Law firm digital marketing: one plan, one team, one set of numbers
For firms that want a digital marketing agency to run the whole thing rather than sell it in pieces. We set the strategy with the partners, run search, content, website and reputation as a single programme, move the budget to where the instructions are, and report the whole thing monthly in the numbers a managing partner can act on.
Stephensons Solicitors LLP have run their search, paid media and website conversion with us as one programme for over four years: 409% more ranking keywords, 193% more organic traffic, over a million organic clicks a year.
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Each channel on this site can be bought on its own. This page is for the firms that would rather have the whole thing run.
How the channels fit together
Digital marketing for law firms is not six channels competing for a budget. It is a sequence, where each channel does a job the others cannot and pays back on a different timescale. The plan is the order and the proportions.
| Channel | Its job in the plan | When it pays back, and what it needs from the firm |
|---|---|---|
| Website and conversion | Decides how much every other channel is worth. A site that converts twice as well halves the cost of every enquiry from search, ads and referrals. | Immediately. Needs the firm to agree fees can be published and the solicitors to be photographed. |
| Paid search | Produces enquiries from the first fortnight and pays the bills while the slower channels are built. Tests new practice areas before pages are written for them. | Days. Needs a media budget paid to Google and a phone that is answered within minutes. |
| Organic search | The compounding asset: matter pages, local profiles and authority that keep producing after the retainer ends and that paid search no longer has to buy. | Three to six months to meaningful enquiries. Needs solicitors’ time to review pages, about an hour each. |
| Content | Feeds organic search and AI answers, pre-qualifies enquiries, and gives referrers something to share. Includes the quarterly email to former clients. | Compounds from month two. Needs twenty minutes of a solicitor’s time per piece. |
| Reputation | Reviews and directory profiles that lift conversion on every channel and decide the local pack. The cheapest multiplier there is. | Weeks. Needs a review request built into closing a file. |
| Social and email | Referrals from the partners’ networks, visibility in the community, and recruitment. Weighted heavily for commercial firms and lightly for most private client work. | Months, through referrals rather than direct enquiries. Needs the partners who want to take part. |
Channels do not compete for a law firm’s budget. They take turns: paid search pays the bills while organic search is built, and the website decides how much either one is worth.
What the engagement covers
Six things, run by one team. The proportions are set in the plan and changed each quarter against what the numbers say.
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Strategy and plan
Which matters the firm wants more of and what each is worth, where enquiries come from now, which locations and practice areas to lead with, and the twelve-month plan that follows from it, with a budget split between media, retainer and projects. The plan is written down, agreed with the partners, and is what every monthly report is measured against.
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Search, paid and organic
Google Ads built per matter and run weekly, and organic search built on matter pages, local profiles, authority and visible expertise. Run by the same team, so paid spend is pulled back as organic takes over rather than running on out of habit. How we run paid search and how we run organic search are each described in full on their own pages.
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Content and AI search
Guides, matter pages, fee explainers and case notes written with the solicitors and structured to rank, to convert and to be cited by AI answers, plus the quarterly email to former clients and referrers. The content programme and the AI search work in detail.
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Website and conversion
Every matter page brought up to the twelve elements that make a worried visitor call, measurement so every enquiry has a source page, and tests on the pages that matter. If the site cannot be fixed, a rebuild is scoped as a project alongside the retainer rather than hidden inside it.
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Reputation, social and email
A review programme on Google and ReviewSolicitors, directory profiles kept complete, and for the partners who want it, LinkedIn and local social media aimed at referrers. For a commercial firm this is a large part of the plan; for a conveyancing practice it is the reviews and little else.
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Reporting and governance
One report: enquiries and instructions by channel and matter, cost per instruction, rankings and citations where relevant, what changed and what is next. A quarterly review with the partners where the plan and the budget are adjusted. Nothing is hidden in a dashboard nobody logs into.
The first year, by quarter
The plan in the panel at the top of the page, in words. Enquiries from paid search start in the first month; the point of the year is that by the end of it most of them come from channels the firm owns.
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Foundations and paid
Quarter oneStrategy agreed, tracking and measurement in place, the website’s leaks fixed, Google Business Profiles corrected, review requests running, and paid search live by week three in the matters that justify it.
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Organic and content
Quarter twoMatter pages written or rewritten in priority order with the solicitors, the first guides published, solicitor profiles brought up to standard, and the first earned links and mentions. Paid budget adjusted against what has instructed.
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Compounding
Quarter threeOrganic enquiries now a line in the report. Content continues, authority work continues, conversion tests run on the busiest pages, social begins for the partners who want it, paid spend pulled back where organic has taken the position.
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Review and plan
Quarter fourThe year reviewed against the plan with the partners: what each channel produced, what each instruction cost, what to do more of. Next year’s plan and budget written from the firm’s own data rather than from assumptions.
Working alongside your own marketing manager
Many of the firms we work with have a marketing manager or a partner who holds the brief. The engagement works best when the division of labour is explicit, so it is written into the plan.
