SEO for criminal lawyers, built around the charge and the court
We build a page for each offence and each office, written in plain English, so a person facing a charge finds your firm and can ring from the first page they open.
- $549 a month
- SEO for criminal lawyers, AUD, GST inclusive
- Month to month
- Added to the $298 website plan, cancel on 30 days notice
- Reported monthly
- Search Console and keyword reporting, in your monthly report
Search begins with the charge
A criminal lawyer is not found the way a plumber is. Nobody scrolls a list of firms for a pleasant afternoon. A person has been charged, or a person they love has, and the first search is about the thing itself. Drink driving. Driving while suspended. An apprehended violence order. What happens at a first court appearance.
Those searches are specific, and a general page cannot answer them. We start your SEO by listing the offences you actually handle and building one page for each. A reader should open it and see within a few lines that it describes their situation.
What an offence page contains
A good offence page says what the offence is in plain English, what the police have to prove, what a first appearance usually involves, and what the range of outcomes can be in general terms. It ends with how to reach a lawyer and what happens on the first call.
It does not say the charge will be dropped. It does not say a licence will be kept. Advertising by solicitors is regulated, and a promise a firm cannot guarantee is a risk to the firm and a false comfort to the reader. We write information and leave the advice to your lawyers. Every page goes to you for approval before it is published.
On the site we run for Karnib and Co, that came to nine criminal law pages and eleven traffic offence pages. Traffic matters get their own set because the reader is different. A person with a speeding or unlicensed driving matter wants to know about a penalty and a licence. A person facing a serious charge wants to know about a lawyer.
Courts and offices
People often add a town to the search. They name the court they have to attend, or the place they live. Each office needs a page with its address, map, phone number and the lawyers who work there. Karnib and Co has one for Wollongong and one for Liverpool. For criminal lawyer searches in each city, the average position moved to page one within about four and a half months of the rebuild. For Wollongong it went from about twelfth to ninth, and for Liverpool from about twentieth to ninth. Neither is in the top three, and we keep working on both.
If you travel to courts where you have no office, a page can still describe the courts you appear in. It should say so only if it is true.
Past matters, handled carefully
Prospective clients want to know that a firm has handled something like theirs. Past matters answer that. They also raise confidentiality and advertising questions that only the firm can settle. We help with the structure and the writing, and the decision about what to publish stays with you.
The Karnib and Co site carries thirteen past matters, each written with the outcome stated first and reviewed by the firm before it went live. We do not make up a case, and we do not borrow a result from another firm.
The page at eleven at night
Many enquiries arrive out of hours. The phone number sits at the top of every page and dials on a tap. The page states when someone answers. If nobody does, it says when you will call back and offers a short form with a name, a phone number or email, and a note about what happened.
Enquiries from calls and forms are recorded, so you can see which pages the enquiries came from. On the Karnib and Co site, they came to about eight a month from June to September. That is a record of one firm over one period, and it is not a forecast for another.
Your Business Profile and reviews
For searches that name a town, Google shows a map before the websites. We set up a profile for each office, with the right category and the hours the phone is answered. Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help a local ranking. How a criminal law firm asks for reviews, and what it can say in reply, depends on its professional obligations, so that part is yours to decide.
Month to month
You get a short report each month with the pages we added or changed, the searches the site appeared for and the enquiries recorded. The work is month to month, and what moved and what did not goes in the report either way.
How people look for a criminal lawyer
A person who has been charged rarely starts with the words criminal lawyer. They type the offence, such as drink driving or breach of an AVO, then the name of their court town, then a question about what happens next. They read on a phone, often late at night, and they open the pages that answer in plain words. The firm that wrote those pages is the one they ring.
The matters they bring
- Drink driving
- Traffic offences
- Bail applications
- AVOs
- Court representation
What they type into Google
- criminal lawyer near me
- drink driving lawyer
- avo lawyer
- bail application
Work we run for criminal lawyers
Karnib and Co is a criminal and traffic law firm in Wollongong and Liverpool. We built its site, host it and run its search work. The figures come from its own Search Console and analytics.
SEO for criminal lawyers: your questions
- What pages should a criminal lawyer's website have?
- One page for each offence you handle, one for each court or office you cover, a page for each lawyer, and a page of past matters if the firm is willing to publish them. Every page needs a phone number that dials on a tap. A reader in this position wants to talk to someone, and a long form is a reason to leave.
- Can a criminal lawyer publish past results?
- That is a question for the firm and its own professional guidance, because client confidentiality and the advertising rules both apply. On the Karnib and Co site, the past matters are written with the outcome up front and reviewed by the firm before they go live. We never invent a case or a result.
- How should a criminal law page talk about outcomes?
- Describe what the offence is and what usually happens in court, and leave the outcome out. A page should never suggest that a charge will be dropped or that a licence will be kept. Advertising by solicitors is regulated, so we write information, not promises.
- Do traffic offences need separate pages from criminal charges?
- Yes. People search for them differently. Someone caught speeding or driving unlicensed searches the offence, the penalty and the licence, while someone facing a serious charge searches for a lawyer. The Karnib and Co site has eleven traffic offence pages beside nine criminal law pages for this reason.
- Does a criminal lawyer need a Google Business Profile for each office?
- Yes, if the firm has offices in more than one place. A person types criminal lawyer and a town, and Google shows a map of nearby firms. Each office needs its own profile with the real address and the hours the phone is answered.
- How long before a criminal lawyer's site shows on page one?
- Nobody can promise a date or a position. On the Karnib and Co site, the average position for criminal lawyer searches in its two cities moved to page one within about four and a half months of the rebuild. Your result depends on your town and the firms already there.
- What about people who search for a lawyer late at night?
- The page they land on should show a number and say when it is answered. If your phone is staffed overnight, say so. If it is not, the page should say when you will ring back, so a person does not give up and call the next firm.
SEO for criminal lawyers, month to month.
$549 a month AUD, on top of the $298 website plan.