Law Firm SEO Audits - Diagnose, Prioritise, Win
Is your law firm's website an expensive digital business card or a powerful client acquisition engine? Our comprehensive SEO audit is the diagnostic tool that provides a definitive, data-driven picture of your digital health.
For many firms, the answer is frustratingly the former. You may be facing stagnant enquiry numbers, attracting the wrong type of client, or steadily losing ground to more digitally savvy competitors. These are not isolated problems; they are symptoms of underlying issues within your website's technical structure, content strategy, and local visibility.
Before investing in any further marketing activity—be it new content, PPC campaigns, or a full redesign—it is critical to have a definitive diagnosis. Our comprehensive SEO audit is that diagnostic tool. It is the foundational step that provides a complete, data-driven picture of your digital health, uncovering the hidden barriers and untapped opportunities that will define your potential for growth.
Think of it as a full medical before starting a new fitness regime; it is essential for understanding your baseline and creating a plan that delivers real results.
A Forensic Examination of Your Digital Presence
A true SEO audit goes far beyond the surface-level scores provided by automated online tools. It is a forensic investigation into the hundreds of signals that influence how Google perceives your law firm's Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T).
This manual, analyst-led process examines every facet of your digital footprint to build a complete picture of your performance. The distinction between a quick, automated scan and a deep-dive, manual audit is fundamental. One provides a snapshot; the other delivers the strategic intelligence needed to make sound commercial decisions.
| Feature | Free SEO Scan | Comprehensive SEO Audit |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Automated check of ~15 key on-page metrics. | Analyst-led investigation of 200+ factors across technical, content, local, and off-page SEO. |
| Data Sources | Publicly available data via a single tool. | Cross-referenced data from multiple industry-leading tools (e.g., GSC, GA4, Ahrefs, Screaming Frog) plus manual analysis. |
| Deliverable | Instant, automated PDF report with a generic score. | A bespoke 30+ page strategic document written by a legal SEO specialist. |
| Key Output | A list of common technical errors. | A prioritised, actionable roadmap with quick wins, long-term strategy, and competitor analysis. |
| Strategic Value | A quick health check. | A foundational business intelligence report to guide your firm's digital marketing investment for the next 12-24 months. |
| Best For | Firms wanting a quick, high-level snapshot. | Firms serious about growth and achieving a measurable return on investment from SEO. |
Our audit framework is built on five core pillars, ensuring a 360-degree analysis of your online presence.
Building a Flawless Technical Foundation
This phase ensures that search engines like Google can efficiently find, crawl, render, and understand your website's content without encountering technical roadblocks. A flawed foundation can make even the best content invisible.
Crawlability & Indexability
We meticulously check for issues that prevent Google from accessing your site, such as broken links (404s), improper redirects (302s vs. 301s), server errors (500s), and crawl traps within your site structure that waste Google's resources.
Site Architecture & URL Structure
A logical site hierarchy is vital for both users and search engines. We analyse your site directory structure, URL construction, and use of elements like breadcrumbs to ensure an intuitive user journey and the efficient flow of ranking authority throughout your site.
Schema & Structured Data
We audit your implementation of law-firm-specific schema, such as LegalService, Attorney, and FAQPage markup. Correctly implemented schema can make your firm eligible for enhanced search results (rich snippets), increasing visibility and click-through rates—a detail often missed by generalist agencies.
Duplicate Content Resolution
We use advanced crawling tools and manual checks to identify and resolve duplicate content issues. These can arise from technical glitches (e.g., trailing slashes, parameter-based URLs) and can significantly dilute your website's ranking potential if left unaddressed.
XML Sitemaps
Your sitemaps are the primary roadmap you provide to search engines. We ensure your XML sitemaps for pages, images, and videos are complete, correctly formatted, and free of errors, guaranteeing that all your valuable content is submitted for indexing.
Delivering an Exceptional User Experience
In today's digital landscape, user experience is a direct ranking factor. A slow, frustrating website doesn't just annoy potential clients; it actively costs you enquiries and signals poor quality to Google.
Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS)
We benchmark your site's loading speed (Largest Contentful Paint), interactivity (Interaction to Next Paint), and visual stability (Cumulative Layout Shift) against Google's critical performance thresholds. We then provide a concrete plan to address any shortcomings.
Mobile-First Indexing
With the majority of legal searches now happening on mobile devices, a flawless mobile experience is non-negotiable. We conduct a deep analysis of your overall mobile indexation, mobile usability, and content parity to ensure your firm performs perfectly on the devices your clients use most.
In-Depth Page Speed Analysis
We go beyond basic scores to diagnose the root causes of slow performance. Our analysis includes a review of average server calls, packet sizes, image compression, and render-blocking resources to build a targeted plan for measurable speed improvements.
Proving Your Expertise & Winning Client Trust
For "Your Money or Your Life" (YMYL) topics like legal services, content quality is judged on more than just keywords. Google needs to see clear signals of genuine expertise, authority, and trust.
