Law firm content marketing: what to publish and measure

Law firm content marketing works when named solicitors answer the questions clients ask, explain process, cost and timescales plainly, and the firm measures enquiries rather than traffic.

Law firm content marketing works when a firm publishes plain answers to the questions clients ask before they instruct anyone, puts the name of the solicitor who does that work on each page, and judges the results by enquiries. For most small firms that means a handful of well-made pages per practice area (common questions, how the process runs, what it costs, how long it takes) rather than a weekly blog about legal news. Here is what to write, how it gets found, what Google says about AI-written content, and how to tell whether it works.

What content is for at a law firm

Someone facing a divorce, a dismissal, a parent's estate or a house purchase often reads before they ring. They want to know what happens next, roughly what it costs and whether this firm knows what it is doing. Content has three jobs: be found at that moment, answer enough to earn trust, and make the next step obvious.

Case law commentary written for other lawyers, "delighted to announce" news and generic articles that could sit on any firm's site do none of those jobs for a private client. They are not where a small high street firm should start.

What to publish, by practice area

Start with the questions clients actually ask

Collect the questions people ask in first calls and first emails, word for word, from reception and from the fee earners who take new enquiries. Google Search Console adds the searcher's side: its Performance report can group clicks and impressions by the search queries people typed (Google Search Console Help), showing what already brings people to your site.

Questions worth a page each look like this:

Family: Do I have to sell the house if we divorce? How long does a divorce take? Can my ex move away with the children?
Wills and probate: Do I need a solicitor for probate? What happens if someone dies without a will?
Residential conveyancing: What happens between exchange and completion? Why is my purchase taking so long?
Employment: Can I be dismissed while off sick? Do I need a solicitor to sign a settlement agreement? For employers: how do we start a redundancy process?
Commercial: What should a shareholders' agreement cover?
Personal injury: Is there a time limit for making a claim?

Use the client's words in the heading, not the legal term. Clients describe the problem ("my husband won't sign the divorce papers"), not the procedure.

Process explainers

A process page walks through what happens after someone instructs you: the stages in order, what the client has to provide at each one, who does what, and where delays usually come from, including the ones the firm cannot control. A page that says which missing documents hold up an estate, or what a buyer can do in week one to avoid delays later, beats a summary of the law.

Cost and timescale pages

A good cost page gives a price or a range, says what is included and what is not, lists likely disbursements, and explains what pushes a matter up the range. For some services it is not optional: the SRA Transparency Rules list services, including residential conveyancing and uncontested probate, where firms must publish price information prominently on their website. Timescale pages work the same way: a realistic range, what extends it, and no promises.

Author pages for named solicitors

Every page should carry the name of the solicitor who wrote or reviewed it, linked to a proper profile. Google's guidance on helpful content asks "Is it self-evident to your visitors who authored your content?" and whether pages carry a byline where one would be expected. The same page says Google's systems give extra weight to strong experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust on topics that could significantly affect someone's health, financial stability or safety (Google Search Central). Divorce, dismissal and estates all touch financial stability.

A useful author page includes:

Name, role and the practice areas they handle.
Accreditations and memberships, stated factually.
A link to their entry on the SRA's Solicitors Register, which anyone can use to check whether someone is a solicitor and where they work.
A list of the pages they have written or reviewed.

On the technical side, Google's Article structured data documentation (as of September 2026) recommends that each author's URL property points to a page that uniquely identifies that person, such as a bio page (Google Search Central). The schema generator produces author profile markup if your site does not already output it.

What not to publish

Rewrites of legal news with no view on what it means for your clients.
Near-identical pages for every town you cover.
Pages padded to a word count. Google's helpful content guidance says it has no preferred word count.
Anything a fee earner has not read.

How law firm content gets found

Search

A question page ranks when it is the clearest answer from a source that looks trustworthy. Structure matters too: each practice-area page should link to its question, process and cost pages, and each of those should link back and to the enquiry route. That internal structure is one of the first things I look at in SEO work for law firms.

AI answers in Google and ChatGPT

For AI Overviews and AI Mode, Google says a page needs to be indexed and eligible to show in search with a snippet to appear as a supporting link, with no additional technical requirements (Google Search Central).

Its guide to optimising for generative AI features (as of September 2026) says those features are rooted in its core ranking systems, and that you do not need llms.txt files or special markup, do not need to break content into tiny chunks, and do not need structured data to appear. What it does suggest is a distinct point of view and first-hand experience, contrasting that with summaries that restate what is already available elsewhere (Google Search Central). A solicitor explaining what actually happens at a first hearing is that kind of content.

For ChatGPT, check your robots.txt and any bot blocking set up by your host or firewall. OpenAI says sites that opt out of its OAI-SearchBot crawler are not shown in ChatGPT search answers (OpenAI).

Email

Past clients and referrers (accountants, IFAs, estate agents) already know and trust the firm. A short email every month or quarter, with one useful point and a link to the page, is a low-effort way to stay in touch before the next matter or referral.

Check permissions first. The ICO's guidance says marketing emails to individuals need their consent, with a "soft opt-in" exception for existing customers who bought (or negotiated to buy) a similar service from you and were given a simple way to opt out when their details were collected and in every message since. Sole traders and some partnerships count as individuals, so that covers many referrers too. The consent rule does not apply in the same way to companies and LLPs (ICO). As of September 2026 the ICO marks that guidance as under review following the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, so check it again before building a list.

