Top 10 Free Things You Can Do for Your Law Site

Top 10 Free Things You Can Do for Your Law Site

By Website Optimization

Most advice about improving your law firm website assumes you have money to spend. Hire a developer. Buy a plugin. Subscribe to a tool. But there is a meaningful amount you can do today, right now, without spending anything. These ten improvements are ordered from easiest to most involved so you can start at the top and go as far as you have time for.

  1. Check Your Site on Your Phone

    More than 60% of people searching for a lawyer do it on a mobile device. If your website is hard to use on a phone, those people leave immediately. Most lawyers have never actually visited their own site from a phone the way a stranger would.

    Here is how to do it properly:

    1. Pick up your phone and open a browser (Chrome or Safari, whichever you use most).
    2. Type your website address fresh into the address bar. Do not use a bookmark, because bookmarks can serve cached versions and skip redirects.
    3. Ask yourself: Can I read the text without zooming in? Does the menu open and close? Is the phone number tappable (it should automatically open your dialer when tapped)? Does the contact form display properly and submit without issues?
    4. Scroll through every page that matters: your homepage, your attorney bio, your practice areas, and your contact page.
    5. If anything looks broken, pinched, or hard to use, make a note. Those are your highest-priority fixes.

    This costs nothing and takes five minutes, but most lawyers have never done it.

  2. Ask Three Happy Clients for a Google Review

    Google reviews are one of the strongest local trust signals your firm has. A profile with a dozen recent reviews consistently outperforms one with none, even if every other aspect of the site is technically better. You do not need a campaign or a tool. You just need to ask.

    Here is how to get your review link and send it:

    1. Go to business.google.com and sign in with the Google account associated with your firm.
    2. Select your firm from the list if you manage more than one profile.
    3. In your dashboard, find the button labeled "Ask for reviews" or "Get more reviews" and click it. Google will generate a short direct link to your review form.
    4. Copy that link.
    5. Send it personally to three or four clients you know had a positive experience. A simple text or email that says "I would really appreciate it if you had a moment to leave us a Google review, here is the link" is genuinely all it takes.

    A few important notes: do not offer anything in exchange for reviews, do not ask clients whose matters are still open, and never write or edit reviews yourself. All of those create bar ethics issues in addition to violating Google's policies.

  3. Check Your SSL Certificate Expiry Date

    Every website that starts with "https" has an SSL certificate that encrypts the connection between your site and your visitors. These certificates expire on a fixed date. When one expires, every visitor to your site sees a large red warning screen saying your site is "Not Secure." Most people leave immediately, and fixing it can take hours or days depending on your hosting provider.

    Here is how to check yours right now:

    1. Open your website in Chrome or any modern browser on a desktop computer.
    2. Look at the address bar. You should see a small padlock icon to the left of your web address.
    3. Click the padlock. A small popup will appear showing your connection status.
    4. Click "Connection is secure" (Chrome) or the equivalent in your browser. Then click "Certificate is valid."
    5. A panel will open showing your certificate details. Look for the line that says "Valid until" or "Expires on" and note the date.
    6. If your certificate expires within the next 30 days, contact your hosting company now to confirm auto-renewal is set up, or renew it manually.

    Alternatively, go to whynopadlock.com, enter your domain name, and it will tell you exactly when your certificate expires along with whether it is installed correctly.

  4. Check That Your Name, Address, and Phone Are Consistent Everywhere

    Google cross-references your firm's name, address, and phone number (commonly called NAP) across your website, Google Business Profile, Yelp, Avvo, FindLaw, your state bar directory, and dozens of other places you may appear online. When these details are inconsistent, even something as minor as "Suite 200" versus "Ste. 200" or a phone number that changed two years ago still listed on an old directory, it creates confusion for Google and can suppress your local search visibility.

    Here is how to audit yours:

    1. Open a notes app or document and write down your firm's exact legal name, full address (including suite number formatted exactly as you want it everywhere), and primary phone number. This is your master reference.
    2. Google your firm name and look at every listing that appears in the results: your website footer, your Google Business Profile, Yelp, Avvo, FindLaw, Justia, your state bar directory, and any other directories you recognize.
    3. Compare the name, address, and phone number on each one against your master version. Note any discrepancies.
    4. Log in to each directory where something is wrong and correct it. Most let you claim and edit your listing for free.
    5. For your Google Business Profile, go to business.google.com, click "Edit profile," and verify every field matches your master version exactly.

    This is tedious work, but it is one of the highest-return free tasks in local SEO.

  5. Add Your City and Practice Area to Your Page Titles

    Your page title is the text that appears in the browser tab and as the blue clickable headline in Google search results. It is one of the most important signals Google uses to understand what a page is about and where it is relevant. Most law firm websites have titles like "Home" or "Attorney at Law" that tell Google almost nothing useful.

