Link building for law firms, scoped for resellers
Law firms buy by city and by practice area, they worry about compliance, and they notice a bad link faster than most clients. Scope accordingly.
Where we land
Few pages, few links, tight relevance
A firm usually has five to ten pages that earn money: practice areas and location pages. Put the links there and nowhere else. Quantity pressure from the partner is the main risk to resist.
- Target practice-area pages first, the homepage second.
- Prefer donors in the legal, business or local niche with a matching language.
- Write the exclusions in the scope: no promise on case volume.
Why this vertical behaves differently
Legal queries are local and competitive. A personal injury firm in a mid-sized city does not compete with the whole country. Since the March 2024 core update, thin or scaled content has fared badly in Google results, so firms with real, specific pages have an edge.
That changes how you choose donors. A very high Domain Rating donor in an unrelated niche may add less than a modest local publication. The marketplace filters let you test both, so compare price and niche in the same view before deciding.
Compliance adds friction. Bar rules differ by jurisdiction, and some restrict how a firm may describe results or advertise. The article text goes under the firm's name, so have a lawyer approve claims, and use the own-article or own-instructions mode rather than the automatic one when wording matters.
Do not mention outcomes, awards or case results in the brief unless the firm supplies and approves them. We never invent those for you, and neither should a brief.
A first quarter for a small firm
- 1
Month one, audit the pages
List the money pages, check they are indexable in Search Console, and fix thin pages before buying anything.
- 2
Month one, buy two placements
Two relevant, mid-priced donors aimed at the strongest practice-area page. Review the articles carefully.
- 3
Month two, widen a little
Add a second practice-area page and a donor from a nearby market. Keep an eye on the firm's own enquiry data.
- 4
Month three, report honestly
Show delivery, indexing and Search Console movement. Say what you cannot attribute.
Pricing a law firm retainer
Legal marketing budgets run from small to very large. A solo practitioner might pay $500 a month, while a mid-sized firm may spend several thousand.
For the smaller case, an example: $600 a month, three placements at about $45, and four hours of your time. That leaves roughly $465 before time. About $116 an hour. See the margin tables for the same sums at other price points, and the scoping template to write them down.
Law firm donors tend to cost more, because legal and business sites with real readers charge accordingly. Do not assume the average catalogue price applies.
Plan time for approval cycles. Partners read drafts slowly, and a single edit round can push a placement into next month. Say so in the scope.
Law firm intake questions
- Which jurisdictions does the firm practise in, and which does it want to stay out of?
- Who must approve text that mentions results, fees or specialisms?
- Does the firm already list its address consistently, to the letter, across the web?
- Which two practice areas bring the most profit per case?
- Are there phrases the regulator, or the firm's insurer, forbids?
Questions we hear from resellers
- How many links does a law firm need per month?
- There is no magic number. A small firm in a mid-sized market often starts with two or three relevant placements a month and reviews after a quarter. Competitive cities and national practices need a larger plan.
- Is it risky to buy links for a law firm?
- Any paid link carries some risk because Google's guidelines frown on schemes meant to manipulate rankings. Reduce it with relevant donors, natural anchors and modest volume, and tell the firm plainly that no method is risk-free.
- What anchor text should the placement use?
- Mix branded, bare URL and a few descriptive anchors that fit the sentence. Avoid repeating an exact-match city and practice phrase everywhere, since that pattern looks engineered to a reader as much as to an algorithm.
- Can I cover several offices with one package?
- Yes, but scope each office as its own target page with its own count of placements. Pooling them hides the one location that never gets attention.