Law firm SEO for Google, Maps and AI answers

How do people look for an injury, family or defense lawyer now?

Fast, on a phone, and often on a bad day. They search Google for things like “car accident lawyer near me free consultation”, “divorce lawyer in Tulsa who handles custody” or “DUI lawyer open now”, look at the map pack, read reviews, and some ask AI assistants. An AI answer usually names only a handful of firms. We can’t control who gets named, but the AI tools draw on things we can work on: clear practice-area pages, consistent directory listings, reviews and mentions across the web.

Does a law firm really need SEO?

Yes, if new clients find you by searching. If nearly every case comes by referral, it matters less, though even a referred client may look you up before calling. Law firm SEO covers five things: practice-area pages, your Google Business Profile and the map pack, legal directories, reviews, and what AI answers say about your firm.

A quick self-check on your phone:

1. Search your practice area and city, such as “divorce lawyer Tulsa”. Is your firm in the map pack?
2. Is it on the first page of results below the map?
3. Ask ChatGPT or Gemini the same question. Is your firm named?

Three no’s means people searching for your practice area are finding someone else. The free snapshot shows who gets named instead, and why.

Why do you focus on personal injury, family and criminal defense?

Because one new client matters a great deal to these firms, and their clients choose quickly. Someone hurt in a crash, served with divorce papers or calling about an arrest often calls one of the first firms they find that looks credible. Each practice has its own searches and its own rules:

• Personal injury: people search right after a crash or an injury, and they ask what their case is worth. Pages explain the process, the deadlines with the statute cited, and your fee terms. Contingency-fee wording appears only with the costs disclosure your state requires.
• Family law: people want to know about custody, support, timelines and cost before they call. Pages answer those questions for your county’s courts. Pages about protective orders can carry a quick-exit button.
• Criminal defense: people search the night of an arrest or the morning of a court date, often for a family member. Pages explain what happens at the first appearance in your local courts, and your profile hours match when someone really answers the phone.

Other practice areas: ask us, and we’ll tell you honestly whether we’re a fit.

How do you keep the marketing within bar rules?

We use the ABA Model Rules 7.1 to 7.3 as the baseline, and your state bar’s rules override them. In practice:

• Nothing misleading: no “best”, no “top”, no comparisons nobody can verify, and no promised outcomes.
• No “expert” or “specialist” unless you’re certified by an approved body, which we name. That’s stricter than the ABA rule, and we check your state’s rule too.
• Case results and testimonials only with written client consent on file, plus the disclaimer your state requires.
• The name and contact details of the lawyer or firm responsible, on everything we publish for you.
• “Attorney Advertising” labels where your state requires them.
• Contact forms that say submitting doesn’t create an attorney-client relationship, and that ask for no confidential details.
• Three checks before anything goes live: Rhea, our compliance agent, checks it against the rules, our owner approves it, and then a lawyer at your firm signs it off.

We’re not a law firm and we don’t give legal advice. Your ethics counsel has the final word.

How do law firms get named by ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini?

By being easy to find and easy to check in the pages those tools read. There’s no form to submit and no fee that buys a place in the answer. OpenAI says ads don’t influence ChatGPT’s answers, and that advertisers can’t shape, rank or alter them.

ChatGPT does now show labeled ads below some answers, and OpenAI’s ad policy accepts US legal-services ads only from advertisers licensed where the ad runs. Under Rule 7.2(b), a lawyer may pay the reasonable cost of an ad but may not pay anyone for recommending the firm. Neither route puts your firm inside the answer itself.

What does get a firm named is the same facts, said the same way, in many places:

• Practice-area pages that answer real client questions, such as how long a custody case takes in your county or what happens at a first DUI appearance.
• Legal directory profiles that match: your state bar directory, Avvo, Justia, FindLaw, Martindale-Hubbell and Super Lawyers if you’re listed, with the same name, address, phone and practice areas. A paid badge is an ad, so we never present it as an award (Rule 7.1).
• A complete Google Business Profile for each real office, with your practice areas listed as services.
• Reviews within the rules, asked of every client the same way.
• Mentions you earn: your bar association, local press, legal publications and talks you give. We don’t buy links. Google’s spam policies treat bought links as link spam, and a penalty can cost a firm its rankings.

