Legal marketing
SEO for
law firms.
Law firm SEO rests on three things: pages that answer the problem people search, written for the state you practise in; a Google Business Profile set up within Google's rules for firms and individual lawyers; and clear signs of who wrote each page. Legal topics are 'Your Money or Your Life' content, so Google's quality rater guidelines ask raters to judge them more strictly.
Written by Dan Picken, a marketer who checks the sources. Last checked 2 November 2026.Say which
state.
Workers compensation, motor accident claims, stamp duty, limitation periods, probate, conveyancing and tenancy all differ by state. A page that explains 'the time limit' without saying which state's law it means can mislead a reader in another one, and Google's guidance asks pages to be accurate and trustworthy.
Name the state near the top ('This page covers NSW law'), and where something differs elsewhere, say so. It's also a ranking advantage: searchers often add the state or city, and a page that names it matches.
Which state?
Does your page say
which law it means?
Paste the text of a practice area page or article. It flags terms that usually depend on the state, and checks whether the page says which state it covers.
States named
Terms that usually depend on the state
Pages for
problems.
People search the problem in their own words. A practice area page with one paragraph per service rarely ranks for any of them.
- 'How is property divided after separation' rather than 'property settlements'.
- 'What happens if I'm charged with drink driving' rather than 'traffic law'.
- 'Can I contest a will' rather than 'estate disputes'.
- Each page: the short answer, what usually happens next, the time limits, what it typically costs, and who at the firm handles it.
Google profiles for
firms and lawyers.
Google's guidelines allow one profile per practitioner, not one per practice area, and support staff can't have one. A firm with several lawyers gets its own profile, and each lawyer's profile carries only their name. A solo lawyer at a branded firm shares one profile, named '[Firm]: [Lawyer name]'.
Business names can't include service or location keywords, and virtual offices aren't eligible. A coworking office only counts if it has signage, staff and clients seen there during business hours.
Structured
data.
Schema.org's LegalService type is the broader type that sits above Attorney. Google's local business guidance has no legal-specific rich result, so it works as ordinary local business markup: name and address are required, and phone, hours and URL are recommended.
Show who
wrote it.
Google asks of every page who made it, how and why. For a legal article, that's easy to answer and often missing: the lawyer's name, the state they practise in, when they were admitted, and the date the page was last checked against the law.
Link the byline to the lawyer's page, and keep that page specific: the kinds of matters they handle, the courts they appear in, the languages they speak. It helps readers choose, and it gives AI tools something concrete to cite.
What I see most often
What I see
most often.
- 1
No state on the page
Articles about time limits or probate that never say which state's law they mean.
- 2
One profile per practice area
Separate Google profiles for 'family law' and 'wills', which the guidelines don't allow.
- 3
Keywords in the business name
'[Firm] Lawyers Family Law Gosford' on Maps, when the sign on the door just says the firm's name.
- 4
Articles with no author
Legal articles with no lawyer named, no date and no state.
The honest bit. SEO for law firms takes months, and the big generic searches are crowded. Win the specific ones first: your area, your kinds of matter, the questions your clients actually ask.
Questions
people ask.
Should each lawyer have a Google Business Profile?
Each public-facing lawyer can have one, under Google's guidelines. The firm needs its own as well. One per practice area isn't allowed.
What schema should a law firm use?
LegalService is the broader schema.org type for legal businesses. Google's local business guidance applies, with name and address required.
How long does SEO take for a law firm?
Usually months. Profile fixes can help within weeks. New practice area pages take longer to rank.
Do law firm pages need to say which state?
Yes, where the law differs by state, which is often. Name the state near the top so readers in other states aren't misled.
Related
Keep
going.
Get a free
search audit.
Takes a minute. Audits come back within 1 to 2 business days. For anything else, I'll get back to you as soon as possible.
What happens next
- 1I'll ask for read-only access, or just your website for a search audit.
- 2I go through it and write up the 3 biggest fixes.
- 3A 20-minute call to walk you through it. No pitch unless you ask.