How long does law firm SEO take? An honest answer

What Google itself says

Google has a help page called “Do you need an SEO?” In a 2017 video Google added to that page, Maile Ohye of Google says that in most cases an SEO needs “four months to a year” to first make improvements and then see potential benefit.

Note the two steps. First the work gets done. Then Google has to find it, and results build from there. Even the crawling part is not instant. Google says “crawling can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks,” and asking for a crawl does not guarantee a page will show up at all.

Do this: plan your budget for at least a year. If you can only afford three months, put that money somewhere that pays faster, like ads, and start SEO when you can stay with it.

Why it’s faster for some firms than others

“Four months to a year” is a wide range. Where your firm lands depends on a few things:

• Practice area and city. “Car accident lawyer Los Angeles” is one of the hardest searches there is. “Landlord attorney Pomona” has far fewer firms fighting for it.
• Site age. A site that has been online for years, with a clean history, usually moves faster than a brand-new domain.
• What already exists. If you already have solid practice-area pages and reviews, the work is improving. If you have a five-page site, the work is building.
• Links. Links from bar associations, local news and directories tell Google other people trust you. Earning them takes time.
• Content. Pages that answer real client questions, checked by an attorney, take time to write well.

Do this: ask your agency to show you which firms rank today for your top searches, and what those firms have that you don’t. That gap is your real timeline.

What usually moves first

In our experience, some work tends to show results sooner than the rest:

• Google Business Profile and Maps. Google says local results are based mainly on relevance, distance and how well-known a business is, and that more reviews and positive ratings can help. A complete profile with steady, real reviews often helps before the website does. See our Google Business Profile guide.
• Technical fixes. Pages Google couldn’t read, broken links, a slow site, missing titles. Fixing these removes the brakes.
• Long-tail pages. Narrow searches like “what to do after a Lyft accident in Long Beach.” Fewer firms compete for them, and the people searching often know what they need.

Do this: run our free website check to see the technical problems first. They are usually the quickest wins.

What takes longer

The big, short searches – “personal injury lawyer” plus your city – usually come last. Every strong firm in town wants them, and many have years of links and content behind them.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. It means they shouldn’t be the only thing you measure. A firm can sign plenty of cases from Maps and specific pages long before it reaches page one for the hardest term.

Do this: treat head terms as the long game. Build strong practice-area pages and real local pages, and let them earn their way up.

What to measure, month by month

Rankings alone won’t tell you if SEO is working. In our experience, signs show up roughly in this order:

1. Early: the work is done and you can see it. Technical issues fixed, pages published, profile complete. Pages appear in Google Search Console as indexed.
2. Next: impressions grow. More people see your pages in search, even before many click.
3. Then: clicks and Maps actions grow. More website visits, calls and direction requests from your profile.
4. Finally: signed cases. Track every call and form back to its source, and mark which became clients.

Do this: ask for a monthly report that shows work done, impressions, clicks, calls and signed cases. If a report only shows keyword positions, ask for the rest.

Red flags when someone promises speed

Google is direct about this: “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.” The same page says to beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings or claim a “special relationship” with Google.

Watch for:

• Guaranteed #1 or page-one rankings by a date
• “Results in 30 days” for competitive searches
• Hundreds of pages or links delivered in the first month
• No clear list of what was changed on your site
• Reports with rankings but no calls or cases

Shortcuts like bought links and copy-paste pages can hurt more than help. We cover them in 7 SEO mistakes law firms make.

Do this: ask any agency what results they expect, in what timeframe, and how they will measure it. Google suggests asking exactly that. Our list of questions to ask a marketing agency has more.

Want help with this? See SEO for law firms.

Written by Sevag Boghossian

Sevag is the founder of araRank and a web developer with 6 years in law firm marketing and SEO. He builds every site we make, from Los Angeles.

About Sevag →