4 Website Mistakes That Can Undermine SEO for Law Firms
SEO stands for search engine optimisation. In simple terms, it means making your website easier for people to find when they search online for legal services.
A strong SEO strategy helps search engines understand what your law firm offers so it can show up in the right searches. When done well, it can lead to greater visibility, more traffic to your site, and more enquiries from potential clients.
Law firms often invest a lot of time and money into their websites, but still find that they are not appearing in search results or attracting new clients online. If that sounds familiar, it could be due to common but fixable issues affecting your site.
In this article, we explain how simple problems with your website might prevent it from working effectively. If you want more visibility, enquiries, and value from your website, the points below will help you get started.
1. When Your Law Firm’s Website Isn’t Mobile-Friendly
If your website is challenging to use on a smartphone, this could be costing you potential clients. Most legal clients now search for services on their phones. If your site does not load properly, has small text, or requires too much zooming and scrolling, users will leave quickly and search engines will notice.
A mobile-friendly site is an essential part of effective website design for lawyers. It also plays a significant role in legal SEO. A responsive site, one that adjusts smoothly to different screen sizes, is now a basic requirement for strong search rankings.
2. When Your Law Firm’s Website Has Orphaned Pages
An orphaned page is a page on your website that is not linked to from anywhere else on the site. That means visitors and search engines cannot easily find it.
For example, if you have a blog post about divorce proceedings but do not link to it from your “Family Law” page or your navigation menu, Google may not index it. This makes the content invisible in search results, which does not help your law firm's SEO efforts. All important pages should be linked from somewhere visible, such as the main menu or other related pages, so they contribute to your site's overall performance.
3. When Popups And Widgets Get in The Way
Popups such as chat boxes, newsletter forms, and review widgets can be useful. However, if they block too much of the screen, load too slowly, or are hard to close, they may harm user experience.
Search engines take note of how visitors interact with your site. If people leave quickly due to annoying pop-ups, your rankings can suffer. A simple and clear design is a key part of good SEO and website design for lawyers.
4. When Your Law Firm’s Website Has No Meta Titles and Descriptions
Most pages on your website should have a clear meta title and meta description. These are the short pieces of text that appear in search engine results and help users decide whether to click on your page.
If you do not add them, search engines will generate them from your page content. This often looks messy or unclear. Missing metadata also makes it harder for your content to rank. Each key page on your law firm’s website should have a unique meta title and description that accurately reflects the legal services you offer.
Recognising When Your Law Firm’s Website Has These Issues
It’s easy to overlook key aspects of your law firm’s website. However, taking time to check for simple things like missing page titles or unlinked pages can have a real impact on how easily your firm is found online.
You can use free tools like Google Search Console to spot problems. A professional SEO audit can also help identify practical improvements.
Do You Need to Redesign Your Entire Site to Improve SEO?
Not always. Good website design for lawyers does not necessarily mean starting from scratch. It means ensuring your site is fast, easy to navigate, mobile-friendly, and structured in a way that search engines can understand. Improving legal SEO is often about adjusting what you already have. Better internal linking, faster loading times, improved page titles, and clearer layouts can all make a big difference to how well your site performs.
Not Getting Found Online? We Can Change That
The goal of legal SEO is to help people find your firm when they are searching online. If your site is slow, cluttered, or hard to use on mobile, it could turn visitors away before they ever get in touch.
By fixing common problems such as non-mobile layouts, orphaned pages, intrusive widgets, and missing metadata, you give your site the best chance to succeed. These changes not only help search engines understand your site, but also make it more useful for potential clients.
Whether you are just getting started or want to improve what you already have, investing in SEO for your law firm is one of the most cost-effective ways to grow your practice. Get in touch at support@legalcontentsolutions.co.uk to see how we can help you.