    A title like "Chicago Family Law Attorney | Smith Legal Group" tells Google your location, your practice area, and your firm name in one line. That matters significantly when someone searches "family law attorney chicago."

    Here is how to update yours:

    1. Log in to your website platform (WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, or whatever you use).
    2. Go to your homepage. Look for an "SEO" settings panel, a field labeled "Page Title" or "Title Tag," or in WordPress, a plugin like Yoast SEO or RankMath that manages this.
    3. Update your homepage title to follow this format: [Primary Practice Area] Attorney in [City] | [Firm Name]. For example: "Personal Injury Attorney in Denver | Hartley Law Firm."
    4. Repeat for each practice area page. A page about criminal defense should say "Criminal Defense Attorney in Denver | Hartley Law Firm," not just "Criminal Defense."
    5. Keep each title under 60 characters where possible. Google truncates anything longer in search results, cutting off the end of your title.

    If you cannot find where to edit page titles, search your platform's help center for "how to edit page title" along with your platform's name.

  6. Write a Real Meta Description for Your Homepage

    The meta description is the two-line summary that appears below your page title in Google search results. It does not directly affect your ranking, but it directly affects whether people click your result. A blank or auto-generated description gets replaced by Google with random text pulled from your page, which often looks incomplete or confusing. A clear, well-written description can meaningfully improve how many people click through to your site.

    Here is how to write and add one:

    1. Think of your meta description as a two-sentence pitch for your firm. It should tell a potential client what you do, where you practice, and what to do next. Keep it under 160 characters or Google will cut it off.
    2. A good example for a family law firm: "Experienced family law and divorce attorney serving Austin, TX. Free consultations available. Call or contact us online today."
    3. Log in to your website platform and find the same SEO settings section where you updated your page title in the previous step.
    4. Look for a field labeled "Meta Description" and enter your description.
    5. Save the page. It may take a few days for Google to update what it shows in search results, but you can preview how it will look immediately using Google's Rich Results Test.

  7. Add Alt Text to Your Headshot and Key Images

    Alt text is a short description attached to an image that screen readers use to describe the image to visually impaired visitors, and that Google uses to understand what the image depicts. Images without alt text are essentially invisible to both. Your headshot, your office photo, and any image on your homepage that represents your firm should all have descriptive alt text.

    Here is how to add it:

    1. Log in to your website platform and navigate to any page with images you want to update.
    2. Click on an image to select it.
    3. Look for a field labeled "Alt Text," "Alternative Text," or "Image Description." In WordPress, this appears in the image block settings in the right-hand panel when an image is selected. In Squarespace, right-click the image and select "Edit." In Wix, click the image and select "Settings."
    4. Write a plain description of what is in the image. For your headshot, something like "Jane Smith, family law attorney in Austin, Texas" works well. It describes the image and naturally includes your name and location.
    5. Avoid stuffing keywords. Alt text that reads "best lawyer attorney legal services austin texas law firm" is worse than no alt text. Just describe the image honestly.
    6. Repeat for every significant image on your site.

  8. Add a Privacy Policy if You Do Not Have One

    If your website uses Google Analytics, a contact form, or any tool that collects visitor data (and nearly every website does), you are legally required to disclose that in most jurisdictions. Google also treats a privacy policy as a trust signal, and some advertising platforms will not serve ads to sites without one. A basic privacy policy takes about ten minutes to generate for free.

    Here is how to do it:

    1. Go to privacypolicygenerator.info or termsfeed.com/privacy-policy-generator. Both are free.
    2. Follow the prompts. You will be asked for your website name, URL, what types of data you collect (check Google Analytics if you use it, and contact forms), and your contact email address.
    3. Copy the generated policy text.
    4. In your website platform, create a new page titled "Privacy Policy."
    5. Paste the policy into the page and publish it.
    6. Add a link to the Privacy Policy page in your website footer. It does not need to be prominent, just accessible from every page on the site.

    A generated privacy policy is not a substitute for one reviewed by a lawyer (yes, the irony), but for a basic law firm site that uses standard analytics and a contact form, it is substantially better than having none at all.

  9. Claim and Complete Your Google Business Profile

    Your Google Business Profile is the information panel that appears on the right side of Google when someone searches your firm name, and the listing that shows up when someone searches for attorneys on Google Maps. It is completely free and is often the first thing a potential client sees before ever visiting your website. Many law firms have an unclaimed or incomplete profile that Google auto-generated from public data.

