Digital marketing for solicitors & law firms

Legal marketing has a reputation for being expensive. It is more accurate to say it is unforgiving: everything works when it is specific, and almost nothing works when it is generic. Here is how I approach it.

One practice area, one page, one plan

Nobody searches for "solicitor". They search for "conveyancing solicitor [town]", "unfair dismissal advice" or "contesting a will". Each practice area you care about needs its own page written for that client, in their language, with the process explained and the first step obvious. This is the single highest-return job on most firms' websites, and it also gives ads somewhere worth landing. I usually start with the two areas where the firm most wants growth rather than trying to cover the whole letterhead at once.

Transparency is now a ranking factor in all but name

Since the SRA's transparency rules, firms must publish price and service information for certain work, and clients have learned to expect it everywhere. The firms that treat this as an opportunity rather than a chore, with clear fee structures, honest "what affects the cost" notes and named people, convert visibly better. The comparison happens on screen before you ever hear about it; the page has to win it.

Local for some work, national for niches

Conveyancing, family and private client work are local searches, which makes your Google Business Profile and reviews matter in the same way they do for any local business. Niche work is different: a firm strong in, say, professional discipline or agricultural law can fish nationally with content that answers the questions only specialists get asked. Most firms have at least one niche worth that treatment and have never given it a page of its own.

Content that sounds like a lawyer, not a content farm

Clients cannot judge legal skill, so they judge signals of it. Case notes, short plain-English articles on questions you hear every week, and proper profiles for fee earners all build that trust, and Google increasingly rewards demonstrated expertise in exactly these fields. Two well-written pieces a month, on questions clients genuinely ask, beat twenty thin posts nobody asked for. Written by you or drafted by me and checked by you; either works, but a lawyer's eye goes over everything before it is published.

Ads with intake to match

Legal clicks are among the most expensive in UK search, which is precisely why they can still be profitable: the cases are worth more. The discipline is in the pairing. Narrow keywords, a practice-area landing page, call tracking, and honest arithmetic about what a case is worth to the firm. And intake matters as much as the campaign: an enquiry from a £15 click that waits until tomorrow afternoon has usually instructed another firm. I will tell you plainly if your intake process will waste the budget before we spend it.

A sensible first 90 days

• Choose the two practice areas that matter most and build proper pages for them.
• Fix the firm's Google Business Profile and start collecting reviews from suitable matters.
• Publish transparent pricing pages that go beyond the SRA minimum.
• Set up enquiry tracking so every instruction can be traced to a source.
• Trial a narrow ad campaign on one practice area and judge it on instructions, not clicks.