Your marketing lead owns the firm’s voice, the relationships with partners and referrers, the events, the brochures, the internal communication and the decisions. We run the channels, the pages, the data and the recommendations, all in the firm’s own accounts, and we bring them to the marketing lead every week so they can take them to the partners with the numbers attached.
For firms without anyone in that seat, the Director on the account plays the role until the firm decides whether to hire. Several have hired from the plan we wrote.
- Weekly
- A short call with the marketing lead: what was done, what is blocked, what needs a decision
- Monthly
- The report and a call to go through it: enquiries, instructions, cost, changes, next month
- Quarterly
- A review with the partners: plan against results, budget moved, priorities for the next quarter
- Annually
- The strategy reset from the firm’s own data, and next year’s plan and budget
- Decisions
- Fees published, budgets, new practice areas and anything client-facing are the firm’s; channels, pages and tactics are ours to recommend and the firm’s to approve
How the budget is set, and how it moves
We build the budget from the matters up rather than from a percentage of fee income, because a firm with three profitable practice areas and two loss-leaders should not spend evenly across five.
Paid to Google and any other platform directly from the firm’s own accounts. Recommended from the audit based on what each matter is worth and what the clicks cost in your locations, reviewed monthly, movable at any time. Never marked up.
A fixed monthly fee for the team’s time across every channel in the plan, scaled to the number of practice areas and offices. It does not rise with media spend and there is no charge per lead, so our advice on budget is not shaped by our own invoice.
Work with a beginning and an end, such as a website rebuild, a rebrand or photography, quoted separately and in advance so the retainer stays predictable and the project is approved on its own merits.
Each quarter the split is reviewed against cost per instruction by channel and matter. Money moves from what is not instructing to what is, and from paid search to organic as the organic channel takes the positions. The partners see the proposal and the reason before anything changes.
Four years as Stephensons Solicitors LLP’s marketing programme
Stephensons compete with national brands and claims management companies across personal injury, family, employment and consumer law. We have run their organic search, paid search and website conversion as one programme since the start of the engagement, moving the balance from paid to organic as the organic channel grew, with conversion work informed by a specialist with a background in neuroscience.
The result is a search channel that brings in more than a million organic clicks a year, a paid account that has held a high return on ad spend throughout, and page one positions for competitive terms across several practice areas. Read the case study.
Who runs the programme
A director who sets the plan with the partners, a search lead who runs the channels, and a team behind them who do the work. No account manager between you and any of them.
Sets the strategy and the budget with the partners, chairs the quarterly review, and is the person to call when something needs deciding quickly.
Runs paid and organic search, briefs and edits the content, and writes the monthly report on what moved and why.
Day to day, the account is managed by Siobhan, our accounts manager, with conversion and user experience led by a specialist with a background in neuroscience. Meet the whole team.
Questions firms ask about working with us
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What does a digital marketing agency for law firms actually do?
Runs the channels that produce enquiries, in a plan that fits the firm’s practice areas and economics, and reports what they produce. In our case that means strategy, paid and organic search, content, website conversion, reputation and, where it earns its place, social and email, all from one team and one report.
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Do we need all the channels?
No. The plan is built from the matters you want more of, and some channels will be left out or run lightly. A conveyancing practice needs search, reviews and a converting website far more than it needs LinkedIn. We will show you the reasoning for each channel’s weight.
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We have a marketing manager. Do we still need an agency?
Often, yes, because one person cannot run paid search, organic search, content, conversion and reporting to a professional standard at once. The division of labour is written into the plan: they own the firm’s voice and relationships and the decisions; we own the channels, the pages and the data, and bring recommendations to them weekly.
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How long is the commitment?
We ask for twelve months, because organic search and content take two quarters to show what they can do and the first quarter is mostly foundations. The plan for all twelve months is agreed before you sign, with the first quarter set out week by week.
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How much should a law firm spend on marketing?
Enough to buy the enquiries the firm’s capacity can absorb, which depends on what each matter is worth and how competitive the locations are. We build the number from the matters up in the audit rather than quoting a percentage of fee income, and the split between media, retainer and projects is shown separately.
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Can we start with one channel?
Yes. Many firms start with paid search or a website fix and add the rest once the measurement is in place and the first results are in. Each channel is described on its own page, and the integrated engagement is there when you want the whole thing run.
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Do you work with firms outside the North West?
Yes. We are based in Liverpool and work with firms across England and Wales, mostly remotely, with a visit at the start and for the quarterly reviews where it helps.
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What does the monthly report look like?
Two pages and a call. Enquiries and instructions by channel and matter, cost per instruction, the rankings and citations behind them, what was changed and why, and what is planned next. It is written for a managing partner, not for a marketer.
Start with a marketing review
We will look at where the firm’s enquiries come from now, what each channel is costing, where the website is losing people, and what a twelve-month plan would look like for the matters you want more of.
- A 30-minute call with the partners or the marketing lead about the firm, its practice areas and its targets.
- A written review within two weeks: current channels, costs, gaps, and a draft twelve-month plan.
- A proposal with the budget split between media, retainer and projects, and the first quarter set out week by week.