    Here is how to claim and complete yours:

    1. Go to business.google.com and sign in with a Google account.
    2. Type your firm name into the search box. If your firm appears in the suggestions, click it. If you see a "Claim this business" option, follow the prompts to claim it. If your firm does not appear at all, click "Add your business to Google" to create a new profile.
    3. Select your primary business category. For most law firms, "Law Firm" is the right choice. You can add more specific secondary categories (like "Personal Injury Attorney" or "Criminal Justice Attorney") after the initial setup is complete.
    4. Verify your business. In 2026, Google most commonly uses video verification for new or unclaimed profiles. You will be prompted to record a short video on your phone showing your office entrance, your interior, and any signage. Follow the on-screen instructions exactly. Verification typically takes one to three business days to process.
    5. Once verified, fill in every section of your profile completely: business hours, phone number, website URL, a description of your firm (up to 750 characters), your services, and at least a few photos of your office. Profiles that are fully completed receive significantly more engagement than sparse ones.

    If you are unsure whether your profile has already been claimed by a former employee or a marketing agency, search your firm name in Google Maps. If you see a "Claim this business" button, it is unclaimed. If you only see a "Suggest an edit" option with no claim link, someone else currently owns it and you will need to request an ownership transfer through the Google Business Profile help process.

  10. Submit Your Sitemap to Google Search Console

    Google Search Console is a free tool from Google that shows you exactly how your website appears in search results, which pages are indexed, and whether there are any technical problems affecting your visibility. Submitting your sitemap tells Google precisely which pages exist on your site so it can find and index them faster and more reliably. Most law firm websites have never done this.

    Here is how to set it up from scratch:

    1. Go to search.google.com/search-console and sign in with a Google account.
    2. Click "Add property" and enter your full website address including https:// at the start (for example, https://smithlegalgroup.com). Select the "URL prefix" option and click "Continue."
    3. Google needs to verify you own the site. The easiest method is the "HTML tag" option. Google gives you a small piece of code that you paste into the head section of your website. If you are on WordPress, the free Google Site Kit plugin handles this entire process automatically without touching any code.
    4. Once your site is verified, look at the left-hand sidebar and click "Sitemaps" under the "Indexing" section.
    5. In the "Add a new sitemap" text box, type sitemap.xml (Google pre-fills your domain, so you are just adding the filename after your URL).
    6. Click "Submit." Google will confirm it received your sitemap. Come back in a day or two and check the status column. It should show "Success" in green, which means Google is actively using your sitemap to crawl your site.

    If you are not sure whether your website has a sitemap at all, open a new browser tab and visit yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml. If a page of structured code appears, your sitemap exists and you are ready to submit it. If you get a "page not found" error, your platform may not have generated one and you may need to create it first through a plugin or your platform's settings.

Bonus: Register Your Personal Domain Name

This one costs a small amount (typically $10-$15 per year for registration) but it earns a spot here because almost no lawyers do it and the long-term value is significant. Register firstlast.com using your actual first and last name as your personal domain, even if you do nothing with it beyond a simple one-page bio with your photo and a link to your firm's website.

The format matters: firstlast.com, no middle name, no middle initial, no dashes. "janesmithlaw.com" or "jane-smith.com" are fine as fallbacks, but "janesmith.com" is the version worth owning. It is the one people will type from memory, the one that looks right on a business card, and the one Google reads as a direct match when someone searches your name. Every character you add (a middle initial, a suffix, a hyphen) creates friction and dilutes the signal. If your first and last name combined are already taken as a .com, check whether the owner is actively using it before settling for an alternative. Many registered domains sit parked and can be purchased directly from the owner.

Your name is your most durable professional asset. Firm names change, partnerships end, and people move between organizations. Your name stays with you throughout your career. Owning firstlast.com means you control what appears when someone searches specifically for you, whether that is a potential client doing due diligence before picking up the phone, a judge, a journalist, or a referral source. Without it, that result is entirely determined by whatever third parties have published about you.

Here is how to check availability and register it:

  1. Go to namecheap.com or spaceship.com and search for firstlast.com using your actual name (for example, janesmith.com).
  2. If it is available, register it. A .com is the only extension worth prioritizing for a name-based domain. Alternatives like .attorney or .law are fine to grab as extras, but they are not substitutes.
  3. If your exact name is taken and actively in use, the next best option is firstlastlaw.com or firstlastesq.com. Do not use a hyphen (jane-smith.com) and do not include a middle name or initial. Both make the domain harder to remember and harder to rank for your name.
  4. Even if you are not ready to build a page yet, register the domain so no one else can claim it. You can build it out whenever you are ready.

When you do build it out, a simple page with your photo, a short bio, your practice areas, your bar admissions, and a link to your firm website is completely sufficient. It does not need to be elaborate. It just needs to exist, to be accurate, and to be yours.

SEO Free Tools Google Business Profile Website Tips Local SEO