How Much Does Law Firm SEO Cost: Pricing 2024

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Last updated Feb 6, 2024

You can expect to pay anywhere from $3,000 to $15,000 per month to a lawyer SEO agency. The exact cost will depend on where your law firm’s website rankings stand, the competition in your locality, and your practice area. In a small market, you may pay even under $3k per month, but a more realistic estimate for a competitive practice like personal injury is around $5,000 per month.

Let’s understand this SEO pricing’s impact on your law firm business, how to decide what will work for you, and what you should pay.

What Affects the Law Firm SEO Cost

So, first thing first, let’s figure out what factors influence law firm SEO costs.

Competition in Your Law Firm’s Practice Area

It’s a no-brainer that to improve anything or make it work the best, you first need to have an understanding of its current state. The same goes for SEO.

So, whoever you get for your law firm SEO services from will first assess your current SEO standing – clients often approach SEO experts at various stages of their SEO journey – your strategy will depend on your unique situation.

For instance, a firm launching a brand-new law firm’s website will need an initial focus on laying a solid SEO foundation—a critical factor for attracting potential clients.

In contrast, established law firm websites, while benefiting from their age, might have low SEO quality. Here your SEO professional will need to allocate resources to rectify existing issues before they can begin the optimization for ranking.

Once the groundwork is done, they’ll analyze the competition to understand what strategies are propelling them to the top positions. And that’s when the real game of getting you on top or outranking the competition will begin.

The Size of Your Market

While analyzing your competition, you also need to consider the size of your target market and the number of practice areas you serve. These two significantly impact your budget.

If you take the bustling metropolises like New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, or Miami into account, the legal landscape is fiercely competitive there.

With larger populations and a higher concentration of law firms, you contend for the attention of prospects while striving to outshine your other legal peers. This heightened competition makes ranking in local search results and organically more challenging, especially for keywords associated with common practice areas, where keyword difficulty is notably high.

Besides that, the more specialized areas of law you need to promote, the more complex and multifaceted your SEO campaigns become. That’s because you’ll need to create tailored strategies for each practice area you serve.

But that’s not all. If your law firm has multiple office locations, your SEO cost will intensify even more.

The reason for this is that to achieve optimal rankings and attract leads, every location requires dedicated website pages, unique content, citations, and more. So, your law firm’s marketing agency will need to manage each office location’s SEO akin to different law firms individually.

The Expertise and Experience of the Agency You Hire

The expertise and experience of the SEO firm you choose can be pivotal factors.

Typically, SEO companies charge an average retainer rate of $1,500+ if they’ve been in business for two years or less, which increases to $2,000+ for those with over two years of experience. This price variation reflects the correlation between experience and results; more experienced agencies tend to deliver better outcomes.

You can also look for a provider that has specific experience in your legal field. But such premier SEO firms – the ones specializing in specified practice areas let’s say personal injury law – would command higher fees as much as $10,000 to $15,000. In such cases, opting for an agency, like On the Map Marketing, that specializes in legal SEO rather than specialized practice areas can prove more cost-effective and beneficial.

Components of a Law Firm SEO Package

So, what exactly your SEO package should include?

SEO Strategy

This is where it all begins. Crucially, your SEO law firm plan should align with your objectives. If your agency crafts an ambitious strategy to rank your law firm for every practice area you serve, the costs can spiral.

Collidu shows it in a quick infographic:

But if they take a more pragmatic approach like initially focusing on your primary practice area, gauging results, and then expanding to other areas, it can be cost-effective and ensure a tangible ROI.

But let me just inform you that cost-cutting with excessively cheap SEO, starting as low as $50 or $100, can lead to collateral damage that might result in Google penalties. Such shortcuts may necessitate even greater expenditures later to rectify issues before implementing an effective SEO strategy.

So, make sure that you find the right balance in your SEO strategy so you can optimize both your online visibility and your budget.

Local SEO

Local SEO is a vital component of any comprehensive law firm SEO package.

