Solicitor website design in a client's reading order
A prospective client arrives on a solicitor's website with four questions in a settled order: what it costs, how long it takes, who will do the work, and how to complain. In Bristol alone, 850 people a month search for a family solicitor. The page should answer them in that order.
Last updated: 5 August 2026
In what order does a client read a solicitor's website?
Cost, then timescale, then the person, then the escape route. That order holds whether the matter is a divorce or a house purchase.
The four items are not our invention. They are, in substance, what the SRA Transparency Rules have asked firms to publish since 6 December 2018, read here as a statement about what a stranger needs rather than as a duty. What we add is the sequence, and the cost of leaving a step out.
| The question | What the reader does when it is unanswered | Where the answer belongs |
|---|---|---|
| What will this cost me? | Returns to the results page and opens the next firm | Above the first scroll, on the practice-area page |
| How long will it take? | Rings, asks, and treats the estimate as a promise | Immediately under the cost, in stages |
| Who will actually handle it? | Discounts everything above, because none of it was attached to a person | Next, with a name and a role |
| What if something goes wrong? | Nothing visible — but the doubt is now attached to the firm | Below the substance, plainly labelled, not in the footer only |
Evidence from a different population, fenced as such: among firms buying marketing services, 15 of the 62 questions recorded on 3 August 2026 were price questions, the largest group. Those are buyers of marketing rather than buyers of legal services, so it is not evidence about your clients — only a reminder that the most-asked question is usually the least-answered one.
Why does the cost question have to be answered before the scroll?
Because an unanswered cost question is answered somewhere else, and the somewhere else is a competitor.
The reader cannot compare firms on quality at this point. What they can compare is whether a page told them anything usable, and cost is the first usable thing. A page that opens with the firm's founding date and a photograph of a staircase has spent the reader's attention before saying anything they came for.
Answering does not mean publishing a single number for work that does not have one. It means naming which basis applies and being specific: a fixed fee, a fixed fee per stage, an hourly rate with an estimated range of hours, or a funding arrangement with the disbursements listed separately. All four are answers. Silence is not.
AI Overviews appear on 39 of 54 money searches in the set measured on 3 August 2026. A page whose cost answer sits in paragraph nine will be summarised without it, and the summary is what many readers see first.
What does a client mean by "how long will it take"?
Not the total. They mean the next step, and when it happens.
Someone who has decided to instruct a firm is working out what next week looks like. "Six to nine months" answers a question they did not ask. Broken into stages — the first week, what the firm needs from them, the first milestone and roughly when — the same nine months reads as a process rather than a wait.
Two rules for writing it. Give ranges rather than dates, because a date on a web page is read as a commitment and the fee earner is the one who has to live with it. And say what the client must supply, because half the delay in most matters is waiting for the client and almost no website mentions it.
Why does "who will do the work" decide whether they ring?
Because everything above it is a claim by an organisation, and this is the first sentence attached to a person.
The reader is about to hand a stranger something that matters. A named fee earner, their qualification, how long they have practised in that area, and who supervises the file converts an abstraction into somebody accountable. A stock photograph and "our expert team" does the reverse, and this audience is unusually good at noticing the difference.
Practical version: link the practice-area page to the individual profile, and let the profile carry the qualification and the supervision arrangement rather than a paragraph about hobbies. Where the work is done by someone junior under supervision, say so — that is the answer to "will I be paying a partner's rate for a paralegal's work", which is the unspoken second half of the question.
Where should complaints information sit?
On the page, below the substance, plainly labelled, and reachable in one click from anywhere.
Firms move it because it feels like an invitation. The trade runs the other way: the complaints route is the reader's proof that the relationship has a floor, and the people most reassured by it are the ones most nervous about instructing anybody. Burying it removes the answer, not the doubt.
We build the pages a firm tells us to publish, and we can say factually which items are absent from a site. Whether the firm meets its obligations is a judgement for the firm and its COLP.
