Posted by Stacey Horrocks, director at Legal Futures Associate BSD Legal Marketing [1]
Horrocks: Quality is as important as quantity
For years, the basic argument for search engine optimisation (SEO) [2] for law firms was relatively straightforward. Improve your Google rankings, increase search traffic and, hopefully, generate more enquiries. This model hasn’t disappeared, but it is definitely becoming much more complicated.
AI Overviews [3] are answering questions directly within Google, potential clients are using platforms such as ChatGPT to research legal problems, and traditional informational searches aren’t necessarily generating the clicks they once did.
Firms looking at their analytics may therefore see falling organic traffic and understandably wonder whether their SEO is still working. [4]
From what we are seeing at BSD Legal Marketing, the more interesting question is whether traffic is still the right measure of success.
One law firm we work with recently told us that, although its website traffic had fallen, enquiries had remained consistent and, in some periods, increased. More importantly, the firm felt that the quality of those enquiries had improved.
This potentially tells us something important about where law firm SEO is heading.
Fewer visitors doesn’t necessarily mean fewer clients
Google’s AI-generated results mean someone looking for a straightforward answer to a legal question may no longer need to visit a solicitor’s website. This, of course, will inevitably impact some search traffic.
If someone wants to know the basic time limit for bringing a particular claim and receives the answer directly within the search results, there is less reason to click through to a 1,500-word article explaining it.
But was that visitor ever going to become a client? Perhaps not.
The people who do continue beyond an AI-generated answer may have stronger search intent. They are not simply trying to understand what a legal term means. However, they may be looking for a solicitor, comparing providers or trying to decide what to do next.
This means that firms need to be careful about interpreting reductions in website traffic as evidence that their marketing strategy is failing. Ten thousand informational visitors who never make contact aren’t necessarily more valuable than 2,000 visitors who generate 50 enquiries.
SEO should be built around the clients a firm actually wants
This sounds obvious, but a surprising amount of SEO still begins and ends with search volume. Good keyword research should go much further.
Before deciding what a firm should rank for, we need to understand which services it actually wants to grow, the types of matters it wants to attract and how potential clients describe the problems they’re experiencing.
Clients don’t necessarily use the terminology lawyers use internally. Someone might search for a problem rather than the name of the legal service that solves it.
Understanding that difference should influence everything from website architecture and content creation to pay-per-click campaigns and calls to action.
It also means that a successful SEO campaign shouldn’t necessarily target every keyword with a large search volume. Sometimes a smaller group of commercially relevant searches will produce significantly better enquiries.
SEO isn’t just content
Another problem with the way SEO for law firms has been sold is the assumption that it means publishing articles every week. Content is important, but publishing more of it won’t compensate for a poor website.
A proper SEO audit should consider the wider picture, including website structure, indexing, page speed, mobile performance, duplicate content and other technical SEO issues. Internal linking can help search engines understand the relationship between services and supporting content, while also helping visitors find useful information.
Then there is user experience. If someone finds a firm through Google but can’t work out whether it deals with their problem, can’t easily use the website on a mobile phone, or has to search for a way to make contact, the SEO has technically generated a visitor but commercially achieved very little. The objective should be to connect visibility with conversion.
Local SEO still matters
For many law firms, geography remains an important part of how clients search. Someone looking for a conveyancer, family solicitor or criminal defence lawyer may still want somebody with a presence in their area. Local searches therefore remain commercially valuable even as broader informational search changes.
A properly maintained Google Business Profile, accurate business information, reviews and well-developed location content can all contribute to local SEO.
However, creating dozens of virtually identical location pages with the town name changed isn’t a particularly convincing strategy. A location page should have a reason to exist. It should explain the firm’s presence or ability to serve that area, identify relevant lawyers and services and provide useful information to someone genuinely searching for legal assistance there.
High-quality local content should be written for the client first, with optimisation supporting it rather than dictating it.
AI has made high-quality content more important
There is an irony to the growth of AI in marketing. It has never been easier to produce content, but that doesn’t mean it has become easier to produce good content.
Many law firms are now using AI tools to generate large volumes of articles. In some cases, the result is perfectly readable but almost indistinguishable from the content being published by competitors. This creates a problem for traditional search and AI search alike.
If hundreds of firms publish essentially the same explanation of divorce, probate or personal injury law, why should one particular website be treated as a valuable source?
We think high quality increasingly means adding something beyond the basic legal information. This could mean adding practitioner observations, useful examples, genuine case studies, commentary on developments and answers to the questions solicitors actually hear from clients.
Our own experience has made us optimistic about this. We have had law firms approach BSD after finding our articles referenced in AI-generated search results, while clients have reported enquiries from people who used AI platforms during their search for legal help.
This supports our view that AI is not removing the need for SEO; but it is changing what effective SEO needs to achieve.
SEO should give law firms more control over where work comes from
One of the more interesting reasons to invest in SEO has very little to do with rankings. For many firms, it is about having greater control over where new work comes from.
There is nothing inherently wrong with buying leads or using referral partners. They can be an extremely effective part of a marketing strategy, particularly where firms have the systems in place to assess and convert enquiries quickly. The risk comes when a firm becomes heavily dependent on external sources and has very little direct pipeline of its own.
SEO can help create another route to market. Improving visibility for the searches that matter commercially allow a firm to generate more enquiries directly through its own website rather than relying entirely on third parties to introduce potential clients.
This won’t be an overnight process, however. Developing meaningful organic visibility in competitive areas of law requires consistent work over the long term, including technical improvements, useful content, internal linking, authority building and ongoing analysis of how people are searching.
The objective doesn’t necessarily need to be replacing referral partners or paid acquisition altogether. In many cases, the strongest approach will involve several channels working alongside one another. PPC might generate enquiries immediately, referrals can provide another source of work, while SEO gradually develops a stronger direct pipeline.
What should law firms measure now?
Rankings, traffic and visibility still have a place in SEO reporting. They help identify trends and understand whether the work being undertaken is having an impact. But they shouldn’t be the end of the conversation.
A modern law firm SEO strategy should also consider enquiry volumes, enquiry quality, conversion rates, calls, commercially relevant rankings, local visibility and whether the firm’s expertise is appearing within AI-generated results.
This also changes the role of the SEO agency. SEO for law can no longer be a matter of producing a list of keywords, publishing generic articles and sending a traffic graph at the end of the month.
Search is becoming more fragmented. Potential clients might encounter a firm through Google, an AI-generated answer, LinkedIn, a paid advertisement, a review, or a combination of these before eventually making contact.
SEO therefore needs to sit within a wider marketing strategy that understands the entire journey.
The question for law firms is no longer simply, “Are more people visiting our website?”
It should be: “Are more of the right people finding us, and are we giving them a reason to become clients?”