Short answer: a law firm content audit is a page-by-page review of everything on your website that ends with one decision per URL: keep it, improve it, merge it into a stronger page, or delete and redirect it. You build an inventory from your sitemap, attach Search Console and Analytics data to each page, find the pages competing for the same searches, and check the pages that matter for accuracy and advertising-rule problems. A small-firm site can be audited in an afternoon with free tools; the template and steps are below.
What a content audit is, and what it is not
A content audit judges what your pages say and whether each one earns its place. It is not a technical SEO audit. A technical audit checks crawling, indexing, speed, redirects and schema; a content audit checks whether the practice area pages, bios and blog posts are the right pages, saying the right things, without tripping over each other. You need both, and the law firm SEO audit checklist covers the technical side.
Law firm sites need content audits more than most because they accumulate pages in layers: a practice area page from the original build, a blog post on the same topic from a later vendor, a city page added for local search, and an old legal update nobody revisited after the statute changed. Each layer made sense at the time. Together they confuse searchers and search engines alike.
When to run one
Run a full content audit once a year, and a short one before any redesign, after a change of marketing vendor, and whenever organic leads drop without an obvious cause. The pre-redesign audit matters most: it decides which pages move to the new site and which get merged or retired, so you are not paying to rebuild pages that never worked.
The content audit template
Set up one spreadsheet row per URL with these columns. Everything in the audit feeds into the last column.
| Column | Where the data comes from | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| URL and page type | XML sitemap (practice area, bio, blog, location, utility) | Patterns show up by type, not by page |
| Target search | Your judgement: the one query this page should answer | Two pages with the same target search is the main finding |
| Impressions, clicks, average position | Search Console, Performance report, last 3 to 12 months | Separates pages Google tests from pages it ignores |
| Key events (calls, forms) | Google Analytics 4, landing page report | A page with modest traffic that produces leads is worth more than a busy one that does not |
| Inbound links | Search Console Links report or a backlink tool | Pages with links are never deleted without a redirect |
| Last reviewed and by whom | CMS dates; firm records | Legal content goes stale when the law changes |
| Accuracy or compliance flag | Your read of the page | Outdated law and unqualified results claims are risks, not just weak content |
| Verdict | Keep, Improve, Merge, Delete | The output of the audit |
Step 1: Build the inventory
Start with your XML sitemap, usually at /sitemap.xml or /sitemap_index.xml, and copy every URL into the sheet. Then open Search Console’s Performance report, set the date range to at least three months, switch to the Pages tab and export. Paste impressions, clicks and position against each URL. Finally, pull the landing page report from GA4 so each row also shows whether the page produced any calls or form submissions.
Two findings usually appear at once: URLs in the sitemap with no impressions at all, and URLs getting impressions that nobody at the firm remembered existed. A crawler such as Screaming Frog (free up to 500 URLs) speeds this up and also catches orphan pages, duplicate titles and broken links.
Step 2: Find the pages competing with each other
This is the highest-value step and the one most audits skip. In Search Console, open the Queries tab, click into your ten most important searches one at a time, and look at the Pages tab for each. If two or more of your own URLs appear for the same query, they are splitting the signal, and both usually rank lower than one combined page would.
On law firm sites the overlap follows predictable patterns:
| Pattern | What it looks like | Usual fix |
|---|---|---|
| Practice page plus “guide” post | /dui-defense/ and a blog post called “Complete Guide to DUI Defense” | Merge the post’s depth into the practice page, 301 the post |
| Reworded duplicates | “Car accident lawyer” and “auto accident attorney” as separate pages | Keep the one with more impressions and leads, redirect the other |
| Copy-paste city pages | Ten location pages that differ only by city name | Consolidate unless each has genuinely local content |
| Old post outranking the money page | A years-old blog post beating the page you want clients to land on | Move the post’s best sections into the page, then redirect |
Pick the survivor on impressions, leads and commercial value, not on which page you like. The fix is almost always a merge rather than a deletion: move the useful content across first, then 301 redirect the losing URL to the specific surviving page.
Step 3: Give every page one of four verdicts
Every row gets exactly one verdict. Resist inventing a fifth.
- Keep: getting impressions, ranking reasonably, still accurate. Leave it alone.
- Improve: getting impressions but sitting around positions 11 to 30. These are the best use of your time, because a page Google is already testing is closer to page one than a new page is. Answer the questions the page skips, tighten the title to match the query, and link to it from two or three related pages.
- Merge: everything flagged in step 2, plus thin pages that overlap a stronger page.