Content Depth & Quality
We perform a qualitative and quantitative assessment of your key practice area pages. We evaluate the depth of content, its accuracy, and its helpfulness, benchmarking it directly against the top-ranking competitor pages to identify content gaps and opportunities.
E-E-A-T Signal Audit
We meticulously audit your site for crucial trust signals. This includes reviewing the comprehensiveness of author biographies for your solicitors, the clear sourcing of legal claims, client testimonials, and other evidence of your firm's real-world expertise and authority.
Keyword & Topic Targeting
We analyse whether your content strategy effectively targets the full spectrum of client queries. This includes mapping your pages to informational searches (e.g., "what are the grounds for divorce"), commercial investigations (e.g., "best family lawyer in London"), and transactional searches ("contact a divorce solicitor").
On-Page Optimisation
We conduct a granular review of on-page elements, including title tags, meta descriptions, and heading structures (H1, H2). Optimising these elements is critical for maximising your click-through rate from the search results page and clearly communicating page relevance to Google.
Dominating Your Local Service Area
For the vast majority of law firms, winning new business starts in the local search results and the Google Map Pack. A fragmented or unoptimised local presence is a significant missed opportunity.
Google Business Profile (GBP) Optimisation
We perform a deep-dive analysis of your GBP listing(s), auditing everything from your primary and secondary categories to your listed services, photos, posts, and Q&A section to ensure maximum visibility in local searches.
Citation & NAP Consistency
We audit your firm's Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP) consistency across the web's most important legal and local directories. Inconsistent information creates confusing signals for Google and can harm your local ranking potential.
Review Strategy Analysis
Client reviews are a powerful local ranking factor and a critical element of social proof. We assess the velocity, sentiment, and management of your reviews, providing recommendations to improve your online reputation.
Analysing Your Digital Reputation
Your website's authority is heavily influenced by its backlink profile—the collection of links pointing to your site from other websites. These are effectively votes of confidence. Our audit assesses the quality, not just the quantity, of these votes.
Toxic Link Analysis
Low-quality, spammy links can actively harm your rankings. We use advanced tools to identify malicious or toxic backlinks and create a plan to remove or disavow them, cleaning up your digital reputation.
Competitor Backlink Gap Analysis
We reverse-engineer the link profiles of your top three competitors. This process uncovers the authoritative and relevant websites (such as legal directories, university publications, and local news sites) that link to them but not to you, providing a clear roadmap for future link-building and digital PR efforts.
Anchor Text Analysis
The text used in links pointing to your site helps Google understand what your pages are about. We review your anchor text profile to ensure it is natural, diverse, and effectively signalling your core areas of legal expertise.
From Data Overload to a Clear, Prioritised Action Plan
We don't just deliver a list of problems. We deliver a prioritised plan for growth. The culmination of our audit is a comprehensive, bespoke strategic document designed to provide absolute clarity. It translates complex technical data into a clear, actionable roadmap that your firm can follow to achieve its commercial objectives.
An Executive Summary
A one-page, plain-English summary designed for managing partners. It highlights the top three strategic opportunities, the most critical threats to your online visibility, and the overarching recommended course of action.
The Prioritisation Scorecard
Every finding from our 200+ point inspection is scored based on two key axes: SEO Impact vs. Effort to Implement. This commercial focus allows you to allocate resources effectively, tackling the most impactful issues first.
The Phased Action Plan
We break down our recommendations into a clear, sequential plan, ensuring you know exactly what to do and when.
Phase 1: Quick Wins (0-30 Days)
A list of high-impact, low-effort fixes designed to generate immediate momentum and positive results.
Phase 2: Core Projects (1-6 Months)
Foundational improvements to your website's technical health, content depth, and local SEO presence.
Phase 3: Strategic Initiatives (6-12+ Months)
Long-term campaigns focused on building sustainable authority and market leadership.
Sample Findings & Recommendations
To make the output of our audit tangible, here are three anonymised examples of the kind of actionable insights we deliver:
Technical Finding
"Your key practice area pages are being slowed down by 1.2MB of uncompressed images and several render-blocking JavaScript files."
Our Recommendation: We have identified 45 critical images for compression and provided a script deferment plan that could improve page load speed by up to 40%, directly impacting your Core Web Vitals score and reducing user bounce rate.
Local Finding
"Analysis shows your firm is listed with consistent NAP data in only 40% of the core legal directories where your top local competitor is present, leading to a weaker local authority signal for 'solicitors in [City]'."
Our Recommendation: We provide a prioritised list of the 25 most authoritative directories to build citations in over the next quarter, closing this competitive gap.
Content Finding
"Your 'Family Law' service page ranks on page two for its primary keyword. It lacks sufficient depth on crucial sub-topics like 'divorce financial settlements' and 'child arrangement orders,' which show significant search volume."
