Free ConsultLegal search is expensive, competitive and worth it, because a single matter can be worth more than everything you spend on marketing in a year. The mistake firms make is marketing the firm. Nobody searches for a firm. They search for the problem they have at two in the morning.
Three things we see on nearly every site in this industry. None of them are about how the site looks.
Family law, conveyancing, wills and estates, personal injury and commercial litigation are five unrelated businesses sharing a letterhead. Their clients search differently, decide differently and need entirely different reassurance. A combined page speaks to none of them.
An open contact form on a legal site produces a great deal of work that is not work — out-of-scope questions, matters you cannot take, and conflicts. Every one of them costs somebody's time to read and answer.
Most firm websites are written in the register of a letter of advice. The person reading it is frightened, out of their depth and trying to work out whether they can afford to call. Plain English is not a dumbing down here — it is the entire difference between an enquiry and a bounce.
Worth being blunt about
Legal keywords carry some of the highest costs-per-click in Australian search, because the value of a matter justifies it. That has two consequences. Paid search is brutal and rarely the right opening move for a smaller firm. And organic rankings on specific practice-area terms are correspondingly valuable — which is exactly where the difficulty scores are lowest, because most firms are still publishing one page about the firm.
The signature build
Nobody searches for a law firm. They search for the problem they have at two in the morning, in their own words, and most firm websites answer in the register of a letter of advice.
Plain English is not a dumbing down here. It is the difference between an enquiry and a bounce from someone who assumed they could not afford you.
First appointment, what to bring, what happens in the following weeks, how long it usually takes. This is what they want and almost nobody publishes it.
Fixed fee, hourly, no win no fee — and what the first consultation costs. Silence on fees reads as expensive.
Family, conveyancing, wills, personal injury, employment. Five unrelated businesses sharing a letterhead, and five separate searches.
What we'd build
Six of the things we build or run, chosen for this industry. Each says whether it is in the monthly plan or quoted on top — custom software is software, not pages. Plans and prices are on the pricing page.
Matter type, the other side's name for a conflict check, what stage it is at, and urgency. What arrives is a triaged list rather than an inbox full of questions you cannot answer and matters you cannot take.
Into Smokeball, Actionstep or LEAP where the software allows, or into HubSpot, Zoho or Salesforce for the front end. A matter that converts four months later cannot live in somebody's email.
Cal.com or Calendly against real availability, with the fee stated. People in distress at 11pm will book something they can book now and will not ring in the morning.
Generated from the matter details rather than rebuilt from a precedent each time. Cost disclosure is a compliance obligation and doing it by hand is where it slips.
Conveyancing and family law are chosen locally far more often than partners assume. Suburb pages and the map pack matter here in the same way they do for a trade.
What happens first, what to bring, how fees work, how long it usually takes. Carefully scoped to process rather than advice — included free on every plan.
A basic AI chatbot trained on your business, answering common customer questions on your site around the clock. We build it, train it and connect it free with every plan — AI message usage is billed separately.
Anything beyond basic question answering — lead capture and qualification, a large knowledge base, appointment booking, or connecting to your CRM and other systems — is quoted per project.
Getting it right
Legal advertising is regulated, the detail varies by jurisdiction, and we write conservatively rather than testing the edges with your practising certificate.
Your existing tools
Every tool listed here publishes a developer API, which is why it is listed — we checked. That is not the same as a connection already built: what can be pushed depends on your plan and setup, so we scope it before quoting. Where your software has no API, we say so rather than quote around it.
What your customers type
These are the kinds of phrases people use when they need a law firm. Which of them are worth chasing depends on volume, difficulty and what the work is worth to you — that is what the keyword research settles before we write a word, and it is the first thing we do on any project.
Most law firms run something like Smokeball, Actionstep or LEAP. Where that software publishes an API we can feed it directly; where it does not, the enquiry still arrives as structured data rather than a paragraph of email. We check which before we quote anything.
Google Ads
Legal clicks are among the priciest in Australian search, because a matter justifies it. For a smaller firm that usually argues against leading with ads.
Ad spend is not part of the plan — it goes straight to Google. What the plan covers is building and managing the campaigns. See how we run Google Ads →
Being straight with you
We are a small Melbourne agency with two clients so far. Here is what that means for a project in your industry.
Flooring supply for retail and trade. Website, a trade account system with logins and tiered pricing, SEO and Google Business Profile.
An NDIS provider with no content, no photography and no time. We asked questions and produced everything else — copy, imagery and their Google Business Profile.
This page describes what we would build and why, not a track record we do not have yet. If you would rather hire someone with ten clients in your industry, that is a fair call — and we would rather say so than imply otherwise.
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