What a law firm website needs to convey
People looking for a lawyer are in a situation that causes them stress. They want to know whether you understand their situation, whether you have handled similar cases before and whether they can trust you. A generic firm website with a stock photo of a courthouse and a contact form gives no answer to those questions.
What I build does answer those questions. The site shows who the attorneys are, which areas of law the firm genuinely excels at and what knowledge the firm holds. That does more work than five testimonials.
- ▸Attorney profiles with photo, education, specialisations and approach: people choose a person, not a firm.
- ▸Practice area pages per field: a dedicated page for family law, employment law or corporate law with the right keywords and in-depth explanation.
- ▸Blog or knowledge base that shows you know what you are writing about: Google rewards content with demonstrated expertise.
- ▸Clear conversion flow: first contact must be low-barrier. A form for a free intake consultation works better than a generic contact form.
- ▸No legal ambiguity: no promised guarantees, no figures that do not hold up. The text must be legally sound.
EEAT signals for Google: making expertise demonstrable
Google evaluates legal websites in the YMYL category (Your Money Your Life). That means the algorithms look extra critically at whether the author of an article is genuinely an expert. A blog article about divorce that appears without an author name consistently ranks lower than the same article signed by a lawyer with a bio.
I build EEAT into the structure of the site:
- ▸Author bios on every article: name, photo, bar registration number, specialisation. These are the signals Google looks for.
- ▸Expertise tags per page: structured data indicating which area of law the content relates to.
- ▸Citation-friendly content: well-written text with sources is cited more often by AI search engines and legal databases.
- ▸LegalService schema: JSON-LD structured data that tells Google this is a legal service provider, in which jurisdiction and for which specialisations.
- ▸Internal links between practice area pages and blog articles: this builds the authority of the domain as a whole.
Content strategy: blog, FAQ and case pages
Most law firms I speak to actually want a blog but do not know how to approach it practically. Lawyers are busy, writing takes time and legal texts have to be substantively correct. I help design the structure, not invent the content.
Options I use in practice: you write the drafts, I handle the structure and formatting in the CMS. Or you work with a legal copywriter and I integrate the content. AI-assisted drafts are also possible, but always with attorney review before publication. That is not a choice for speed, it is a matter of integrity.
Case pages are valuable for SEO and conversion but require care. I build templates with privacy disclaimer blocks and an anonymisation workflow so you can publish case descriptions without GDPR risk.
Practice area pages: a landing page per field of law
A page called 'family law' that contains only a paragraph of text is not a practice area page. A good practice area page explains what family law covers, which situations the firm handles, how the process works and why this firm is the right choice. Those pages rank well and convert better.
- ▸Family law: divorce, maintenance, custody, child abduction. A sensitive subject that requires trust in the copy.
- ▸Employment law: dismissal, workplace conflict, reintegration. Both employees and employers search here.
- ▸Corporate law: contracts, mergers, liability. A B2B audience that reads differently from private individuals.
- ▸Criminal law: suspect, victim, police interview. An urgent situation where the site must give clarity quickly.
- ▸Other specialisations as required: each practice area page follows the same structure but has unique content.
I build a CMS structure that lets you add new practice area pages yourself without involving me. That matters if the firm grows or adds a new field of law.
-- Example case
From WordPress to Next.js: organic traffic tripled
A law firm in Twente with four lawyers in family and employment law was running on an outdated WordPress installation. The site was slow, had no attorney profiles and the blog was full of short texts with no depth. After switching to a custom Next.js site with a blog CMS and structured practice area pages, organic search traffic grew by 280% in the first year. That percentage sounds spectacular but is honestly the result of a combination: a better technical foundation, consistent blog publishing and a built-out internal link structure.
This is not a guarantee. Organic traffic depends on content frequency, competition in your market and how consistently you publish. The technical foundation is necessary but not sufficient without substantive effort.
Conversion flow: from visitor to intake consultation
Visitors who reach your site via a search query about a legal topic are already in a situation. They have no need for a sales pitch. They want to know whether you can help them and how to get in touch.
- ▸Free intake form per practice area: a form that asks visitors to describe their situation works better than a generic contact form. The lawyer prepares better for the conversation and the client feels heard.
- ▸Direct phone link on mobile: a tel:// link on mobile so visitors can call with one tap.
- ▸Response time expectation: 'I respond within one working day' lowers the threshold. People want to know what to expect.
- ▸WhatsApp link optional: some firms prefer not to receive WhatsApp for legal queries due to confidentiality. That is a conscious choice, not a technical limitation.
- ▸No AI live chat: legal first contact via an AI chatbot is in most cases a bad idea. I do not build features that create problems for you later.
SEO and AI citation performance for legal content
Legal content is increasingly cited by AI search engines such as Perplexity and Google's AI summaries. For law firms that is a new opportunity: well-written and correctly structured legal explanation becomes a source that people trust.
The SEO foundation I build for law firm sites:
- ▸LegalService schema markup: Google understands that this is a legal firm, in which practice area and in which region.
- ▸llms.txt for AI search engines: a standardised page that tells AI systems which content from your site is relevant and citable.
- ▸Hreflang if you work internationally: if the firm also serves clients in Germany or Belgium, I configure the language mapping correctly.
- ▸Canonical URLs per practice area page: prevents duplicate content where practice areas overlap.
- ▸Load time under 2 seconds: especially on mobile. People visiting your site in a stressful situation have no patience for a slow page.
Privacy and GDPR: what is legally required, I build correctly
Lawyers are bound by professional secrecy. That applies to the website too: contact forms that process personal data fall under the GDPR and require a privacy statement, a data processing agreement with the hosting party and correctly implemented cookie consent.
I build this in as standard, not as an afterthought. That means: cookie consent without dark patterns, a privacy page that is legally sound, form encryption and data minimisation in what I store. You can provide an account to the Data Protection Authority if that ever becomes necessary.