It’s the strategy that zeroes in on potential clients within a specific geographical area. The proximity factor is critical here. For instance, if your law firm is situated far from the city center, ranking for terms like “divorce lawyer near me” can be an uphill battle.

Google tends to favor nearby results, and breaking into the top three can be challenging. Unless you establish a presence in the city region or nearby, achieving prominent local search rankings will require you to make a substantial investment.

Besides that, Google considers offline prominence as a ranking factor too–the more reliable people consider you in the offline world, the easier it may be for you to rank higher.

So, if you put effort into building a reputation in the real world through activities like hosting events, sponsorships, community involvement, and interviews, it can significantly boost your online presence. In fact, it not only enhances your law firm’s authority but can also reduce your overall SEO costs.

But if you don’t actively engage in offline marketing, it could make ranking your law firm more challenging, increasing your SEO expenses

On-Page SEO

It’s more than just content; it’s about creating legal content that drives traffic to your site, truly resonates with your audience, and converts web visitors into promising leads.

It’s directly related to keyword research and competitor analysis. The keywords your prospects are searching for and what strategies are your competitors using that’s driving traffic to their sites? Can those keywords work for you?

But to rank for them, you need exceptional content optimized for those keywords. A standard-length article, tailored to engage your audience, typically costs between $200 and $500. And you’ll want at least four such pieces each month.

The majority of firms offer you a package that covers different options for different prices.

Regardless, it’s easier to understand the offerings when you have at least the surface knowledge of what it requires. So, here’s a quick checklist from Wordstream for on-page optimization

Off-Page SEO

It can make or break your online presence.

But, here’s the kicker: You might stumble upon deals that seem too good to be true, like link building for less than a Benjamin. But beware! These providers offering ultra-low rates often use black-hat tactics, potentially putting your website’s reputation on the line.

While trusted and genuine off-page SEO providers play by the rules, employing white-hat, spam-free tactics. They may charge a bit more, but that’s because they’re committed to building your off-page SEO the right way. It includes original, link-worthy content, outreach, promotion, and link analysis.

A quick off-page SEO checklist from Semrush.

Technical SEO

It takes your online presence to new heights.

Think of it as the meticulous detective work that your website needs. For instance, your law firm website can be all good but still doesn’t rank because of some hidden issues. They can be anything from broken links frustrating potential clients to slow loading speeds making your web visitors bounce away.

A Technical SEO audit figures them out and enables you to fix them. It includes:

• SSL application
• A deep dive into technical intricacies
• Creating and submitting XML sitemaps for search engines to find you easily
• Speeding up your website load times
• Optimizing those hefty image files
• Crafting a mobile-friendly version of your site for on-the-go clients
• Eliminating the dreaded broken links
• Purging mixed and duplicate content issues
• A thorough detox to identify and disavow toxic backlinks.

How to Evaluate the ROI of SEO for Your Law Firm

To determine the true value of your SEO investment for your law firm, you’ll need to consider the overall investment: cost to the SEO experts, in-house resources, any tools that you’re paying for, or offline marketing techniques you’re spending on based on the SEO strategy your SEO expert has created.

In keeping with that check the numbers. How much has your organic traffic increased, are you ranking for the right keywords–for instance, is your website more visible for terms that offer free legal advice or give away templates or keywords like “divorce lawyer near me” or “slip and fall attorney?” The latter will bring more business for your law firm than the former.

You’d also want to know the conversion rate–how many of these web visitors are converting into leads and eventually into clients. Then, tally up the cost of acquiring those valuable clients with the investments you’ve made.

Choose the Right SEO Agency For Your Budget

Finally, when it comes to picking the perfect SEO agency for your budget, remember this: while SEO providers may offer “affordable SEO,” you want to settle with the right fit. You want the SEO pricing to provide you the best value for money.

Look for an agency with a solid track record of delivering results for law firms. If they’ve helped clients in your practice area, that’s a huge plus. Check their client success stories, ratings, and reviews on business listings and Google Business accounts.

Want to know the exact cost for your law firm’s SEO campaign? Contact us for a free audit and an estimate.