Legal SEO Foundations: Structure, Speed and Honest Content

What is included

• Site structure. A clear hierarchy of practice areas, profiles and offices, with descriptive addresses such as /family-law/parenting-arrangements/.
• Titles and descriptions. A unique title of about sixty characters or fewer and a description of 120 to 160 characters for every indexable page.
• Headings. One H1 per page and a logical order of headings beneath it.
• Internal links. Practice area pages linked to the lawyers who do the work, and profiles linked back.
• Speed. Pages measured against Core Web Vitals, aiming for Largest Contentful Paint within 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint of 200 milliseconds or less and Cumulative Layout Shift of 0.1 or less at the 75th percentile ^[1].
• Structured data. Organisation, breadcrumb, article and FAQ markup where it fits, using only facts that appear on the page.
• Search Console. Verified ownership, a submitted XML sitemap and a check of crawl and indexing reports.
• Business Profile alignment. Names, addresses and phone numbers on the site that match each Google Business Profile.

Content that deserves to rank

For a law firm, the pages with the best chance of earning search visits are practice area pages that answer real questions well, and guides that explain a process clearly. Writing those properly is the most valuable SEO work there is. It is covered under practice area pages.

What we avoid is content made only to catch search phrases. Google's spam policies describe doorway abuse as sites or pages "created to rank for specific, similar search queries" that lead users to intermediate pages less useful than the final destination ^[2]. Thirty town pages with the suburb name swapped is the classic example. They risk the whole site, not just the copies.

Business names and profiles

Google's Business Profile guidelines say including unnecessary information in your business name is not permitted ^[3]. "Smith and Partners Lawyers" is fine; "Smith and Partners Best Divorce Lawyers Brisbane" is not, and Google warns that this could lead to suspension. If your profiles have drifted, we include a tidy-up in the foundations work.

Claims in search snippets

Your page titles and descriptions appear in search results, so they are advertising too. They must meet Rule 36 just as the page does: not false, misleading or deceptive, and no "accredited specialist" wording unless it is accurate for the lawyer concerned ^[4]. In Queensland, the Legal Services Commission's guideline says internet advertising for personal injury services, including paid search promotions and search engine optimised results, must comply with the PIPA restrictions ^[5]. We write snippets with that in mind.

What we report

At the end of the foundations work you receive a short report: what was changed, how pages scored on Core Web Vitals before and after, which pages are indexed, and any issues Search Console shows. We do not report invented "visibility scores".

What we do not do

• Buy or trade links
• Promise rankings or a number of enquiries
• Write fake reviews or ask staff to post reviews without disclosing who they are
• Build pages for places the firm does not serve

The ACCC's guidance says it is against the law for a business to create fake or misleading reviews or to arrange for others to do so ^[6]. Any review strategy we suggest is about making it easy for real clients to leave honest feedback.