Your law firm website is not a brochure

A law firm website earns work when it has a separate page for each type of matter you take on, written for the person with that problem. Most firm sites have five pages: home, about, services, team, contact. That structure tells Google almost nothing and gives a worried client nothing to read.

The fix is not a redesign. It is more pages, each one about a single thing you do, in a single place you do it.

Why doesn't my law firm website bring in enquiries?

Because it describes the firm instead of answering the client's question. Someone searching "eviction application Boksburg" or "what does a divorce cost in South Africa" wants one page about that. A services page listing eleven practice areas in one paragraph each answers nobody.

Google works the same way. It ranks pages, not firms. If your only page mentioning wills also mentions labour law, business rescue and conveyancing, there is no page for Google to rank when someone types a will question. Your competitor with one focused page on drafting wills in Centurion wins that search without being a better lawyer.

What should a law firm website have instead of a services page?

One page per service, and one page per service in each town you serve. We call this the Practice Matrix: your practice areas down one side, your locations across the top, a real page in every box that matters.

A three-partner firm in Bloemfontein doing family law, deceased estates and RAF claims across three towns has nine potential pages instead of one services page. You don't build all nine at once. You build the boxes where the work is worth having, then add.

Each page needs to stand on its own:

• The problem in the client's words, not the statute's
• What the process actually looks like, step by step
• Roughly how long it takes
• What it costs, or how the fee is worked out if you can't quote a number
• What the client needs to bring or send
• Who at the firm handles it
• One clear way to make contact

Do I need a separate page for every town I work in?

Only for towns where you genuinely act, and only if the page says something specific about that town. A page for Kempton Park should name the courts, the suburbs and the realities there. Copying the Sandton page and swapping the town name is the fastest way to get both pages ignored.

Google has been clear that pages built from a template with the place name swapped add nothing. So has every client who has read one. If you can't write two honest paragraphs about handling that matter in that town, skip the page and strengthen the one you have.

The test we use: would an attorney in that town read the page and recognise it? Court names, filing realities, driving distances, the fact that a Roodepoort maintenance matter sits in a different queue to a Randburg one. That detail is also what makes the page worth citing.

How does this help when clients use ChatGPT instead of Google?

AI answers get built from pages that answer one question clearly. A tool summarising "how do I get an eviction order in Gauteng" pulls from pages structured as an answer, with headings that match the question and specifics it can quote. A brochure page about a firm's proud heritage gives it nothing to work with.

This is why the same page structure serves both. A page with a plain question as its heading, a short direct answer, then the detail, is the format Google's AI results and the chat tools both favour. You are not writing for a robot. You are writing the way a good attorney answers a question in a first consultation: the answer first, then the caveats.

What does this look like in practice?

Take a firm doing labour law in Polokwane. Instead of "Labour Law" on a services page, they run four pages: unfair dismissal referrals, retrenchment consultations, CCMA representation, and disciplinary hearings for employers. Each one names the process, the timelines under the LRA, what documents matter, and what the firm charges to attend.

Four honest pages beat one polished paragraph every time. They also give the firm four things to send a prospective client, four entry points from search, and four pages a referring colleague can forward. The team page and the about page still matter for trust. They just aren't the pages that bring anyone in.

Our own audits keep finding the same gap: firms with 40 years of experience and six pages of website. The knowledge exists. It has never been written down anywhere a client can find it.

Won't publishing fees and process breach LPC advertising rules?

No. LPC advertising rules let you state who you are, what work you do, how you work and what you charge, as long as it is truthful and not misleading. What you cannot do is guarantee outcomes, claim to be the best, or make comparisons you can't support.

So "our fee for an uncontested divorce starts at R8,500 excluding disbursements" is fine if it's true and you say what's excluded. "The best divorce attorneys in Durban" is not. Publishing process and price is also the single fastest trust-builder on a law firm site, because almost nobody does it and every client wants it.

How long before new pages bring in work?

Expect three to six months for a new page to settle in search, sometimes faster in a small town with little competition. The pages start earning their keep immediately in other ways: your intake staff can send them, and prospective clients read them before they phone.

Build in order of value. The matter type you most want more of, in the town where you get the most of it, gets the first page. Then the next. Two proper pages a month is a realistic pace for a busy firm, and twelve months of that changes what your firm looks like online.

FAQs

How many pages should a small law firm website have? Enough to cover each service you want work in, plus a page per service-and-town combination that's worth having. For most small firms that means 10 to 25 pages, not five.

Is duplicate content a problem if my town pages are similar? Yes. Pages that repeat each other with the place name changed tend to be ignored, and they make your site look thin. Write each page for the place, or don't publish it.

Should each attorney have their own page? Yes, with real detail: admission year, matters they handle, courts they appear in, languages they consult in. Client-facing trust and search both benefit.

Can I just add a blog instead? A blog helps, but it doesn't replace service pages. Articles answer questions. Service pages are what someone reads when they're ready to instruct an attorney.

Who should write these pages? Someone who understands the matter. An attorney's rough notes, tidied up, beat a copywriter's guesswork. The detail is the value.

Where to start

Draw the grid. Your practice areas down the side, your towns across the top, then mark the boxes where you actually want more work. That grid is your build list, and it will be longer than your current website.

If you want a second opinion on which boxes matter, get a free visibility audit and we'll show you which pages your firm is missing and which competitors are holding those searches. You can also see how we work before you commit to anything.