Law Firm Practice Area Pages: How to Write Pages That Win Instructions

A good practice area page does four jobs:

Most weak practice pages manage the first job and stop there.

The most important decision comes before any writing: how many pages you need, and what each one is for.

One page per client need, not per department. Clients search for and think about specific problems. A single "Employment" page cannot serve an employer facing a tribunal claim and an executive negotiating an exit equally well.

Use a simple hierarchy. For most firms, that means:

• a practice overview page that introduces the area and links to the detail
• sub-pages for distinct client needs
• sector pages where the firm has genuine depth

For example, an employment practice might be organised like this:

Map one main search to each page. Each page should have a clear main topic, so pages do not compete with each other. Related pages should link to each other.

Create location pages only where they are genuine. A page for each office, describing the real team and work there, is useful. Dozens of near-identical "solicitors in [town]" pages are not, and they rarely help clients or search performance.

The structure below suits most practices. Adapt the depth to the complexity of the work.

1. An opening that names the client and the problem

Start with who the page is for and what the firm helps them do. Avoid opening with the firm's history or a list of adjectives.

• Weak: "Smith & Co's award-winning employment team provides pragmatic, commercial advice across the full spectrum of employment law."
• Stronger: "We advise employers across the North West on disputes, restructuring and employment tribunal claims, and help senior employees negotiate fair exits."

2. The situations you help with

List the specific situations clients are in, in their language: "an employee has raised a grievance", "we need to make redundancies", "I have been offered a settlement agreement". This helps visitors recognise themselves and helps search engines understand the page.

3. How you help, and what the process looks like

Explain what happens after someone gets in touch, the main stages of the work and roughly how long things take. For many clients, especially individuals, understanding the process is as reassuring as understanding the law.

4. Who leads the work

Name the lawyers responsible, with photographs and links to their profiles. Clients instruct people. A page with no named lawyers asks visitors to trust an anonymous team.

5. Evidence

Support the page with specifics:

• representative matters, anonymised or approved
• directory rankings, stated accurately with the current year
• client feedback, used with consent and presented fairly
• relevant published insight

6. Fees and practical information

For services covered by the SRA Transparency Rules, such as residential conveyancing, uncontested probate and certain employment tribunal claims, the required price and service information must be published. For other services, explaining how fees work, even without a figure, reduces hesitation.

7. Questions clients ask

Answer the questions clients ask before they call: how long it takes, what it costs, what they need to provide, what happens next. Keep each answer short and direct.

8. A clear next step

End with a single, specific call to action: a phone number, a form or a named contact. Tell people what happens after they get in touch and when they can expect a response.

Many firms use one template for both. It rarely serves either well.

• Use the client's words. Write "dismissed" rather than "termination of employment" where that is how clients describe it.
• Be specific. "Disputes over commercial leases for retail and leisure landlords" says more than "property litigation".
• Cut empty adjectives. "Leading", "bespoke", "pragmatic", "client-focused" and "full-service" appear on almost every law firm website and distinguish no one.
• Keep paragraphs short. Many visitors read on a phone.
• Explain, do not lecture. A practice page is not a legal textbook. Link to longer insight articles where detail helps.
• Write in the firm's voice. The page should sound like the lawyers who will do the work.

Practice pages need legal knowledge, and partner time is scarce. Projects stall when lawyers are asked to write pages from scratch. A better approach:

1. Interview, do not ask for drafts. A 20 to 30 minute conversation with the lead partner produces more usable material than weeks of waiting for a draft.
2. Use a short question list:
   • Who are your best clients, and what problems bring them to you?
   • What do clients most often misunderstand at the start?
   • Which recent matters best show what the team does?
   • What makes the team different from the firms you compete with?
   • What questions do clients ask before instructing you?
3. Draft from the interview, in plain language.
4. Agree one reviewer per page and a deadline for comments.
5. Check facts, not just style. The reviewer confirms that legal statements, matters and claims are accurate.

For SRA-regulated firms, practice pages are publicity and must meet the same standards as any other marketing:

• Accuracy. Publicity must be accurate and not misleading, including information about charges.
• Transparency Rules. Required price and service information must be published for the specified services, along with the SRA digital badge and complaints information on the website.
• Claims about expertise. Descriptions such as "specialist" or "expert" must be accurate and justifiable.
• Client feedback. Reviews and testimonials must be genuine. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 makes fake reviews and concealed incentivised reviews explicitly unlawful.
• Confidentiality. Matters and client names are used only with appropriate consent.

Practice pages are often the pages search engines and AI assistants rely on to understand what a firm does. A few principles help:

• give each page one clear main topic, reflected in the title, H1 and opening paragraph
• open with a direct answer to the question the page addresses
• link related practice pages, lawyer profiles and insight articles to each other
• keep information consistent with lawyer profiles, directory entries and the Google Business Profile
• review priority pages regularly, so they reflect current people and work

Our guides to law firm SEO and how law firms get recommended by AI cover these points in more detail.

• One page for a whole department. It serves no one well.
• Writing about the firm instead of the client. History and adjectives before help.
• No named lawyers. Anonymous pages ask for trust without offering a reason.
• No evidence. Claims without matters, rankings or feedback are easy to ignore.
• Duplicate location pages. Near-identical town pages add little value.
• Missing fee information. Especially where the Transparency Rules require it.
• Never reviewed. Departed lawyers and outdated services undermine credibility.
• No clear next step. Visitors who are ready to act should not have to look for a phone number.

Look at:

• whether visits to each page from search are growing for the right topics
• how many enquiries start on or pass through each page
• whether those enquiries are the kind of work the practice wants
• how visitors from referrals behave: do they reach the contact page or leave?

Pages that attract visits but few enquiries usually need clearer evidence or a clearer next step. Pages that attract no visits usually need a clearer topic, better internal links or more substance.