Our agency works with hundreds of small businesses. While we work across multiple verticals, we have the highest percentage of attorney clients. We wanted to share fresh SEO statistics backed by 15 years of experience managing attorney SEO campaigns.
1. SEO keyword difficulty varies based on practice area
Data collected internally through our SEMrush account. We analyzed primary practice area keywords across large, mid-size, and small U.S. markets to calculate average keyword difficulty by practice area.
- Personal Injury: 62%
- Criminal Defense: 53%
- Employment Law: 45%
- Divorce: 44%
- Bankruptcy: 39%
- Traffic Law: 19%
Average keyword difficulty by practice area
There is a direct correlation between the revenue that can be generated for each practice area and keyword difficulty. With personal injury law, a single case can result in a multi-million-dollar settlement. This drives up competition. Whereas for traffic law, a case may be less than $1,000 to an attorney. The harder the keyword difficulty, the harder it is to rank on the first page of Google.
2. The homepage ranks for the primary practice area in 78% of instances
We audited 116 attorney websites across large, mid-size, and small U.S. markets, and 90 of them have a homepage ranking for their primary practice area keyword.
- The homepage is often the most powerful page on your website because it generates the most backlinks, so it makes sense to optimize it for the most sought-after search term.
- For example, if you’re a personal injury lawyer in Columbus, the homepage will most likely rank for “Columbus Personal Injury Lawyer.”
- Below is the breakdown of homepage ranking percentage based on practice area:
- Personal Injury: 96%
- Criminal Defense: 95%
- Bankruptcy: 84%
- Divorce: 67%
- Employment Law: 60%
- Traffic Law: 53%
Homepage ranking rate by practice area
3. 19% of page one rankings for the primary practice area are directory listings
We audited 180 page one results across large, mid-size, and small U.S. markets. 34 of the results were directories.
- Of the 19% of directories listed on the first page of Google, below are the most popular directories:
- Super Lawyers: 44%
- Justia: 41%
- Yelp: 9%
- FindLaw: 3%
- Reddit: 3%
- What does this tell us: Attorney websites dominate page one of Google. If you were to invest in a legal directory, Super Lawyers would be a viable option given its greater exposure than competitors.
4. 59% of page one keyword rankings for attorneys were on interior pages
- 59% of page one keyword rankings for attorneys were on interior pages related to either service-specific pages or location pages.
- This emphasizes the importance of building out service pages and location pages with unique content.
- You want each practice area to have its own unique page so it serves as strong sales collateral.
Where page one attorney rankings land
5. Only 11% of page one keyword rankings for attorneys resulted in a location-specific page
- For attorneys, it’s common practice to build out location pages for the markets they want to enter.
- Most location pages lack unique content and location signals needed to rank.
- Of the 11% of location pages ranking on page one, over 90% were in suburbs or smaller markets outside major U.S. cities.
6. The average authority score across our legal clients is 17.3
- This is clear evidence that you don’t need a strong authority score to rank well.
- One of our clients, with an authority score of 7, ranks for 50+ keywords by dominating a small, low-competition market.
- Our client with the highest authority score is 33. For a local attorney, a 30+ authority score is a strong foundation. It’s enough to rank competitively across multiple practice area keywords without needing the domain strength of a large national firm or legal directory.
In closing
Rather than regurgitating stats from other sources, we wanted to share our own insights. We feel these data points can help you focus on a more sound SEO strategy. For example, if you’ve built out hundreds of location pages with little success, look at our stat to see if it’s really worthwhile. If you’re paying for a Yelp listing, you could better allocate the financial resources to Super Lawyers to get more page-one exposure.
If you need any support with search engine optimization, contact The Media Captain. We’ve worked with attorneys since 2010 and have 180+ Google reviews from clients who can speak to our results.