What does a practice-area page look like once it is built in that order?
Nine sections, in the reader's sequence rather than the firm's.
| Position | Section | Why it is there |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The matter, named in the client's words | So the reader knows they are in the right place |
| 2 | What it costs, and on what basis | The first usable fact |
| 3 | What is included, and what is a disbursement | Where the first complaint usually starts |
| 4 | Stages and rough timings | Answers "what happens next week" |
| 5 | What the client must supply, and when | Half the delay in most matters |
| 6 | Who does the work, named, with supervision | Attaches the claim to a person |
| 7 | The questions people actually ask | The section AI answers lift |
| 8 | Complaints route | The floor under the relationship |
| 9 | One way to make contact, not four | A choice is a delay |
Nothing on that list is decorative and nothing on it is difficult. It is a different order from the one most firm sites use, which opens with the firm and arrives at the client somewhere near the bottom.
What does this cost, and what will it not do?
Fixed and published.
| Product | Price |
|---|---|
| Price Transparency Pack | £890, ten working days |
| Firm Site | £2,400 |
| Firm Site+ | £4,200 |
| Authority Build | £6,900 |
| Retainer, monthly | £600 · £1,200 · £2,400, no minimum term |
Take £700 off a build taken with six months of retainer, and nothing is priced per enquiry, lead or matter — LASPO 2012 section 56 makes referral fees in prescribed legal business a problem for the paying firm as much as for the party paid.
For scale, £890 is roughly 64 Leeds residential conveyancing clicks at Google's own price of £13.80, measured on 3 August 2026: 64 × £13.80 = £883.20. That is arithmetic on a click price and not a forecast.
A damaging admission: ordering a page this way does nothing for a firm whose constraint is fee-earner capacity. If the diary is already full, a page that converts better produces declined instructions and a longer waiting list, and the honest advice is to spend the money on the second problem instead.
What this is worth where you are
In London, 2,900 people a month search for immigration, and Google charges around £18.75 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?
For what a firm's site must contain rather than how a page is ordered: website design for law firms.
Once the page is right, the traffic: law firm PPC covers paid search and why we never charge per enquiry, and lawyer SEO marketing covers the sequence organic work runs in.
For the whole channel picture: law firm digital marketing. For the search work specifically: SEO services for law firms.
Frequently asked questions
What do clients look for first on a solicitor's website?
What the work will cost, and on what basis. Timescale, the person handling the matter and the complaints route follow, in that order, and a page that answers them out of sequence loses the reader before it gets to the good part.
Do we have to publish a fixed fee to answer the cost question?
No. A fixed fee, a fee per stage, an hourly rate with an estimated range of hours, or a funding arrangement with the disbursements named separately are all answers. The failure is saying nothing and inviting a telephone call instead.
Where should the fee information go on the page?
Above the first scroll on the practice-area page, not on a separate pricing page reached from the footer. The reader who wants it is deciding whether to keep reading, and a click is a decision most of them will not make.
How should timescales be written without promising anything?
In stages with ranges rather than dates: what happens in the first week, what the firm needs from the client, and roughly when the first milestone falls. A date on a web page gets read as a commitment by the person who has to meet it.
Does naming the fee earner really change anything?
It attaches every claim above it to an accountable person, which a stock photograph and "our expert team" does not. Say who supervises the file as well, because it answers the unspoken question about who is really doing the work.
Should complaints information be visible or tucked away?
Visible, plainly labelled, below the substance and reachable in one click. Hiding it does not remove the reader's doubt, it removes the answer to it, and the people most reassured by seeing it are the most hesitant clients.
What does a solicitor website cost with you?
The Firm Site is £2,400, Firm Site+ £4,200 and Authority Build £6,900, all fixed and published. The Price Transparency Pack is £890 in ten working days, and retainers are £600, £1,200 or £2,400 a month with no minimum term.