How Long Does SEO Take for a Law Firm?

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At GAVL, one thing we often tell clients is that SEO is a “long-haul game”. Think of law firm SEO like a commercial truck that’s being driven across the country. Sure, that truck won’t leap over six states overnight. But what it will do is make slow but steady progress, delivering goods where they need to go, right on schedule.

SEO isn’t a fast and furious game. If it was, you probably wouldn’t be reading this. Heck, we wouldn’t have had to write this. In an industry that’s one of the most competitive and fiercest out there (yes, legal industry, I’m peering at you), SEO takes patience, effort, and a fair amount of experience.

With proper time spent and a solid investment placed in your firm’s website (in the truck metaphor, this would be the truck) and content that’s primed for SEO and AI search visibility, you can be well on your way to achieving your firm’s search reach goals. But how much time are we talking about exactly?

Here’s an example timeline of what to expect:

A Realistic Timeline for Law Firm SEO

• The First Month: Nothing moves this fast. This is when all the SEO pieces will initially be put into place. SEO and content goals will be set, an initial keyword list will be tracked, and site audits will be done to ensure everything is aimed at performing well for the long haul on a technical level.
• The Second Month: You’ll start to see early movements here that will mostly be due to new pages getting indexed into Google. Early indexing is key to solid SEO, but it’s important to remember that these early rankings will take a couple more months to fully settle. This is the ideal time to start building steady backlinks and pushing for more client reviews. Publishing regular new content is also key, as is continually improving the site’s internal link structure.
• The First 3-4 Months: The first big ranking movements you’ll start to see during this early period are often the lower-competing practice area pages. The general rule of thumb for legal SEO is that the more competition a practice area has, the longer that page will take to rank. On a personal injury site, for example, you may see pages like the boat accident page or the wrongful death page start to take off. This is a great sign and means everything is headed in the right direction.
• The First 5-6 Months: This is a good time to start closely evaluating ranking patterns and determining what changes and future content additions may be needed to boost pages that have higher competition. Some pages may need to be rewritten. Fresh content silos may need to be planned for.
• The First 7-12 Months: At this point, growth should be steady and consistent with the chain of fresh content being added regularly, steady backlink building, and steady brand and authority growth. Improvements should remain consistent.

Now, it’s important to remember that many, many factors can influence this timeline. This is just one example. Market disturbances, overall website health, domain age and history, algorithm shifts, and competition changes in your market and geographical area can all have a massive impact on the numbers and data you see.

One thing you’ve probably noticed is just how often we used the word “steady” in this example timeline. Steady like the turtle—or commercial truck traveling uphill in the snow—delivers that long-awaited win.

Tips for Waiting Out the Journey

Speaking of waiting, waiting is the hardest part of SEO. Seriously, we get it. It drives us nuts, too. Here are some suggestions and ideas for helping your SEO/marketing agency do their job the best they can while you both fight the good fight and accompanying waiting game:

• Double check that indexing takes place (meaning a page should appear in a Google search when you type the URL into the search bar) as early as possible for new pages.
• Help get new client reviews rolling in.
• Think about backlinks when taking part in local events, fundraisers, and press opportunities. All you have to do is ask for organizations to provide a link to your website.
• Provide fresh content ideas to your marketing and content team (speaking on a personal level, GAVL writers love new content ideas!)

For more ideas, you can check out a blog we wrote about how to best help your digital marketing agency.

Is your current agency not answering your questions about SEO and sharing plans and data with your firm about what they’re doing? Maybe it’s time for a switch.

Talk to GAVL today.