In my view LinkedIn earns its time for employer-side employment work, commercial and corporate work, and referrer relationships, and much less for a family or conveyancing client in a hurry. I would also post from individual solicitors' profiles rather than relying on the firm's page, because referrers and business clients know the solicitor, not the page. Make the point in the post itself (the three things employers get wrong in a redundancy consultation, say) and link to the full page, rather than posting a bare link. Running this without eating fee earners' time is part of social media management.

What Google says about helpful and AI-generated content

People-first content

Google's page on creating helpful, reliable, people-first content is worth a partner's ten minutes. As of September 2026, it asks whether content offers original information or analysis, whether it adds substantial value compared with other pages in the results, and whether it is written or reviewed by someone who demonstrably knows the subject. Its warning signs include producing lots of content on many topics in the hope some of it performs, and changing page dates to look fresh when nothing substantial has changed (Google Search Central).

AI-generated content

Google does not ban AI-assisted content. Its guidance on generative AI content (as of September 2026) says AI can help with researching a topic and adding structure to original content, and asks for accuracy, quality and relevance, including in page titles and meta descriptions (Google Search Central). The risk is volume. Google's spam policies (as of September 2026) give using generative AI to create many pages without adding value for users as an example of scaled content abuse (Google Search Central). The helpful content page also asks whether any use of automation is made clear to visitors.

In practice, an AI tool can turn a solicitor's notes or a recorded conversation into a first draft. It cannot supply the experience that makes the page worth reading, and it produces confident errors a solicitor has to catch. Never paste client or matter details into one.

Compliance sign-off

Every page, email and post should be read by the solicitor named on it and approved through the firm's normal sign-off, checking accuracy, anything that reads as advice on a specific case, and anything that could identify a client. This is marketing guidance, not legal advice: SRA publicity rules are a separate subject, and your COLP has the final say.

A realistic cadence for a small firm

Pick a pace the firm can hold through a busy quarter. For three or four practice areas and no in-house marketer, I would plan on:

First three months: for each main practice area, one cost page, one process page and a short list of question pages. Author pages for every solicitor who will put their name to content.
After that: two question pages a month, rotating through practice areas. Base each on a 30-minute conversation with the solicitor rather than asking them to write from scratch, then book a second, shorter slot for them to review the draft.
Monthly or quarterly: one email to past clients and referrers who have agreed to hear from you.
Weekly: one LinkedIn post from a solicitor who does B2B or referral work, drawn from a page already published.
Twice a year: review cost and process pages, and any page where the law, prices or procedure have changed. Update the date only when the content has changed.

Repurposing one piece of work

Most of the effort in a good page is the thinking, so use it more than once:

Add a two or three sentence version to the common questions on the practice-area page, linking to the full answer.
Turn it into the solicitor's LinkedIn post, written for the platform.
Make it the main item in the next client email.
Give reception and fee earners the link to send when that question comes in. It saves time and shows expertise before the first meeting.
Record the solicitor answering it in a minute or two on a phone.

Write a fresh version for each place rather than pasting the whole article; the website stays the full, maintained version.

Measuring by enquiries, not traffic

A probate cost page may get far fewer visits than a general news article and still produce more instructions. Measure what the firm is paid for.

Track enquiries on the site. In Google Analytics 4, set up form submissions and clicks on phone numbers as events, then mark them as key events in Admin, under Data display, Events (Google Analytics Help).
Ask every new enquiry how they found you, and record it in your case management system or CRM against the practice area. Some people read a page, or see the firm named in an AI answer, and then phone without any click you can track.
Watch Search Console. The Performance report shows clicks and queries for each content page. The Generative AI performance report counts how often links to your site were shown in AI Overviews and AI Mode; Google says it had rolled out to all websites worldwide as of 31 August 2026. It reports impressions, not enquiries (Search Console Help).
Review quarterly, by practice area: enquiries, instructions and fee value, set against the time and money the content took. The cost per enquiry calculator shows what an enquiry is worth to you and what you can afford to spend to get one.

Judge content over quarters, not weeks. The pages that bring enquiries tell you what to write next. If you want a second opinion on where your site stands, I offer a free audit, and there is more on how I work with solicitors and law firms.

Common questions

How often should a law firm publish content?

As often as the firm can produce pages a solicitor has properly reviewed. For a small firm, two good pages a month plus twice-yearly updates to cost and process pages is sustainable.

Can we use AI to write our legal content?

Google does not prohibit it, but its spam policies list using AI to generate many pages without adding value as an example of scaled content abuse. Use AI to shape a solicitor's own knowledge into a draft, then have that solicitor check every line. Keep client information out of AI tools.

Should solicitors write the content themselves?

They should supply the knowledge and review the result, but rarely need to start from a blank page. A short conversation turned into a draft, then corrected by the solicitor, costs far less fee-earning time.

Is a blog still worth it now that AI answers questions in search?

Yes, if it is the right kind. Google's advice for its AI features favours a distinct point of view and first-hand experience, which is what a named solicitor explaining how a process really runs provides. Generic legal news is what those answers make redundant.

How do we know if content marketing is working?

Count enquiries and instructions by practice area, not visits. Track forms and phone clicks in GA4, ask every enquiry how they found you, and review quarterly.

Law firm content marketing that turns into enquiries