79 Legal Marketing Statistics for 2024

Many law firms and solo practitioners have already started exploring new, non-traditional ways to promote their services. To illustrate this trend, we’ve compiled a list of key law firm marketing statistics for 2024. Read on to discover what legal firms prioritize in their online marketing strategies and which channels generate the most revenue and leads.

General Law Firm Marketing Statistics

Lawyers are starting to invest more budget in digital marketing strategies to get seen by more clients. Some of the tactics they use revolve around website optimization, social media posting, email marketing, and paid ads.

While the majority see positive results from their efforts, it seems like certain channels may not be worthy of investment. We’ll cover all of these channels in the later sections but, for now, let’s look at the general legal marketing statistics:

1. 58% of law firms and solo practitioners use marketing strategies to promote their services. (ABA)
2. 74% believe their firm has wasted money on marketing campaigns that don’t bring high returns on investment. (CallRail)
3. 55% of law firms use call recordings to inform their marketing strategy and messaging. (CallRail)
4. 32% of respondents said that only one lawyer has access to their law firm website analytics. (ABA)
5. 65% of lawyers don’t know which metrics to measure and track in their marketing campaigns (CallRail)
6. 42% of law firms are basing their marketing budgets on data from reporting tools. (CallRail)
7. 30% of responders said they use video marketing in their strategy. (ABA)
8. 58% of legal firms noticed that the lack of marketing effort hurts their performance in the market. (CallRail)
9. 40% of respondents said they use email marketing for their law firms. (ABA)
10. 83% of lawyers hire outside teams to take care of their marketing needs. (CallRail)
11. 45% of legal firms spend money on tactics like remarketing to reach out to leads that didn’t convert. (CallRail)

Law Firm SEO Statistics

Search engines are where many people start when they need a lawyer. A recent survey shows that 64% of people go to Google to find legal help. Most are looking specifically at the first positions to hire personal injury or accident lawyers near them.

It’s no wonder now that SEO for law firms ranks second for driving leads, according to CallRail’s research. What this means for lawyers is that they need to prioritize search engine optimization in their marketing. Let’s look at the legal marketing statistics that back this up:

1. 28% of legal businesses outsource SEO to an agency or a consultant. (ABA)
2. Organic search drives as much as 66% of call conversions in the legal industry. (RulerAnalytics)
3. 74% of law firms said they have a mobile-friendly website. (ABA)
4. 33% of respondents said they’ve claimed their listing on Avvo. Most of them (61%) did it to improve their visibility in search results. (ABA)
5. 25% of legal experts saw a positive law firm marketing ROI on their SEO efforts. (Justia)
6. Most legal businesses consider website optimization as their top online marketing strategy. (CallRail)
7. 27% of law firms think Google Business Profile is a key channel for brand awareness. (CallRail)
8. It takes around 14 months for law firms to break even on their SEO investments. (FirstPageSage)
9. Law firms see an average 21% increase in organic traffic annually from their SEO efforts. (FirstPageSage)
10. The visitor-to-lead conversion rate across firms is approximately 7.4%. (FirstPageSage)
11. The cost per SEO lead averages $456. (FirstPageSage)
12. The 3-year ROI for an average law firm is around 526%. (FirstPageSage)
13. Keywords in the legal field tend to be pricier than in any other industry. (Semrush)
14. Only 44% of law firms have SSL security on their websites. (ABA)

Legal Marketing Statistics in Local SEO

Most lawyers serve clients within a certain area, so local SEO should definitely be a priority in your law firm’s marketing strategies. In short, local optimization helps you get in front of people looking for legal services right in your neighborhood.

Say you’re a personal injury attorney in Chicago. When someone nearby searches for “personal injury lawyer in Chicago” or “lawyer near me,” you want your business to show up at the top of those search results and in the local map pack.

