If you run a law firm, you already know SEO works. The hard part is finding an agency that understands how legal clients actually search, what your practice areas are worth, and how to bring you the right matters without wasting a year of retainer fees.
That is what we do. We help Australian law firms grow through search, with a small team that has spent years inside legal practices like yours.
Every lever that brings new clients to your door. Most law firms with multiple practice areas need three or four of these. Smaller boutique firms might only need one or two. Pick the result you want and the work follows.
Show up in the top three Google Maps results when someone searches for a lawyer near them. Most people who need a solicitor never scroll past those three. They click the first one they see and call. We make sure that first one is your firm.
Rank for the work that actually pays your firm. Personal injury, family, criminal, commercial, property, wills, immigration. Every practice area gets its own page, written for the people searching for that exact service.
Rank without breaking the legal advertising rules. Australian law firms are held to stricter advertising standards than most industries. Our writers know what is allowed, what is not, and where the grey areas sit.
Be the firm that shows up when someone in your area types 'compensation lawyer near me' or 'family lawyer'. Most of those searchers will call the first listing they see without ever opening a website.
Make sure your website actually works the way Google needs it to. Slow pages, broken links and messy structure quietly cost most law firm sites their best rankings.
Show Google that yours is a real, qualified Australian law firm. Full solicitor profiles, accreditations where you have them, mentions in legal publications, links from places that matter.
Most law firms have worked with a marketing agency that promised them more website traffic. Traffic does not bring in clients on its own. A campaign that gets your firm onto page two of Google can still leave the phone quiet if the wrong practice areas are being targeted, your office locations are wrong, your existing copy is breaking advertising rules, or your enquiry form is asking too many questions before someone has even said hello.
The usual failure pattern
The MarketInc legal approach
Our campaigns start with a different question. Not 'how do we get you to rank?' but 'what is one new client from Google actually worth to your firm, and how do we bring you more of them every month from here?'
The most expensive way to lose money on legal SEO is not when a campaign fails in an obvious way. It is when it fails quietly in the background. You see monthly reports. The numbers look fine. Family law enquiries are up. What the report does not show is that your commercial litigation work, where one signed client is worth tens of thousands to the firm, has not moved in nine months because nobody built proper pages for it. And your personal injury enquiries, which is where most firms make most of their money, are coming through paid Google Ads at four times the cost they should be.
It happens for the same reasons in firm after firm. The agency picked Google searches based on how popular they were, not how likely they were to actually bring in a client. Practice areas got grouped together on one general 'our services' page because the agency did not understand that family law, criminal defence, commercial disputes and personal injury are completely different fields with completely different clients. The Google Business Profile was set up once and never touched again. Solicitor profiles were left blank or padded with generic text. The same enquiry form was used for every practice area, even though the person asking about a drink driving charge has nothing in common with the company asking about a contract dispute.
We do this differently. We start with a simple number: how much is a new client actually worth to your firm, broken down by the area of law? Then we work backwards from there. We pick the Google searches that your real clients use. We rebuild your website and your Google profile around those searches. We make sure every page is written in a way that brings in the right people without breaking any advertising rules. And we track every step so you can see exactly which Google searches turn into signed clients. That is the difference. It is also why most of our legal clients end up reducing their Google Ads spend within the first year because their organic search is doing the work instead.
Six things working together to bring your firm new clients from Google. Skip one and the whole thing leaks.
Get the basics right first. Fast loading pages, a clean website structure, mobile that works, and links between pages that make sense. Most law firm websites are 80 pages or more, so this part has to be done properly before anything else gets built on top of it.
Every page needs to be written for the people you want to reach. That means clear headlines, the right keywords used naturally, and content that answers the questions clients are actually asking. No thin pages. No fluff.
A central page for each area of law you offer, supported by smaller pages for the specific matters within each area. Everything connects back together so Google sees you as a real authority on each topic. The same approach behind our SEO services applied to law firms.
Most clients searching for a lawyer start with 'near me'. Google Business Profile, reviews and local content together drive most local enquiries for firms that serve a defined area. This is where most of the early wins come from.
Showing Google and clients that yours is a real, credible Australian law firm. Earned mentions in legal publications, listings on respected directories, expert commentary in the media. All built slowly, all earned, none bought.