Our Recommendation: We have created a content expansion brief to add 800 words covering these specific client pain points, supported by internal links from three new, targeted blog posts.
This In-Depth Audit is Designed For Firms That Are...
This comprehensive diagnostic is a strategic investment. It is specifically designed for law firms that are at a critical juncture in their growth and require data-driven clarity to make their next move.
Planning a Website Redesign or Migration
An audit is essential to ensure your significant financial investment is built on a solid SEO foundation. It helps avoid the catastrophic traffic loss that can occur during a poorly managed site migration.
Experiencing Stagnant or Declining Enquiries
If your lead flow has plateaued or is in decline, an audit will pinpoint the underlying technical or strategic issues that are holding you back from growth.
Investing in PPC but Seeing Poor ROI
A strong organic foundation improves your website's Quality Score and user experience, which can lower your client acquisition costs and improve the overall efficiency of your marketing budget.
Unsure of Previous SEO Work
If you have worked with other agencies or internal teams, an audit provides an unbiased, data-driven second opinion on the effectiveness and long-term value of past campaigns.
Entering a New, Competitive Practice Area
Before you invest in building out a new section of your website, an audit of the competitive landscape will provide the intelligence needed to build a strategy to win from day one.
A Proven, Transparent Process
We have refined our audit process to be as efficient and insightful as possible, ensuring you receive maximum value with minimal disruption to your team. The journey is broken down into four clear steps.
Discovery & Goal Setting
We begin with a 45-minute discovery call to understand your firm's unique commercial objectives, your target clients, and your most valuable practice areas.
Onboarding & Data Access
We provide a secure and straightforward process for you to grant us read-only access to essential data sources like your Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and website backend.
The Deep-Dive Analysis
Our specialists dedicate 30-50 hours to conducting the manual audit. This involves running comprehensive crawls, cross-referencing data across multiple platforms, and manually analysing your content and competitive landscape.
The Roadmap Presentation
We schedule a 90-minute video call to present our findings. We walk you and your team through the executive summary, the prioritised action plan, and the strategic roadmap, answering all your questions and ensuring you have total clarity on the recommended next steps.
Specialist Expertise for the UK Legal Sector
Choosing the right partner to audit your digital presence is a critical decision. Our value proposition is built on three core principles:
We Only Work With Law Firms
We are not a generalist agency. Our team lives and breathes legal marketing. This specialism means we have an innate understanding of the nuances of SRA compliance, the competitive dynamics of different practice areas, and what it truly takes to build client trust in a YMYL sector.
Data-Driven, Not Opinion-Led
Our recommendations are grounded in a rigorous analysis of your data and the competitive landscape, not guesswork. Our proprietary 200+ point audit framework ensures that no stone is left unturned and that our advice is always evidence-based.
Commercially Focused
We translate complex technical issues into tangible business impact. Our ultimate goal is not just to improve your rankings, but to help you win more of the right kind of clients and achieve a measurable return on your marketing investment.
Explore more about our approach and meet our team of experts.
Your Questions, Answered
How much does a comprehensive SEO audit cost?
Our comprehensive, analyst-led SEO audits are a significant strategic project. Pricing starts from £1,600. The final fee depends on the size and complexity of your website, the number of practice areas, and the competitiveness of your market. We provide a fixed-fee proposal after our initial discovery call.
How long does the audit take to complete?
The entire process, from the initial kick-off call to the final presentation of your strategic roadmap, typically takes 3-4 weeks. This timeline allows for the necessary depth of manual analysis and data cross-referencing.
Do you implement the changes you recommend?
The SEO audit is a standalone strategic product designed to provide you with a comprehensive action plan. This roadmap can be implemented by your in-house team, a third-party developer, or our own team as part of an ongoing SEO retainer. The audit deliverable provides the clarity needed for any of these options to be successful.
What's the difference between this and the free audit?
Our free law firm SEO audit is an automated scan that provides a high-level snapshot of common on-page issues. This comprehensive audit is a manual, deep-dive investigation by a senior analyst covering over 200 factors across technical, content, local, and off-page SEO. The free scan identifies potential problems; this audit delivers a prioritised, strategic solution.
What tools do you use?
We utilise a suite of industry-leading professional tools to gather and cross-reference data, including Screaming Frog SEO Spider, Ahrefs, Semrush, Google Analytics 4, and Google Search Console. However, the primary value comes from the manual analysis and strategic interpretation of this data by our legal SEO specialists.
Ready to Build Your Roadmap for Growth?
Stop guessing what's holding your website back from its true potential. An in-depth, expert-led SEO audit is the single most valuable investment you can make in your firm's digital future. It provides the clarity and strategic direction needed to turn your website into a consistent and reliable source of high-quality client enquiries.
Schedule a no-obligation call to discuss your firm's challenges and see if our comprehensive audit is the right next step for you.