Additionally, it’s a good idea to get listed on legal directories, such as Justia and Avvo, where people are commonly looking for lawyers. Here are some key stats that prove why local SEO is a must for law firms:

1. 93% of the time Google’s local 3-pack shows up before regular search results, if there’s a local search intent. (SearchEngineJournal)
2. 28% of lawyers said showing up in legal directories helped them attract more clients. (Justia)
3. Law firms that appear in local packs can get about 44% of user clicks. (Neil Patel)
4. Businesses and law firms that rank in Google’s local pack can see up to a 400% increase in views and a 113% boost in clicks. (Uberall)
5. 58.2% of lawyers used lawyer directories to market their firms. (Justia)
6. 23.4% believe lawyer directories will play a big role in attracting new clients. (Justia)
7. Location-based searches such as “law firm near me” have seen a significant increase in recent years, with “near me” searches growing by over 900%. (ThinkWithGoogle)
8. 50% of people who search locally for businesses like lawyers on their mobile visit an office within 24 hours. (ThinkWithGoogle)

Content Marketing Statistics for Law Firms

Although content marketing may sound like a trend that only big companies use, it’s actually a winning ticket for small businesses to attract potential clients. Not only that, it also helps law firms to build trust with visitors and showcase their legal expertise.

When we talk about content marketing for lawyers, the first thing that comes to mind is a legal blog. Respondents from several surveys confirmed that it’s their primary source of leads, while some also mentioned that they had the highest ROI from it. With that being said, let’s look at the key legal marketing statistics:

1. 78.2% of lawyers said their firm used a website for marketing in the past year. (Justia)
2. 10.6% think having a legal blog is a great way to engage with clients. (Justia)
3. 54% of survey respondents said they post legal articles on their site. (ABA)
4. 47% of lawyers share their case successes on their websites. (ABA)
5. 35% believe their website has directly led to client retention. (ABA)
6. 29% of law firm websites noted that clients found them through their blogging efforts. (ABA)
7. 33% of respondents say their law firms have a blog. (ABA)
8. 64.7% of law firms said their website generates the highest return on investment. (Justia)

Social Media Marketing Statistics for Lawyers

Social media marketing for law firms is an effective tool that helps them stay visible, and connect with potential clients. This channel also seems to be the most popular, only 16% of respondents said they were not active there.

The best part? It’s free. Platforms like LinkedIn give you a space to share your legal expertise and engage with people who may need your legal services. If you’re thinking of adding social media to your firm’s marketing efforts, here are a few stats to consider:

1. 85% of responders say social media is part of their marketing strategy. (AttorneyAtWork)
2. Over 30% of firms have landed clients either directly or through referrals thanks to their social media presence. (AttorneyAtWork)
3. 77% of law firm owners say LinkedIn is their favored marketing platform. (AttorneyAtWork)
4. 39% of law firms are outsourcing social media marketing. (CallRail)
5. 71% say social media is “somewhat” or “very” responsible for bringing in new clients. (AttorneyAtWork)
6. 80% of solo practitioners do most of their social media efforts themselves rather than outsourcing it. (AttorneyAtWork)
7. 57% of law firms use Facebook daily, while 33% are active on Twitter to promote their services. (ABA)
8. 43% of respondents reported using social media platforms for marketing. Less popular methods included billboards (3.6%), print ads (7.3%), and podcasts (5.5%). (Justia)

Legal Advertising Statistics

Paid advertising is probably the quickest way to attract prospective clients to your law firm, but it can also be expensive. One of the benefits of pay-per-click ads is that they let you target clients searching for particular legal services. This makes your marketing more focused and helps you get more leads.

For instance, if you run a family law firm, you can use PPC to reach people searching for a “child custody attorney” or “divorce lawyer” in your area. Even though paid advertising is widely used, many law firm marketers are starting to doubt its effectiveness. On that note, let’s take a look at the legal marketing statistics related to ads:

1. 97% of legal professionals who use PPC said that it’s too expensive to get a good ROI. (CallRail)
2. 58% of all traffic in the legal space is generated by paid search. (RulerAnalytics)
3. 75% of law firms say they would use PPC in their strategy if they had a bigger budget. (CallRail)
4. 23% of lawyers use Google Ads to attract new clients. (Justia)
5. 28% of law firms consider Facebook Ads the top platform for paid social, with Google Ads following at 19%. (AttorneyAtWork)

Legal Marketing Statistics for Law Firms’ Budget

Both big and small legal practices know that clients turn to the internet to search for legal services. And to help those clients find them, they invest in their omni channel presence. In fact, around 65% of law firms focus most of their budget on online marketing.

