Your reader is different, so your site should be
Family law SEO is the work of getting your firm found on Google by people dealing with divorce, custody, support and similar matters. The technical parts are the same as for any firm. Practice area pages, a Business Profile, attorney bios: our law firm SEO playbook and local SEO guide cover those.
What's different is who's reading. Think about someone who has been considering divorce for a year and hasn't told anyone. Or a parent who just got served. Or someone who's frightened of the person they live with. They may be searching late at night on a shared family computer, and the first thing they want to know isn't your years of experience. It's whether anyone will find out, and what this is going to cost.
Standard SEO advice rarely gets into this. It affects more than your wording. It changes how your pages and forms should work.
Build for someone who might be watched
The National Domestic Violence Hotline tells visitors that computer and phone use can be monitored without their knowledge, that history can't be completely erased even in private or incognito mode, and to consider a safer computer when looking up legal issues. Its own site carries that warning. If you handle protective orders or domestic violence matters, your site should take this as seriously.
These are design choices rather than legal requirements, and they're my suggestions:
- Ask how to contact them. On every form, ask whether it's safe to leave a voicemail, send a text or email, and what time to call. A callback to a shared phone can do real harm.
- Keep the confirmation quiet. Don't send an automatic email with a subject line like "Your divorce consultation." Keep your text reminders vague as well.
- Add a safety note and a quick exit on your domestic violence pages, with a link to the hotline's own guidance. A button that takes someone to a neutral page is simple to build. Be honest that it doesn't clear their history.
- Think twice about remarketing. Ads that follow someone around after they visit a divorce page could show up on a shared device. For this practice area, I'd leave that off.
The pages that bring the right calls
Don't try to do it all on one "Family Law" page. People search for their own situation, and a separate page for each lets you speak to them directly. Which pages you build depends on the work you want:
| Page | What the person really wants to know | What to include |
|---|---|---|
| Uncontested divorce | Can this be quick and cheap? | When it works, when it doesn't, the steps in your state, what you charge |
| Contested divorce | How bad will this get? | The stages, what drives the cost, how long it can take in your courts |
| Child custody | Will I lose my kids? | How your state's courts decide, in plain language, with no promises |
| Modification | Can I change this order? | What usually qualifies under your state's law, and what to gather |
| Child support | How much will I pay or get? | How your state's guideline works, and where to find its official calculator |
| Prenups and postnups | Is it insulting to ask? | What they cover, how the conversation usually goes |
| Protective orders | How do I stay safe? | Safety first, then the process and where to get immediate help |
If you serve a niche, say military families, high-asset divorces or same-sex couples, give it its own page only if you truly do that work and can say how it differs. Rule 7.1 bars misleading statements, and the comment to Rule 7.2 ties words like "specializes" to that same standard. A page on "divorce for dads" is fine if it's true to your practice, as long as it doesn't imply results you can't support.
Search for your own city plus each of these, and look at what's already there. Directories and big legal publishers hold a lot of those spots. For some questions, a clear local answer can compete with them, because they can't say what your county's family court actually does. Offer that.
Everything here is state law
This is where AI-drafted and template content causes the most harm. Family law varies from state to state, and sometimes county to county. A simple example is property: the IRS lists nine community property states, Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin, and property works differently there than in most other states. A national template that talks about "splitting everything equally" will be wrong for many readers.
Have an attorney read each page, and put the name of the reviewing attorney and a review date on it. Waiting periods, residency requirements and support formulas should link to your state's official source wherever one exists, and they should be rechecked on a schedule. Google's guidance says AI output may contain inaccuracies and needs manual checking. In this field, that check protects a real family.
Don't write "you will get custody" or anything close to it. California treats an express guarantee of a result as false or misleading, and the Rule 7.1 comment warns about creating unjustified expectations from past results. Words like "aggressive" and "best" should get a second look too, since unsupported comparisons with other lawyers are a named concern in that comment.
The fee page matters more here
Your potential client might be working out whether they can afford to leave. And you can't offer the easy answer injury lawyers have, because Rule 1.5(d) bars a fee in a domestic relations matter that depends on securing a divorce or on the amount of alimony, support or a property settlement.
So be clear about how you do charge. Explain what a retainer is, how it gets used, what happens when it runs out and what makes a case cost more. Give a range or a flat fee where you can. The Rule 7.2 comment expressly allows you to publish fees, prices for specific services, and payment and credit arrangements. Clio's study found that only 14% of shoppers could find pricing on a firm's site, and only 12% of phone calls produced an estimate of total cost, so this is an easy place to stand out. If a client can't afford you, tell them about your legal aid office. They may refer a friend someday.
Contact forms, conflicts and the "conflict out" problem
Family lawyers know this one: someone consults every good divorce lawyer in town so their spouse can't hire any of them. The comment to Rule 1.18 says that a person who communicates with a lawyer for the purpose of disqualifying them isn't a prospective client. Proving that purpose after the fact isn't much fun, though.
Your form can help. That same comment says a consultation is likely if you invite someone to submit information about a potential case without clear warnings that limit your obligations. So keep the form short: name, safe contact method, the other party's name for a conflict check, and a general category. Add a plain statement above the button saying that sending the form doesn't create an attorney-client relationship and that they shouldn't include confidential details yet. Have your state's rules checked by whoever handles your ethics questions.
The review problem nobody solves
Reviews count toward how Google judges prominence, but a Google review usually shows the reviewer's account name, so posting one can tell the neighbors you got divorced. Many happy clients will say no, and that's reasonable.
Ask everyone anyway. Google's policy bars selectively asking only happy clients and offering any incentive. Say that it's entirely up to them, that they don't need to mention anything about the case, and leave it there. Expect a smaller share of clients to respond than you'd see in other practices, and focus on being reachable and clear.
You will also get reviews from the other side: an angry ex, or their relatives. Under ABA Formal Opinion 496, when a post relates to a real matter, even a general denial can reveal you were involved, so you'd need your client's informed consent before disclosing anything. For most of these, say nothing online, ask the host to remove it if it breaks the rules, and talk to your own counsel if it's serious. Check your own state's view as well.
Where Sojig fits
Sojig is our product. It finds searches your site has no page for and drafts the page, with spots marked for your own facts, and drafts articles for an attorney to review. In Manual mode, the default, nothing goes live without approval. A family law firm should stay there.
It won't build your quick-exit button or redesign your intake process. If your site needs that kind of work, hire a web developer who has done it for family law or domestic violence organizations.