The Docket — A Website Structure Built for Law Firms That Need to Rank
Most law firm websites are brochures. They look nice. They list practice areas. They have a contact page. And they're never found, because they weren't built to rank — they were built to look respectable.
The Docket is different. It's an SEO architecture specifically built for how people actually search for legal services in South Africa. Every page targets a specific practice area or location. Every page carries the right schema. Every page is wired into a deliberate internal linking structure that pushes authority to the work that brings in clients.
What The Docket Includes
Practice Area Pages (one per service)
Each page is optimised for a specific legal practice area combined with a location keyword. 'Divorce attorney Johannesburg' converts. 'Our services' does not. Every practice area you offer gets its own dedicated, ranking-focused page.
Location Pages (one per service area)
Each location page targets a specific suburb or city — Sandton, Pretoria, Cape Town, George — with locally relevant content, local landmarks, and city-specific calls to action. This is how you rank in suburbs your office isn't physically inside.
FAQ Schema on Every Page
Every page has structured FAQ data in JSON-LD format. Question-style queries trigger Google AI Overviews 84% of the time. Every FAQ on your site is a citation opportunity that puts your firm in front of AI answers.
Internal Linking Architecture
Pages link to each other in a deliberate hierarchy that passes authority from your homepage down to your most important practice area pages — and back up. No orphan pages. No wasted authority. No guesswork.
Mobile-First Design
The Docket is built responsive and fast from the ground up. Most legal searches happen on a phone, often urgently — at the police station, at the hospital, after the call from the other lawyer. Slow or clunky loses every time.
Schema Markup Throughout
Organisation, LocalBusiness, LegalService, FAQ, and BreadcrumbList schema — all implemented correctly on every relevant page. This is what Google AI and ChatGPT read to understand who you are and what you do.
The 30-Page Structure
The Docket is a roughly 30-page architecture, scaled to the size and focus of your firm. Here's how those pages typically break down:
• Homepage (1) — your entity hub, with primary practice area focus and city signal.
• About (1) — attorney bios, firm history, credentials, and trust signals.
• Contact + Free Consultation (2) — separate pages for general contact and a dedicated consultation booking flow.
• Practice Area Pages (8–12, depending on firm) — one ranking-focused page per service.
• Location Pages (5–8) — one page per suburb or city you serve.
• FAQ hub page (1) — central index of every question your prospects ask.
• Resources / Blog shell (1) — designed to expand into long-form authority content.
• Supporting service pages — privacy, terms, sitemap, and any niche service splits.
Why Structure Matters for AI
AI assistants don't rank websites. They cite entities. A firm with structured, schema-rich pages is roughly 3x more likely to be cited in Google AI Overviews than a firm with the same content but no schema or structure.
Every JSON-LD block, every FAQ section, every correctly-named practice area page is a signal that helps ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google AI understand who you are, where you operate, and which questions you can answer authoritatively. The Docket is built specifically to feed those signals.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you build the website from scratch or work with our existing site?
Both. If your current site is salvageable, we restructure it — new architecture, new schema, new internal linking, kept on your existing CMS where possible. If it's beyond repair (slow, broken, or built on a platform that blocks proper schema), we rebuild from scratch on a modern stack. We tell you honestly which makes sense after the audit.
How long does The Docket take to build?
A full Docket build typically takes 6–10 weeks from kickoff. That covers content briefs, copy, design, build, schema implementation, testing, and launch. Restructuring an existing site is usually faster (4–6 weeks). Practice area and location pages can roll out in waves so you start ranking sooner.
Is The Docket a template or custom for each firm?
The architecture is proprietary — the page types, schema patterns, and linking structure are the same proven framework. The content, design, and practice area focus are completely custom to your firm, your city, and your competitive market. No two Dockets read the same.
Get Your Free Visibility Audit
We'll audit your current site against The Docket framework and show you exactly what's missing.