Law firm SEO services: nine artifacts, eight exclusions

Law firm SEO services are usually sold as a list of what arrives. The list that decides whether the engagement works is the other one: what the fee does not cover, who supplies it instead, and what it costs. Our Practice Sprint is $1,450 and the build tier $2,900, both fixed.

Last updated: 5 August 2026

What do you actually receive, item by item?

Nine artifacts, each in a stated format, each a file a partner can open without a login.

Two rows carry more weight than the rest. The page map is the one a partner should read line by line, because it is the only artifact that can be wrong in a way nothing later corrects: a firm with a single page covering six practice areas is asking one document to answer six different questions, and it loses to six focused documents every time.

The fix log matters for a duller reason. It is the record that survives the account manager leaving, and it is the difference between an engagement you can audit and one you have to take on trust.

A damaging admission, early: month one produces nothing measurable. The crawl, the fixes and the page map all happen before a ranking moves. A supplier promising visible movement in four weeks is counting impressions or selling something else.

What is deliberately not included?

Eight things, listed here because a scope argument in month four costs far more than a paragraph in week zero.

Row two is the one to sit with. We write pages about what a firm does; a fee earner reads them before they go live, and that step is not ours to remove. US lawyer advertising runs through ABA Model Rule 7.2(b), adopted differently in each state, so the same sentence can be unremarkable in one state and a problem across a line. A supplier that publishes copy about a practice area without review has created an exposure the firm owns and the supplier does not.

Row one costs us money to publish. A firm reading this page may need paid campaigns more than it needs pages, and we would rather say so here than take the engagement and underdeliver on the thing it actually wanted.

Why does the boundary matter more than the contents?

Because the middle of a scope can be inspected and the edge cannot.

Pages either exist or they do not. The edge is different: it is where a firm assumed something was covered, the supplier assumed it was not, and neither discovers the gap until somebody needs the thing. Three of the eight rows above — legal review, intake, hosting access — are the ones most easily assumed either way, because all three sit half inside the firm.

There is a measurable reason to expect the boundary to be left vague. Of the 40 legal-marketing suppliers we read in full on 3 August 2026, 12 published a price at all and 5 of those published only a range rather than a figure. Not one published a written list of what its fee excludes. Price and scope are one specification, and 28 of the 40 published neither half of it — so a firm comparing those suppliers is comparing two undefined things.

The practical version: ask for the exclusion list in writing before signing. If the answer is that everything is included, the scope has not been written yet.

What do the suppliers ranking for this publish?

Three named suppliers, and the only fact we will assert about any of them is whether a price appeared on the page.

All three are in the minority. Twelve of forty put a figure on the page at all, so these are among the more transparent suppliers a firm will encounter, and that is worth saying on a page selling against them.

We are not going to tell you what any of them charges. The figures our tooling collected from those pages mixed genuine fees with unrelated numbers, and publishing a wrong price against a named business is not a mistake worth making. What is safe to report is the presence of a price, and that count is repeatable by anybody who visits the same pages.

What none of the forty published, including these three, was a written list of what the fee excludes. That gap is the reason this page exists.

Who owns the pages, the accounts and the copy when it ends?

The firm does, on every item, and the contract should say so before the first invoice.

Four things to name explicitly in writing:

1. The site and its content. Pages written for the firm belong to the firm, including drafts never published.
2. The analytics and search console properties. Created under the firm's own account, not the supplier's, so history survives the relationship.
3. The listing and directory entries. Claimed in the firm's name, with the login held by the firm.
4. The page map and fix log. Handed over as files, not as access to a dashboard that switches off.

This is the clause most often left out, and it is the one that determines whether leaving a supplier costs a fortnight or a year. Of the forty suppliers we read, one offered work with no minimum term — so for the other 39, the exit question is not academic.

Where is another supplier the better choice?

Two situations, stated plainly, because a comparison that always concludes with us is read as an advertisement and discarded.

When the firm needs matters this quarter. Search work produces nothing measurable in month one and cannot be judged fairly before month six. A specialist running paid campaigns will beat us on that timeline, and we do not manage ad spend.

When the constraint is fee-earner capacity rather than inquiries. If the diary is already full, better rankings produce declined work and a longer waiting list. That should be settled before anybody spends anything, and settling it may mean nobody spends anything.

What does it cost, and how do you charge?

Practice Sprint $1,450, build tier $2,900. Fixed, published, no minimum term.

Never per inquiry, per case or per matter. Referral fees are restricted in prescribed legal business, and the restriction binds the paying firm as well as the party paid. We charge for the work, by scope and by time, which is also the only fee model under which an exclusion list means anything.

Context for why we lead with the number: 15 of the 62 questions buyers ask on these searches are price questions, measured 3 August 2026, and 30% of suppliers answer them. The most-asked question in this market is the one almost nobody answers.

Worth knowing where the demand sits while comparing quotes. In Chicago, 11,000 people a month search for family and divorce representation at $34.89 a click, and in Phoenix 8,100 search for criminal defense at $86.12 — both measured 3 August 2026 across twenty US cities. A quote is only comparable against the size of the market it is meant to reach.

Before you shortlist anyone

We read 40 legal-marketing suppliers in full in August 2026 — including two named on this page. Twelve published a price. One offered work with no minimum term.

The free report gives you the full count, named, so you can repeat it rather than take ours. It also shows how many people search for your practice areas in your town, and what those clicks cost to buy at Google's own prices.

Get the report — five questions, about two minutes →

No call required. Our own prices are on that page.

Where should I read next?

If the site itself is the weak link rather than its visibility: law firm website design tips covers what a page has to answer, and custom law firm website design covers building rather than adapting.

For a one-partner firm buying this for the first time: solo law firm website design.

City-specific arithmetic on the same work: law firm SEO Miami.

Broader than search: law firm marketing tips.

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