Law firm website content: which pages earn their place
Before deciding what to write, decide what should exist. List every URL on the site and apply 4 tests to each: does anybody search for it, does it answer a question asked before instruction, would a partner defend it, and is it the only page on that subject.
Last updated: 5 August 2026
What is a page inventory, and why does it come first?
A single list of every URL the site publishes, with four columns filled in for each.
Most content decisions get made in the wrong order. A firm asks what to write next before establishing what is already there, and ends up adding a ninth page about a subject three existing pages half-cover. The inventory is the cheapest step in the exercise and the easiest to skip, because it produces no new artifact to look at.
Four columns are enough:
| Column | What goes in it | Why it decides something |
|---|---|---|
| URL | The address, exactly as published | Two rows with near-identical addresses is a finding on its own |
| What search it answers | The words a client would type, or blank | A blank here is itself the finding |
| Who it is for | A prospective client, an existing one, a recruit, nobody | Pages written for nobody are the easiest cut on the site |
| What is lost if it goes | One sentence | If the sentence is hard to write, the page is not carrying weight |
The second column does most of the work. A page with a blank there is not necessarily a bad page — a costs explanation may be excellent — but it needs a different reason to exist, and the third and fourth columns are where that reason has to appear.
Which pages earn their place?
Four tests, and a page needs to pass at least two of them.
- Somebody searches for it. Not the firm's own name for the work — the words a client uses. In Indianapolis, personal injury runs 1,900 searches a month at around $138.16 a click while real estate runs 1,000 at $6.30, both measured 3 August 2026. Both pages can be justified. They cannot be justified the same way.
- It answers a question asked before instruction. Cost, timing, what happens first, who will handle it. 15 of the 62 questions buyers ask on these searches are price questions, counted across 40 legal-marketing suppliers read in full on 3 August 2026, which makes a fee page one of the few that earns its place without any search volume at all.
- A partner would defend it to a client. Read aloud in front of the person it describes, does the page survive. A location page for a city the firm does not really work in fails this immediately.
- It is the only page on the site about that subject. If a second page covers the same ground, one of them is competing with the other and neither is winning.
A page passing three or four is a keep. One passing two is usually a merge. One passing none is not a content problem, it is a deletion.
Which pages exist because somebody billed for them?
They have tells, and once seen the pattern is hard to unsee.
- A run of posts published on the same day, or one a month for eleven months and then nothing. That is a content quota being met, not a question being answered.
- A page for a nearby city where nobody at the firm works. Written to capture a search, defensible to no client.
- A "why choose us" page. It answers a question nobody typed and repeats what the home page said.
- A services page duplicating the practice-area pages, usually older, usually the one that ranks by accident.
- A news section whose most recent item is years old, which tells a visitor the firm stopped maintaining the site and nothing else.
- A page whose title matches a keyword rather than a sentence. Written for a tool, read by nobody.
None of these is evidence of bad faith. They are what a monthly retainer priced by output produces when the output is counted in pages. A damaging admission on our side: we sell fixed-scope work, so we have the opposite incentive — to produce fewer pages than a firm might expect for the money, and to argue against ones we think will not be searched for. A firm that wants volume should buy it from somebody who sells volume.
How do you decide keep, merge or cut?
Three outcomes, and the default for an uncertain page is merge rather than cut.
| Decision | When | What it takes |
|---|---|---|
| Keep | Passes three or four tests | Nothing, or a rewrite of the opening 40 words |
| Merge | Passes two, or duplicates a stronger page | Move anything unique into the survivor, redirect the old URL |
| Cut | Passes none, and no sentence can be written for column four | Redirect to the closest surviving page |
| Leave alone | You cannot decide | Revisit at the next inventory rather than guessing |
Merging is undervalued because it looks like losing pages. Three thin pages consolidated into one substantial page is more content on the subject, not less, and it ends the self-competition described on law firm website SEO.
The near-identical location page is the one case where cutting is urgent rather than tidy. Google removed roughly 80% of doorway pages in measured cases from its 2024 core updates, and the penalty applies to the set rather than to the weakest page in it, so a run of thin city pages puts the good pages beside them at risk.
What happens to the pages you remove?
Every removed URL redirects, permanently, to the closest surviving page. None of them becomes a dead end.
This matters more than the removal itself. A page that has existed for four years has links pointing at it, from directories, from a bar association listing, from somebody's bookmark. Deleting it into an error page discards all of that. Redirecting it moves the reader, and whatever the link was worth, to the page that replaced it.
Keep a record of what went where. It costs one row in a document per page and it answers the question that always arrives six months later, when somebody asks what happened to a page they remember.
What does subtraction not fix?
Demand. A tidy site in a place where nobody searches for the firm's practice areas is a tidy site.
The inventory tells a firm which pages are wasted effort. It cannot tell the firm which practice areas it wants to grow — that judgement belongs to the partners, and everything else follows from it. We cannot promise a ranking either, and neither can anybody else; of the 40 suppliers read on 3 August 2026, 8 claimed a guarantee of some kind and 1 offered work with no minimum term.
Our own work is priced by scope: the Practice Sprint at $1,450 and the build tier at $2,900, both fixed and published. Never per inquiry, per case or per matter — referral fees are restricted in prescribed legal business and the restriction binds the firm paying as well as the party paid.
What this is worth where you are
In Indianapolis, 1,900 people a month search for personal injury representation, and Google charges around $138.16 for one of those clicks. We hold the same figures for 52 cities.
The free report gives you yours, plus which of the pages a prospective client looks for are missing from your site, and what 40 suppliers charge.
Where should I read next?
For what a good site looks like once the inventory is settled: law firm website examples and legal SEO services.
By practice area and by firm size: immigration attorney website design, solo attorney website design, attorney website design Chicago.
Frequently asked questions
What content should a law firm website have?
Whatever passes at least two of four tests: somebody searches for it, it answers a question asked before instruction, a partner would defend it to a client, and it is the only page on the site about that subject.
How do I know which pages to remove?
Build an inventory listing every URL with what search it answers, who it is for, and what would be lost if it went. A page where that last sentence is hard to write is not carrying weight.
How can you tell a page was written to fill a quota?
Look for runs published on one day, city pages where nobody at the firm works, a "why choose us" page, a services page duplicating the practice areas, and titles that read as keywords rather than sentences.
Is it better to delete a page or merge it?
Merge, unless nothing on the page is worth keeping. Three thin pages consolidated into one substantial page is more content on the subject, not less, and it ends the self-competition between them.
What happens to a page after you remove it?
It redirects permanently to the closest surviving page, and the change is recorded. Deleting into an error page discards every existing link pointing at that URL, including directory and bar listings.
Are location pages for nearby cities worth keeping?
Only where the firm has an office and can name a person. Google removed roughly 80% of doorway pages in measured cases from its 2024 core updates, and the penalty applies to the whole set rather than the weakest page.
Will cutting pages improve results on its own?
No. It removes wasted effort and self-competition; it does not create demand, and it does not decide which practice areas the firm wants to grow. That decision belongs to the partners.