- Delete and redirect: no impressions over twelve months, no links, no leads, no strategic purpose. Old event notices, bios of attorneys who left, legal updates about rules that have since changed. Redirect each to the closest relevant page rather than letting it 404.
Do not skip the redirect on the theory that nobody visits the page. Old URLs can still hold links from directories, bar listings and articles you have forgotten.
Step 4: Check the pages that matter for quality and accuracy
For every page marked Keep or Improve, run a short quality check. Google’s guidance on creating helpful, people-first content is the right yardstick: it asks whether the content is original, accurate, written by someone with real expertise, and useful to the person who searched. For a law firm that translates into these checks:
- Is the law still current? Statutes of limitation, filing thresholds, exemption amounts and procedural rules change. A page that states an old figure is worse than no page. Note which attorney reviewed it and when.
- Does the first paragraph answer the question in the title? If the page opens with “In today’s competitive legal market”, rewrite the opening.
- Is there one H1 and a real H2 structure? Check the page source, not the visual layout. Themes often render the site name as the H1.
- How many verifiable facts are on the page? Deadlines, court names, statute references, what happens at each stage. A practice area page with almost none reads as filler.
- Does it link to a competitor? Pages written by outside writers or with AI help sometimes cite competing firms or agencies. Check every outbound domain.
- Any leftover drafting scaffolding? Bracketed placeholders, “here is the revised version”, stray instructions. They turn up on pages nobody has opened since publishing.
- Is there a specific next step? Not just a footer form: a line telling the reader what to do and what happens when they do it.
Step 5: Check the advertising-rule and utility pages
A content audit is also the cheapest moment to catch compliance problems, because you are already reading every page. Under ABA Model Rule 7.1 and its state versions, a communication about a lawyer’s services must not be false or misleading, and truthful statements can still mislead if they create unjustified expectations. Flag these as you go:
- Case results or testimonials with no context or disclaimer next to them.
- “Specialist”, “expert” or “certified” language that your state restricts. Model Rule 7.2(c) limits claims of certification to lawyers actually certified by an approved organization.
- A missing or outdated website disclaimer, and a privacy policy that does not describe the tracking you actually run.
- Contact forms. Submit every one and confirm the message reaches a person who reads it. Forms break silently after plugin updates and hosting changes.
Rules vary by state; the attorney advertising rules by state guide lists what each jurisdiction adds. Our free website compliance scan checks a page for the most common of these issues automatically.
Step 6: Find the gaps
Only now look for missing content. A gap is a search your clients make that no page on your site answers. Three places reveal them: queries in Search Console where you get impressions but no page is a good match, the questions your intake staff hear every week, and practice areas or locations you take cases in but never wrote about. Compare against the top results for your core searches and note subtopics they cover that you do not. Each confirmed gap becomes a new row with the verdict “Create”.
Step 7: Turn the sheet into a work order
An audit that ends in a spreadsheet changes nothing. Do the work in order of return on effort:
- Merges and redirects, because they are quick and stop active harm.
- Accuracy and compliance fixes, because an outdated statement of law or an unqualified results claim is a risk every day it stays live.
- The top Improve pages, sorted by impressions.
- Deletions with redirects.
- New content, and only for gaps the audit proved.
That last point is the one firms resist. Weak traffic tempts you to publish more, but an audit often shows the real problem is existing pages competing with each other. Fix the site you have first. Once you know which pages stay, the law firm website content guide covers what each type of page should contain. If you would rather hand the whole job over, our law firm SEO services start with exactly this audit.
Frequently asked questions
What is a content audit for a law firm website?
It is an inventory and review of every page on the site, with performance data attached, that ends in a decision for each page: keep, improve, merge or delete. For law firms it also checks that legal information is current and that results, testimonials and credentials comply with state advertising rules.
How often should a law firm audit its website content?
A full audit once a year, plus a short one before a redesign, after a vendor change, or when leads drop without explanation. Firms that publish often should check for pages competing over the same searches every six months, because that problem builds up fastest.
What tools do I need for a content audit?
Google Search Console, Google Analytics 4 and a spreadsheet cover most of it. A crawler such as Screaming Frog, free up to 500 URLs, speeds up the inventory. Paid keyword tools help in the Improve and gap steps but are not needed for a first pass.
Should I delete old blog posts that get no traffic?
Only if they have no impressions, no inbound links and nothing worth merging. Usually the better move is to fold the useful part into a stronger page and redirect the old URL to it. Deleting outright discards whatever authority the URL had built.
Will merging pages lose the rankings I already have?
Not if it is done properly. Move the content before redirecting, use a permanent 301 redirect, and point it at the specific surviving page rather than the homepage. Expect a few weeks of movement while Google processes the change.
