Marketing services for a law firm in Australia: what arrives
Marketing services for an Australian firm should arrive as named items, not as a monthly effort. Ours are 2 fixed scopes: A$1,900 for a sprint and A$4,200 for a build. This page lists what lands, in what order, in what form, and at which points somebody inside the firm has to act.
Last updated: 5 August 2026
What arrives, and in what order?
Five items, ordered by what each one depends on.
| Stage | What arrives | The form it takes | What the firm must do |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Measurement, and a baseline reading of it | Two accounts owned by the firm, plus a one-page reading of where the site starts | Approve the account creation, nothing else |
| 2 | The technical pass on pages that already exist | A list of what was changed, item by item, against live URLs | Grant editing access to the site |
| 3 | The answer-first rewrite of existing pages | Published pages at their existing addresses, count agreed in writing | Sign off wording that describes the firm's own work |
| 4 | New pages — practice areas, named fee earners, the questions asked before anybody rings | Published pages at new addresses, count agreed in writing | Supply the facts, and sign them off |
| 5 | The written record of what those pages did | A document, and the accounts from stage 1 to check it against | Read it, and say what to do next |
Stages 1 to 3 and 5 are the A$1,900 sprint. Stage 4 is what the A$4,200 build adds. Fixed, published, no minimum term — of 40 legal-marketing suppliers we read in full on 3 August 2026, twelve published a price at all and one offered work with no minimum term.
Why does measurement come before any writing?
Because a baseline taken after the work has started is not a baseline.
The most common way a firm ends up unable to judge a search programme is that nobody recorded where it began. Six months later there are numbers, and no honest way to say what they are being compared with. Setting the accounts up first costs almost nothing and takes a decision that only the firm can make: whose accounts are these.
They should be the firm's. Created under a firm address, with the supplier granted access to them rather than owning them. That is a five-minute difference at the start and an expensive one at the end, and it is stage 1 for that reason rather than for a technical one.
What does each item look like when it lands?
Something with an address or a filename, never a status update.
- Stage 1 lands as two logins the firm holds, plus a page of readings — what the site is currently found for, and what it is not.
- Stage 2 lands as a list of changes with a live URL against each. Not "technical improvements completed", but the file, the page and what was altered.
- Stage 3 lands as published pages at the addresses they already had. The address does not change; the first hundred words do.
- Stage 4 lands as new addresses, one per subject, each one a subject somebody actually searched for.
- Stage 5 lands as a document that can be set beside the stage 1 reading. If a claim in it cannot be checked in the firm's own accounts, it should not be in it.
The test that separates a deliverable from a status report is whether a partner who was not in any of the meetings can open it and see what changed.
Where does somebody inside the firm have to act?
Three points, and the work stops at each of them until it happens.
At stage 2, access. Somebody has to be able to grant editing rights to the site. In firms where the site was built years ago by a supplier nobody has spoken to since, this is the single most common place the work stalls, and it is worth finding out who holds that login before signing anything.
At stage 3 and 4, the facts. A page about how a property settlement runs is only worth reading if a fee earner said what actually happens. Nobody outside the firm can substitute for that. It is the item most often underestimated at signing, and a supplier who does not ask for it up front will ask for it later, when it reads as the supplier failing to do its job.
At stage 3 and 4, sign-off. Whether a page may say a particular thing about the firm's work is a judgement for the firm and its own advisers. We are a marketing supplier and give no advice about professional obligations. Australia has no rule requiring a firm to publish prices, so showing fees is a commercial decision rather than an obligation.
What reorders this list for a particular firm?
Two conditions, both worth checking before a scope is agreed.
A firm with almost nothing written has nothing for stage 3 to rewrite. The sprint is the wrong purchase there and the build should come first — an admission that costs us the cheaper sale roughly as often as it is true.
A firm whose site cannot be edited has to settle stage 2 before anything else is worth buying. A site nobody can change is not a marketing problem, and no amount of writing fixes it.
Everything else keeps this order. In Adelaide, 1,600 people a month search for a conveyancer at around A$11.61 a click, and in Perth 880 a month search for an employment lawyer at around A$11.82, both measured 3 August 2026. Those numbers decide which subjects stage 4 covers first. They do not change the sequence.
What is not on this list?
Advertising, intake, brand identity, and any judgement about obligations.
We do not manage ad spend, which matters in Australia specifically: clicks here are cheap enough that paid search is frequently the correct first move and it is never this one. We do not fix what happens after an enquiry arrives, and that decides whether any of the five stages was worth buying. We put pages inside a look that already exists rather than creating one. And we never charge per enquiry or per matter, and never promise a position or a number of enquiries, because nobody controls either and eight of the 40 suppliers we read on 3 August 2026 claimed a guarantee of some kind.
The full boundary, with the line items a firm should refuse to pay for, is set out on SEO for a law firm.
What this is worth where you are
In Brisbane, 8,800 people a month search for family law, and Google charges around A$24.29 for one of those clicks. We hold the same figures for 52 cities.
The free report gives you yours, plus which of the pages above are missing from your site, and what 40 suppliers charge.
Where should I read next?
On the channels either side of this one: digital marketing lawyer covers what the phrase means here, and lawyer content marketing covers stage 4 in more detail.
If the site itself is the constraint rather than what is written on it: website design for law firm, and website design for lawyers for what each individual page has to contain.
Frequently asked questions
What order do the deliverables arrive in?
Measurement and a baseline first, then the technical pass on existing pages, then the answer-first rewrite of those pages, then new pages, then a written record of what they did. Each stage depends on the one before it.
Why is measurement first?
Because a baseline taken after the work has started is not a baseline. Six months later there are numbers and no honest way to say what they are being compared with, which is the most common reason a firm cannot judge a search programme.
Who should own the measurement accounts?
The firm, created under a firm address, with the supplier granted access rather than ownership. It is a five-minute difference at the start and an expensive one at the end.
How much time does the firm have to give?
Three points: granting editing access to the site, supplying the facts about how the firm runs a matter, and signing off what the pages say. The work stops at each until it happens, and the second is the item most often underestimated at signing.
What does it cost?
A$1,900 for the sprint, which is stages one to three and five, and A$4,200 for the build, which adds the new pages. Both fixed and published, with no minimum term, which one of 40 suppliers read on 3 August 2026 offered.
When is this the wrong order?
When a firm has almost nothing written, because there is nothing for the rewrite stage to work on and the build should come first. Also when nobody can edit the site, which has to be settled before anything else is worth buying.
What is not included?
Advertising and its management, intake, brand identity and photography, and any judgement about the firm's own professional obligations. Australia has no rule requiring a firm to publish prices, so fee display is a commercial decision.