.

At its core, SEO for law firms aims to achieve three objectives:

• Increase visibility on search engines for relevant legal queries
• Build trust and authority both with Google and prospective clients
• Drive website traffic that converts into qualified client enquiries

Optimising your site involves technical improvements, quality content creation, and strategic promotion — ideally with an ongoing SEO framework anchoring your efforts. Before diving into tactics, it’s crucial to understand exactly who your clients are and what kind of questions or problems they’re using Google to solve.

Pro Tip: Don’t try to rank for everything at once. Establish your firm’s core services and focus SEO efforts on a few primary areas of legal expertise. Targeting everything dilutes your relevance.

Start with Keyword Research for Legal Services

Your SEO journey begins with understanding what potential clients are typing into Google when seeking legal representation. Keyword research allows you to identify terms and phrases that are highly relevant to your services and have good search volume without excessive competition.

For example, a family law solicitor in Manchester might consider targeting search queries such as “divorce solicitor Manchester”, “child custody lawyer UK” or “family law advice near me”. Tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, and Ubersuggest can help identify these opportunities.

Pay close attention to both the intent and specificity of keywords — people who search “how to write a will UK” are likely earlier in the decision-making process than someone searching “wills solicitor in London”. Mapping keywords to the appropriate pages on your website (including blogs and service pages) is key to matching user intent with your content.

On-Page SEO: Optimise Your Website’s Foundations

Once you’ve identified your keywords, the next step is applying them intelligently to your website. On-page SEO encompasses all the tweaks and improvements you can make directly on your site. This includes optimising page titles, headings, and meta descriptions with appropriate keywords — but in a way that reads naturally and professionally.

Your service pages should have clear, targeted headlines (H1 and H2s) and content that speaks directly to the concerns of your potential clients. Each important service — such as conveyancing, employment disputes, or immigration law — should have its own well-structured, authoritative page optimised for searchability.

Other essential on-page practices include:

• Implementing descriptive URL structures (e.g., /services/family-law/)
• Writing compelling meta descriptions that improve click-through rates
• Adding internal links across relevant content
• Ensuring every page has a keyword-rich main heading (H1)

Don’t forget image optimisation too. Every image on your site, particularly those related to staff or services, should have suitably descriptive ALT tags to improve indexability and accessibility.

Create Content that Educates and Converts

Content marketing plays an especially vital role in legal SEO. By consistently publishing helpful, informative and well-researched content, your law firm demonstrates expertise and builds trust with both search engines and readers.

Blog articles, FAQs, guides, and legal updates offer perfect opportunities to capture long-tail keywords, answer client questions early in their journey, and encourage enquiries. Consider writing about topics such as “What to expect in a divorce mediation” or “How to make a personal injury claim after a car accident”. These subjects attract search traffic and establish your lawyers as approachable experts.

That said, quality always trumps quantity. Prioritise well-crafted, legally accurate content that offers practical insight, especially when tackling subjects involving sensitive matters or regulatory nuances. Avoid generic content. Make it specific, local where relevant, and infused with your firm’s tone of voice.

Pro Tip: End each article with a soft call to action inviting visitors to contact your team, call the firm, or download a relevant legal guide. Subtle but effective copy prompts do wonders for conversion rates.

Local SEO for Law Firms: Be Found in Your Area

For most firms, the majority of clients will begin their search for legal services in a specific geographic area. That’s why local SEO is a vital area of focus for solicitors looking to attract more nearby clients.

Step one is claiming and fully optimising your Google Business Profile. Ensure that your name, address and phone number (“NAP”) are consistent across your profile and every mention elsewhere online — a crucial trust signal in local SEO. Add service categories, opening hours and upload professional photos of your office.

Online reviews also influence local rankings and clickthrough rates, especially on map listings. Don’t be shy about asking happy clients for feedback on Google. Authentic, well-written reviews add credibility and help boost your firm higher in the local search pack.

Consider creating location-rich service pages for every area you serve — for example, “Conveyancing Solicitors in Leeds” or “Immigration Services in Croydon” — provided they are useful and not simply duplicate content designed to game the algorithm.

Technical SEO: Invisible but Critical

While search engine bots may not engage with your content the way humans do, they still need to successfully crawl, understand and index your site. Technical SEO ensures that your website is structured in a way that is accessible and readable to search engines.

Key considerations for technical SEO include:

• Mobile-friendliness: The majority of users now access legal sites via phones
• Fast page load speeds: Google rewards fast-loading websites with better rankings
• Secure website protocol (HTTPS): Security is especially important in legal sectors
• XML sitemap and clean site structure: Helps Google understand your website hierarchy

Tools like Google Search Console and Screaming Frog can help you audit your site, identify indexing issues, and correct broken links or duplicate content. Keeping your technical foundations in order greatly improves your site’s performance overall.

Link Building: A Vote of Authority

Search engines treat backlinks — hyperlinks to your site from other locations on the web — as votes of confidence. The more trustworthy and relevant the source of those backlinks, the more search engines will deem your content valuable and authoritative.

Instead of pursuing spammy link tactics, a law firm should invest in earning ethical links through PR, guest posts, citations and helpful content. Consider writing guest articles for respected legal directories or local business websites. Submitting your firm to quality lawyer listing directories such as The Law Society or Chambers & Partners also helps.

Even better, develop resources that journalist and bloggers reference organically — such as stats on UK legal trends or meaningful commentary on changes to legislation. These are likely to get cited and shared by others in the legal industry.

Track Your SEO Performance

No SEO strategy is complete without thorough measurement and analysis. Monitoring your performance allows you to adjust your tactics based on what’s actually working, rather than assumptions.

Use Google Analytics and Google Search Console to monitor website traffic, bounce rates, conversions and keyword rankings. Map traffic trends against your content output and updates. Over time, patterns will start to emerge — do blog posts about employment questions perform best? Which pages lead to form fills?

Create a simple monthly dashboard to track:

• Overall organic traffic
• Top landing pages
• Page rankings for priority keywords
• Conversion metrics (calls, form enquiries, downloads)

Based on this data, revise underperforming content, double down on winning topics, and incrementally improve the user experience of key pages.

Wrapping Up: Why SEO Matters for Law Firms

Your clients are online. A well-optimised website means your firm shows up at precisely the moment someone is researching their legal issue. Unlike traditional marketing, SEO isn’t about pushing messages out; it’s about being discoverable and proving your relevance and authority before a single call is made.

By taking time to understand how clients use search engines and creating content that truly answers their needs, your law firm becomes much more than just another listing on Google — it becomes the obvious choice.

If you’re looking for more in-depth strategies and actionable advice, explore our comprehensive law firm SEO marketing guide.

Done properly, SEO can help you reduce your reliance on paid ads, increase your client base and position your law firm as a modern, authoritative player in your field. But if you ever decide you’d like some expert support, our seo marketing for law firms team is here to help.