Personal injury lawyer marketing: what the reader reads first
Someone injured six weeks ago is usually still deciding rather than ready to instruct. Across the 18 UK cities measured on 3 August 2026, 2,630 people a month search for a personal injury solicitor. What stops them ringing is rarely the ranking; it is the order in which the page answers their questions.
Last updated: 5 August 2026
What is the reader doing when they search?
Comparing, weeks after the event, in short sessions rather than one decision.
An injury search is not an emergency search. The person has already been to a hospital or a GP, has already told the story several times, and is now working out whether there is anything to be done about it. That gap between the incident and the search is the single most useful thing to know about this audience, because it means the reader has time, and a reader with time reads more than one firm.
It also means they arrive knowing very little about the process and quite a lot about their own injury. Pages written the other way round — heavy on the firm, light on what happens next — answer the question they did not have.
A damaging admission: we cannot tell you what proportion of readers leave at which point. We do not measure that, no supplier we read publishes it, and anybody quoting you a drop-off figure for your own site has either instrumented it themselves or invented it.
What do they read, and in what order?
Four questions, in a settled sequence, and firms usually answer them in reverse.
| Order | The question in their head | What the page has to contain |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Is what happened to me the sort of thing anyone does anything about | The circumstance, named plainly, in their words |
| 2 | What actually happens if I ring | The first two weeks, described as a sequence |
| 3 | Who would I be dealing with | A named person who would handle it |
| 4 | What does this cost me, and what if it fails | A cost answer, or an explanation of why one is not yet possible |
Most injury pages open at three, spend the fold on credentials, and reach four somewhere near the bottom or not at all. The reader arrived at one. That mismatch is the whole of the problem, and it is a reordering job rather than a writing job.
Across the same 18 cities, monthly search volume runs from 20 in Southampton and Coventry to 720 in London, measured 3 August 2026. In a town at the lower end, a handful of people a month are making this decision, and each of them reads several firms before choosing one. There is no volume to waste on a page that answers question three first.
Why do they leave the page without ringing?
Because the page has not told them what the call will be like, and a call is a commitment they are not ready to make.
This reader is often in pain, frequently on a phone, sometimes in a house where the conversation would be overheard, and usually not sure whether their situation counts. A page that offers a phone number and nothing else is asking for the hardest possible first step. A page that describes what the first conversation covers, how long it takes and what it does not commit them to, makes the same step small.
Two things reliably help, and neither is a design change:
- Say how long the first conversation takes. People assume it is longer than it is.
- Say what it commits them to. People assume it is more than it is.
What do they want to know about cost?
Whether the process costs them anything, what happens if it does not succeed, and where those answers live on the page.
This is the fourth question in the sequence and it is the one most often absent. The SRA Transparency Rules have applied since 6 December 2018 and require price publication for specified work types; whether a given firm's injury work sits inside that list is a matter for the firm and its COLP, not for us, and we never say a firm is made compliant by anything we build. But the reader's question exists regardless of whether a rule compels the answer. They are going to ask it on the call if the page does not answer it first.
The wider evidence that this question gets avoided is on the supplier side of the same market: of 40 legal-marketing suppliers we read in full on 3 August 2026, 12 published a price at all and 5 of those showed a range rather than a figure. Firms and their suppliers share the same reluctance, and the reader notices it in both.
What has to change on the page itself?
The order, mostly. Very little of it is new writing.
- Move the circumstance to the top. The first screen should name what happened to them, not what the firm has achieved.
- Put the sequence above the credentials. What happens in the first fortnight, in four or five steps.
- Name the person. Not an experienced team — the individual who would take the call.
- Bring the cost paragraph up out of the footer, even where the honest answer is that it depends and here is what it depends on.
- Leave the credentials in. They are not wrong, they are early. They persuade someone at question three, and they are wasted on someone at question one.
Nothing in that list requires a new section to be commissioned. Four of the five are already written and in the wrong place, which is why this is usually a day's work on an existing page rather than a rebuild.
How long before any of this shows up in the numbers?
Three to four months for movement, six to nine before it can be fairly judged, and nothing measurable in month one.
The first quarter shows impressions rising while clicks stay flat, which is what moving from position 30 toward 11 looks like and reads exactly like failure. A firm that stops in month three stops at the point the work is starting to hold. 70% of the keywords in this programme carry an AI Overview — 863 of 1,235, measured 3 August 2026 — so a page that buries its answer gets summarised without the click ever happening.
What does it cost?
Price Transparency Pack £890, ten working days. Firm Site £2,400, Firm Site+ £4,200, Authority Build £6,900. Retainers £600, £1,200 or £2,400 a month, no minimum term, and £700 off a build taken with six months of retainer.
Fixed and published, priced on scope and time. Of the 40 suppliers we read on 3 August 2026, 1 offered work with no minimum term. We cannot promise a ranking and neither can anybody else.
What this is worth where you are
In London, 720 people a month search for a personal injury solicitor, and Google charges around £30.53 for one of those clicks. We hold the same figures for 52 cities.
The free report gives you yours, plus which of the pages the rules ask for are missing from your site, and what 40 suppliers charge.
Where should I read next?
On how this work is paid for, which is a separate question with its own restrictions: personal injury law firm marketing carries that argument in full.
If you want somebody to run it: lawyer marketing agency and legal marketing agency.
On being found in the town rather than the country: local seo for law firm.
On the search work itself: law firm seo agency and legal seo services.
Frequently asked questions
How long after an injury do people usually search for a solicitor?
Weeks rather than hours, which is why an injury page is read as a comparison document by somebody with time rather than as an emergency contact page.
What order do injured people read a firm's page in?
Whether their circumstance is the sort of thing anyone acts on, what happens if they ring, who they would deal with, and what it costs, in that order.
Where do most injury pages go wrong?
They open at the third question, spend the first screen on credentials, and reach the cost question near the bottom or not at all, while the reader arrived at the first question.
Why do people read the page and not ring?
Because a call is a large first step for somebody in pain, often on a phone and often within earshot of others, and the page has not said what the conversation covers or how long it takes.
Should credentials be removed from an injury page?
No. They persuade a reader who has reached the third question and they are simply placed too early, so the fix is to move them rather than cut them.
Does the page have to publish a price for injury work?
The SRA Transparency Rules have applied since 6 December 2018 and cover specified work types, and whether a firm's injury work sits inside that list is a matter for the firm and its COLP rather than for us.
How long before the work shows up?
Three to four months for movement and six to nine before it can be judged fairly, with nothing measurable in month one.