When it comes to SEO or Organic Search traffic, we can see a slight shift in the top players in the solicitors market:
The law firm Leigh Day drops a few positions, while Stephenson goes up in the list.
This shows that certain law firms in the solicitors market are utilising SEO more than others.
A key observation here is that most of the top players, such as Irwin Mitchell and Slater Gordon are still at the top when it comes to Search traffic. This means that a key part of their traffic generation strategy is SEO.
SEO Efforts
When it comes to Organic Search traffic we can see that both the top players have gained a consistent stream of Organic Search traffic throughout the past year:
Interestingly in both charts, we can see that these two top players are consistently well below the market average for Organic Search traffic. This suggests that other competitors in the market experience sharp increases in Organic Search traffic during specific months while these two top players consistently gain a decent amount of Organic Search traffic monthly.
Search Intent
Based on the top 30,000 solicitor related keywords, 41% of keywords have a commercial intent, while only 9% have a transactional intent:
When it comes to searching for solicitors online, the majority of users are looking for a specific service or type of solicitor. This gives all law firms big and small the opportunity to become more visible in the organic search results and increase their brand awareness for a specific area of the law.
While searches relating to conversions or users interested in contacting a law firm online are minimal. The good news is that transnational keywords are on an upward trend (see local search terms section) – This means that the likelihood of users converting into warm leads online is increasing in the solicitor sector.
- 💡 Search intent is the purpose of why people are searching for something online. As a solicitors firm, you want to make sure that your online leads are just as good as leads discovered offline.
- 💡 Commercial = The user wants to investigate or research a brand or service
- 💡 Informational = The user wants to find an answer to a question
- 💡 Navigational = The user is looking for a specific page or site
- 💡 Transactional = The user wants to complete an action/conversion
Top 30 Navigational Keywords
Top 30 Commercial Keywords
Top 30 Informational Keywords
Top 30 Transactional Keywords
Top Search Terms By Search Volume
The average monthly search volume of a keyword indicates the general interest for a particular keyword. A keyword with a high average monthly search volume means that the majority of people are searching for this keyword online.
Top 30 Search Terms By Search Volume
Over the past 12 months, the following solicitor related queries have been the most searched for terms in the Google search engine (Brand terms have been removed):
Conveyancing solicitors are the most searched for types of solicitors on Google search. Family law, medical negligence and divorce solicitors are also highly searched for online.
Top 30 Questions Asked By Search Volume
Over the past 12 months, the following questions relating to solicitors are the most searched for questions on Google search:
Based on this word cloud showing the top-asked questions on Google including the word “solicitor”, we can see that most people wonder what the role of a solicitor is, how much solicitors cost and how to become a solicitor.
Top 30 Brand Terms By Search Volume
In the current digital landscape, when someone is interested in a brand they are likely to search for that brand online to learn more about it.
Here are the top 30 most searched for brand terms on Google over the past 12 months:
The higher the average monthly search volume for a brand the more power it has in the market.
Top Solicitor Types
Based on the top 30,000 solicitor-related keywords, we can see that the most searched for type of solicitor is a Conveyancing solicitor, followed by family and divorce solicitors:
Top Traffic-Driving Search Terms
Top 20 Traffic-Driving Keywords
Over the past 12 months, here are the top traffic driving keywords in the solicitors market (based on top players):
Here the number one traffic-driving keyword is, no win no fee solicitors.
We can also see that the majority of traffic-driving search keywords are based on users searching for a particular type of solicitor, such as for family law, medical negligence and employment solicitors.
Brand Vs Non-Brand Search Terms
When it comes to branded vs non-brand search terms, the majority of law firms rank for non-branded search terms (nearly 83%):
Interestingly, when it comes to traffic-driving keywords, there is a near 50/50 split between branded and non-branded keywords. With 45% of traffic coming from branded queries and 55% coming from non-branded queries:
This shows the importance of ranking for non-branded queries in the search engines. Not only does it raise brand awareness, but it is also instrumental in traffic generation.
💡 Brand queries are search terms with a company name or website directly mentioned.
While non-branded queries are generic keywords, such as solicitors, costs calculator etc.
Trending Search Terms
Top 20 Trending Keywords
Here are the top 20 trending keywords in terms of growth in interest for the solicitors market (based on top players):
These keywords experienced the greatest growth in average search volume in the recent months.
The number one growing keyword is my diesel claim. This means that the diesel claim is a key issue impacting a number of people in the UK at the moment.
We can also see that search terms relating to divorce solicitors, medical negligence and family law are also currently trending in the solicitors market.
Local SEO
Local SEO is all about getting your website to rank at the top of the search results for local search terms, such as ‘near me’ searches or searches for a specific location.
Solicitor Near Me Searches
Over the past 5 years interest in finding local solicitors online has risen in the UK. For example, search interest for the term, ‘solicitor near me’ has risen from 38% in 2018 to 59% currently in 2023:
Interest for local solicitors has been more or less stable since 2020. In other words, local searches are still important in 2023, but there is no upward trend in interest. This suggests that users don’t mind whether a law firm is local or global, as long as their needs are met.
Local Trending Terms
When it comes to local SEO, the following ‘near me’ have experienced the greatest growth in interest over the last 5 years:
The majority of these trending local keywords relate to finding apprenticeships, free legal advice and will writing services.
With a few relating to family, conveyancing and personal injury law.
SERP Features
Search engines like Google are changing all the time to make it easier for people to find the answer that they are looking for. Over the years, various SERP (search engine result page) features have been introduced to Google to make it easier for searchers to find the answer they are looking for.
Here are the top SERP features for organic search results in the solicitors sector:
Based on the top 30,000 solicitor related keywords, over 21% of the keywords have organic search results which have a Reviews snippet:
14% of keywords include the People Also Ask snippet in the Organic search results page:
And over 14% of keywords have a Image Pack showing in the organic search results:
This SERP feature mostly relates to navigational intent keywords.
Trending SERP Features
Reviewing the SERP changes over the past month, we can see an upward trend in queries featuring a Video Carousel Snippet:
There is also an upward trend in queries featuring the Knowledge Panel, Twitter carousel and People also ask snippet:
This gives websites in the solicitors market an opportunity to make their search result snippet stand out in the Google search results by utilising these features.