So how exactly do law firms spend their budget online and what channel do they prioritize? Let’s look at the legal marketing finance statistics:

1. 36% of legal firms reported an increase in their average marketing budget. (ABA)
2. The average annual SEO cost that law firms spend is $120,000. (FirstPageSage)
3. Solo practitioners say they spend more than 75 percent of their overall marketing budget on social ads. (AttorneyAtWork)
4. 45% of legal professionals allocate their law firm marketing budget to SEO. (FirstPageSage)
5. 75% of lawyers say they spend less than 10 percent of their budget on social. (AttorneyAtWork)

Legal Consumer Statistics

Consumer behavior is changing every day as more people are now using their smartphones and laptops to quickly find the legal help they need. For law firms, it means they need updated information on their websites, like addresses and phone numbers so that potential clients can easily reach out to them. We reviewed multiple surveys on how consumers look for legal services and here’s what we found:

1. 56% of respondents said they took action within a week of realizing they had a legal issue, and 16% acted within a day. (FindLaw)
2. 25% of consumers said that an attorney’s experience is the most important factor in their decision. (Thomson Reuters)
3. 40% of law firms used online reviews as their primary source of information when deciding which attorney to choose. (FindLaw)
4. 76% of consumers said they would leave a law firm’s website if it didn’t offer enough details about the firm. (iLawyerMarketing)
5. One in six people looking for legal information online searched for videos. Among them, 79% preferred YouTube as their main source, followed by 69% who used social media sites and 58% who checked law firm websites. (FindLaw)
6. More than 70% of people reach out to lawyers by phone, and half of them expect a reply the same day. (FindLaw)
7. 75% of consumers visit two to five websites before reaching out to a lawyer. (FindLaw)

Legal Marketing Statistics in Lead Generation

When we talk about law firm marketing benchmarks, it really comes down to one main goal: turning website visitors into actual leads. And in a field as competitive as law, it’s more important than ever to do this effectively.

CallRail’s report suggests that the best marketing channels for law firm lead generation were TV advertising, followed by SEO and social media. There are also other channels that seem to work well for law firms, let’s look at the stats:

1. About 33% of law firms say they get new leads through sites like Yelp. (CallRail)
2. 71% of lawyers say they’ve generated new leads from social media. (AttorneyAtWork)
3. 34% of lawyers say LinkedIn is the most effective channel when it comes to driving more leads. (AttorneyAtWork)
4. It takes on average 13.4 leads to produce a new client for law firms. (MartinDale)
5. 39% of law firms indicated that their websites are their primary source of leads. (Justia)
6. 11% of law firms reported that Google’s Local Services Ads (LSAs) were the second most effective channel for generating leads. (Justia)

Legal Marketing Predictions

As law firms and solo practitioners look into the future, what strategies do they see on the horizon? From what we’ve seen, many are planning to take on more tracking technology, such as calls and form submissions, to understand how their visitors interact on their site.

While others are looking to maximize what they are already doing and start experimenting with new legal marketing trends. Here are the stats that show a clearer picture:

1. 64% of lawyers are set to increase their budget for website optimization. (CallRail)
2. 62% of law firms plan to adopt call-tracking technology. (CallRail)
3. 19.1% say Google Ads will continue to be one of the ways to reach more clients. (Justia)
4. 59.6% of legal professionals think that a law firm website will be the most important marketing tool in the coming years. (Justia)
5. 62% say that they want to increase their focus on digital marketing for law firms (LegalMarketingReport)
6. 12.8% of lawyers feel that SEO will continue to be an important part of their strategy. (Justia)
7. 40% of respondents from the survey said they want to add visual search into their marketing strategies, 37% are interested in exploring voice search, and 32% plan to work on their localized SEO tactics. (CallRail)

Final Thoughts

We hope that these legal marketing statistics have given you a good idea of where to take your firm’s strategy. You can now see how marketing is changing more towards online and what channels you can prioritize in your strategies to drive more inquiries and calls for your business.

Furthermore, with tactics like social media posting and search engine optimization, your law firm can connect more easily with prospective clients. These channels seem to be working the best for lawyers, so remember to take advantage of them in your campaigns. With all of this information, you’ll already be ahead of your competition.

But if you want to take it even further, partnering with an expert law firm SEO company can be a great choice. Here, at SeoProfy, we worked with multiple law firms and helped them attract more high-quality leads to their site. If you’d like to learn more about how we can help, book your free consultation today.

Author

Andrew Shum

Andrew is the Head of SEO at SeoProfy. He has been involved in search engine optimization since 2016, gaining practical SEO experience across various niches and countries.