We ask the AI tools the questions your clients ask, such as “Who handles DUI cases in Mesa?”, and show you the dated answers. We can’t promise any tool will name you.

What do you do for a law firm?

• Practice-area pages (Quinn and Penn): one per practice area, and one per city only where you have a real office. Each covers who it’s for, what you do, how the process works, fees as you state them, timelines as ranges, what to bring to a consultation, and real FAQs. For an injury firm, that means a page per case type you take, such as car crashes, truck crashes or slip-and-falls, not one page for everything.
• “What to do after…” articles: answer-first guides of the kind people read before they call a lawyer, such as what to do after a car accident or after an arrest, with local court names, deadlines with the statute cited, and a note that laws change.
• Attorney bios: admissions, education, focus areas, real background and a human detail.
• Structured data (Sage): LegalService markup for the firm and Person markup for each lawyer, built only from facts you confirm.
• Google Business Profile (Lola) for each real office: categories, services, hours, photos and posts.
• Legal directories (Juno): your state bar directory, Avvo, Justia, FindLaw and Martindale-Hubbell, with the same name, address and phone everywhere. We never describe a paid listing as an award.
• Reviews within the rules (Lola): a request kit you use the same way with every client, with nothing offered in return.
• Spanish pages, if your firm serves clients in Spanish and a Spanish-speaking lawyer reviews them.
• YouTube (Juno and Penn): many firms take cases across the state, and video can reach people far from your office. We plan topics from real client questions and write the titles, descriptions and chapters. You or your lawyers appear on camera. No AI-generated presenters.
• AI visibility checks (Otto): questions like “Who handles DUI cases in Mesa?” across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google.

How do you handle reviews for a law firm?

Carefully. Ask every client the same way, offer nothing in return, and never filter out unhappy clients. Google bans review incentives and asking only happy customers, and the FTC’s review rule bans incentives tied to a positive review.

Replies work differently for lawyers. Under client-confidentiality rules (Rule 1.6, and ABA Formal Opinion 496 on responding to online criticism), a reply must not confirm the reviewer was a client or discuss their matter. For a positive review, that means a general thank-you. For a negative one, often no reply at all, or a short neutral line. A lawyer at your firm approves every reply.

Can I pay an SEO company per signed case?

Flat fees only: a fixed project price or a fixed monthly fee - never a share of your fees, never per case or per lead. Those other arrangements can conflict with ABA Model Rules 5.4(a) and 7.2(b). Prices are scoped after the free snapshot.

If another company offers per-case or per-lead pricing, ask your ethics counsel before you sign. Rule 5.4(a) bars sharing legal fees with a nonlawyer, Rule 7.2(b) bars paying anyone for recommending your services apart from narrow exceptions such as the reasonable cost of advertising, and your state bar may be stricter.

What do you need from a law firm?

• The substance from a lawyer. You know the law and your clients. We add the structure, the markup and the search work. You can write it or dictate it.
• Your practice areas, the states you’re licensed in, and the case types you don’t take.
• Consultation terms (free or paid, contingency or hourly) exactly as you state them.
• Required disclaimers and any state filing rules for advertising.
• Written consent records for any case result or testimonial you want shown.
• Access by invite: Search Console, Analytics, your Google Business Profile and your website.
• A lawyer to sign off on each page, reply and post.

How do you measure results for a law firm?

• Qualified calls and consultation requests, using a rule we agree with you, such as calls over a set length.
• Search Console clicks and impressions for practice-area searches.
• Google Business Profile calls, website clicks and direction requests.
• AI answers: who gets named for your practice-area questions, and whether you’re one of them, over several months.
• New reviews and your average rating.

Frequently asked questions