27 July 2010

More people searching for legal terms online

The number of UK consumer online searches for legal-related services in May was up 25% over the quarter to 1.5 million, new figures have shown.

National Accident Helpline was the most visible site – meaning a front-page Google ranking – according to the quarterly analysis by search and social marketing consultancy Greenlight, but this was mainly due to paid searches. After Wikipedia, the Law Society had the most visible site on natural search.

The analysis also revealed that the terms ‘solicitor’ and ‘solicitors’ made up over 50% of the million generic searches, the former term having increased markedly month-on-month since September 2009.

Other findings included:

• Negligence keywords (including compensation claim terms) accounted for 320,722 searches in May (21%); 8% of searches for negligence keywords were for the terms ‘Accident claims’ and ‘No win no fee’. Claims4free ranked at position one with a 70% share of visibility in natural search. YouClaim followed with 47%. A notable mover was FirstPersonalInjury. 
• In family law, the most searched for term was ‘Divorce’, accounting for 33,100 searches in May. Of the top 20 websites, 15 were specialist online family solicitors or divorce advice websites
• In business law, Legal Futures Associate Russell Jones & Walker was the most visible firm, achieving 31% share of voice. Overall, search visibility for the top 20 websites in this segment was relatively low, compared to others. This according to Greenlight, indicates there is considerable market share to be gained in the online industry for many firms

The analysis said: “As with natural search rankings, only 15 advertisers’ websites in paid search were visible for more than 10% of legal-related searches in May, indicating the massive gains to be made for many advertisers in the market.”

Top 10 of the 60 most visible legal websites in both in natural and paid search

No.	Website/Advertiser	Natural search	Paid search
1	national-accident-helpline.co.uk	8%	71%
2	wikipedia.org	66%	0%
3	contactlaw.co.uk	3%	55%
4	lawsociety.org.uk	54%	0%
5	sra.org.uk	42%	0%
6	solicitors.co.uk	42%	0%
7	law.justanswer.com	0%	41%
8	adviceguide.org.uk	38%	0%
9	qualitysolicitors.com	21%	17%
10	solicitorsjournal.com	35%	0%

Source: Greenlight

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