Calls and enquiries tracked properly. Connected to your existing case management system. You can see exactly which Google searches brought in which clients, and how much each new client cost to win.
Most agencies pick keywords by how popular they are. We pick them based on how likely they are to bring you actual clients. Search volume is one part of it. The rest is intent, value per client, advertising compliance and how realistic it is to rank.
Our five-step approach
Every keyword we consider for your firm goes through the same five-step check. If a keyword does not pass every step, it does not make it into the plan.
We begin with each area of law you practice, the kinds of matters you take, your existing client data if you can share it, and the firms you regularly compete against in your local area. From there we build out the full list of Google searches your potential clients are using.
Every search gets sorted by what the person is actually trying to do. Are they researching, comparing firms, ready to call, or just looking up something general? Only ready-to-call and comparison searches get a dedicated page on your site. Research searches feed your blog content instead.
Australian legal advertising rules are stricter than most industries. Searches that would push us toward writing things like 'best lawyer in your city' or 'guaranteed outcome' get cut at this stage, no matter how popular they are. Your reputation is not worth the rankings.
For every keyword left, we estimate how many real client enquiries it could bring per month and what the average client is worth in that area of law. A search with 30 monthly users for commercial work can be more valuable than a search with 1,500 monthly users for general lawyer queries.
Every keyword that survives gets assigned to a specific page on your site. Either a main practice area page or a sub-page for a specific matter. Anything that does not have a clear home gets either cross-linked from existing content or set aside for later.
Sample matter intent classification
| Search Term | Searches/mo (AU) | Area of Law | What the Searcher Wants | What We Do With It |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| compensation lawyer sydney | 720 | Personal Injury | Ready to call | Main page, high-value client |
| family lawyer near me | 1,900 | Family | Ready to call | Main page + suburb pages |
| de facto separation lawyer | 480 | Family | Ready to call | Sub-page under Family |
| commercial litigation lawyer | 320 | Commercial | Ready to call | Main page, high-value client |
| no win no fee lawyer | 1,300 | Personal Injury | Comparing options | Main page with clear cost info |
| how to file for divorce australia | 880 | Family | Researching | Blog post linking to Family page |
| best lawyer in melbourne | 590 | Any area | Skipped | Advertising rule risk |
| 482 visa lawyer cost | 210 | Immigration | Ready to call | Sub-page under Immigration |
Legal is one of the most expensive industries to run paid Google Ads in. A good keyword for a personal injury firm can cost A$45 just for a single click on a paid ad, and that is before anyone has even called the firm. Compare that to a single client who could be worth A$40,000 to A$200,000 in fees. The difference between ranking organically for a search like 'compensation lawyer in your city' versus a generic search like 'lawyer in your city' is not a small one. It is the difference between bringing in genuine clients and bringing in nobody useful. Our job is to find where the right kind of clients live in your areas of law and put your firm in front of them, without doing anything that risks your reputation.
Six stages, always in this order. We do not start writing new content until the basics are solid and we know exactly what each area of law is worth to your firm.
A full check of your current website, content, advertising compliance and existing links. We see exactly where each area of law sits today, then we tell you where it can go.
Every search term sorted by intent, value, advertising risk and how realistic it is to rank. We map out where the gaps are against the firms you compete with in each area of law.
Technical work, Google Business Profile, advertising compliance review of existing copy. Foundation things first. Anything broken, missing or risky gets sorted before we build anything new.
Practice area pages, sub-pages, solicitor profiles, blog content. Australian credibility built through earned mentions and contributions, not bought links.
Phone calls and enquiries tracked properly, connected to your existing systems. Monthly reports tied to actual signed clients per area of law, not just rankings.
What is working in one area gets more investment. Areas that respond well get more pages. Areas that do not perform get rethought, not just left running.
SEO is not a switch you flip. The first 30 days are about laying the foundations across all your practice areas. After that, every month builds on the last.
We get access to your Google tools, your website backend, your Google Business Profile and your booking or enquiry system. We map out the firms you compete with in each area of law, three competitors per area. We record your starting numbers: where you rank now, how much organic traffic you get, how many enquiries come from Google, and what each new client is currently costing you. You meet your account manager, your dedicated content lead, and we run a quick advertising compliance check on what is already published.
A complete review of every page on your site. Every page gets scored on technical health, content quality, search match and advertising compliance. We map the gaps in each area of law against your top three local competitors. Page speed work starts with your developer or our team. Phone tracking installed. Tracking set up so we can see which Google searches turn into enquiries. Anything risky in the existing copy gets flagged for rewriting.
The top 10 priority pages on your site rewritten properly for the searches we found in the planning phase. Two main practice area pages built out with full content depth, usually personal injury and family if those are part of your mix. The first two sub-pages published. Google Business Profile rebuilt from scratch with every practice area set up correctly. Your first review collection campaign starts.
Every month from there: two to three new practice area pages or sub-pages published, new credibility-building links earned, the next priority area gets its on-page work, more reviews collected, and a clear monthly report showing you exactly which Google searches brought you which clients. Every quarter you get a strategy call with the principal and a full review of what is working and what needs to change.
All three of these channels work for law firms. They just do different things. Most firms should run two or three together. The question is how much of each one you need, and which areas of law each channel suits best.
| What you want to know | SEO | Google Ads | Meta Ads |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time before you see your first new client | 10 to 16 weeks | 7 to 21 days | 14 to 30 days |
| How costs change over time | Compounds from month 6 onwards | Stays roughly the same as long as you spend | Resets every time you refresh the creative |
| How ready the people are to hire you | Searching with intent, problem-aware | Ready to call, highest intent | Mostly building awareness or returning visitors |
| What happens if you stop spending | Rankings hold for months | Traffic stops the same day | Leads stop the same day |
| Typical cost per signed client (AU legal) | A$120 to A$400 once established | A$300 to A$1,200+ on personal injury | A$150 to A$600 |
| Best for | Building a steady, long-term pipeline across all your practice areas | Catching the people ready to hire today on high-value searches | Brand building, awareness and retargeting |
| Less suited for | Firms needing new clients this week | Practice areas where the website pages are weak | One-off urgent matters like criminal defence or AVOs |
| Where it fits in the mix | Always-on foundation for steady client flow | The closer for ready-to-hire searches | Awareness, retargeting and brand recall |
A single channel gives you a single view of the matter intake. Three channels, wired together, give you the whole funnel.
Awareness and demand creation
Research, comparison, education
Capture ready-to-call demand
We keep our claims conservative. These are averages across our active law firm clients, not the best month of the best client cherry-picked.
Pick the one that fits how your firm works. Both run month-to-month after the first 90 days.
We run the whole campaign. You see new clients walking in.
Best for: Firms that want their SEO handled completely, with reporting that shows what each new client is actually costing.
Get a quoteWe give the strategy and direction. Your team handles the execution.
Best for: Mid-size and larger firms that already have someone in-house running marketing, but want a senior partner guiding the SEO direction.
Get a quoteMarketInc did not just rank our family law and personal injury pages. They built the structure that finally let Google understand we run two completely different practices under the same firm. Every page was reviewed for advertising compliance before it went live, and the reports they send actually tell us how many new clients came through Google. Our personal injury enquiries from organic search overtook Google Ads inside eleven months.
Everything law firms ask us before they start. If your question is not here, the audit call is the right place to ask it.
Most agencies offering SEO for legal firms sell rankings. We sell new clients walking through your door. The difference is whose number sits at the top of the monthly report. Ours starts with the Google searches that brought you new client enquiries, then the cost per new client per area of law, then the actual revenue those clients are likely to bring in. Rankings, traffic and impressions are the last three rows on the report, not the first three. If your previous agency sent you a 12-page PDF of keyword positions every month with no actual movement on new clients walking in, you already know what is missing.
Our SEO services are built for Australian businesses where every new client has a clear value behind them. Law firms are one of the deepest industries we work in. We know that a single personal injury case can be worth A$40,000 to A$200,000 to the firm, that a commercial dispute matter can run from A$50,000 into the hundreds of thousands depending on complexity, and that a property matter is worth A$1,200 to A$2,500. That kind of math drives everything we do for you. It tells us which areas of law to build pages for first, which Google searches to chase organically and which ones to leave to paid ads, and what we will and will not write on your website. A criminal defence boutique and a national personal injury firm need completely different approaches to SEO, and we build the right one for the way your firm actually works.
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