Short answer: Planning Pennsylvania law firm website content means accepting something most content plans never account for: your website is probably advertising in more than one state. Pennsylvania borders six states and its two major markets sit on borders — Philadelphia against New Jersey and Delaware, Pittsburgh against Ohio and West Virginia. A single website inherits the content rules of every jurisdiction it targets, and those rules are not the same. This guide sets out what to write on every page, and how to build one site that works across several jurisdictions without writing it four times.
You do not have one audience. You have one website and several regulators.
What Pennsylvania changes about your website content
Pennsylvania governs lawyer advertising through Rules 7.1 through 7.5 of the Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct, with the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania handling enforcement. The compliance detail is in our Pennsylvania attorney advertising rules guide.
The content-planning consequence is not about Pennsylvania’s own rules, which are broadly conventional. It is about geography. A Philadelphia firm advertising to South Jersey is speaking to New Jersey residents. A Pittsburgh firm running ads that reach the Ohio Valley is speaking to Ohio and West Virginia residents. An Allentown firm may be marketing into New York.
Those states differ in ways that touch content directly. New Jersey is notably strict on awards and rankings. New York requires an “Attorney Advertising” label on a firm’s home page. Ohio runs its own specialist certification framework. Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia and New York each have their own treatment of firm names, results and specialisation language.
You cannot serve those with one generic page and hope. But you also should not build four websites.
The page-by-page plan
| Page | What it has to do | Multi-state consideration |
|---|---|---|
| Homepage | Route the visitor in one screen | Required elements of every target state |
| Practice area pages | One page per problem a client can name | Claims held to the strictest standard |
| Attorney bios | Establish the person and admissions | Per-lawyer admissions, not firm-level |
| Results | Give outcomes context | Strictest state governs |
| Awards and recognition | Signal standing | Where states differ most |
| Location pages | Serve a genuine service area | Where jurisdiction becomes explicit |
| FAQ | Answer pre-call questions | Jurisdiction-specific answers differ |
The strictest-standard method
There are three ways to handle a multi-jurisdiction website and only one of them scales.
Geo-targeting different content to different visitors is the approach that sounds sophisticated and fails in practice. It is fragile, it is invisible to you once deployed, it means you cannot easily say what your site showed a given person, and search engines see a version you did not choose. Avoid.
Separate sites per state works and is expensive. It splits your authority across domains, multiplies maintenance, and produces the stale-second-site problem within about a year. Reserve it for firms with genuinely separate practices.
One site built to the strictest standard among your target states is the approach that holds up. You identify the states you actually market into, you find the most restrictive position on each content question, and you write to that everywhere.
The reason this works commercially, and not just defensively, is that the strictest position is almost always the more specific one. New Jersey’s treatment of awards pushes you toward naming the methodology behind a ranking. That is more persuasive to a reader than an unexplained badge, in every state. The strict rule and the good content point the same way more often than firms expect.
The practical output is a one-page standards note: for awards, results, specialisation language, firm naming, required labels and disclaimers, what is the rule we write to, and which state did it come from. That document is what makes the approach survivable when a new writer joins.
Where the jurisdictions have to become explicit
Writing to the strictest standard handles claims. It does not handle the reader’s question of whether you can actually help them, and that is a content job.
Bios carry admissions per lawyer. “Our attorneys are admitted in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware” is a firm-level statement that is false of every individual. Each bio states that lawyer’s own admissions.
Location pages say what you do there. A page targeting Cherry Hill should make clear which lawyers are admitted in New Jersey and what the firm actually does in that state — not simply repeat the Philadelphia page with a different place name.
Practice area content flags where the law differs. If your page describes a Pennsylvania procedure and a meaningful share of your readers are in New Jersey, say so. This is useful content, not a hedge, and it is exactly the kind of specificity that ranks.
How much content each page needs
Homepages 400 to 700 words. Practice area pages 1,200 to 2,000, on the structure in our guide to law firm practice area pages. Bios 400 to 800, with admissions stated plainly. FAQ answers 100 to 300 words. Blog posts as long as the question needs.
Cross-border firms need one addition: a short section, usually on the practice area page and the relevant location page, that states which states the firm handles this matter type in. Two hundred words, and it removes the single most common reason a qualified visitor does not call.
Making the content usable by AI search
Multi-jurisdiction content has a particular advantage in AI search if you build it deliberately: assistants are frequently asked jurisdiction-qualified questions, and most law firm content is jurisdictionally vague. Content that states plainly which state it describes, and where the neighbouring state differs, is far more citable than content that says “the law varies by state”.
Name the entities: the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the specific county court, the specific rule. Put the jurisdiction in the heading rather than leaving it implied. And keep the comparison in a table where you can — a table of how a step differs across two neighbouring states extracts cleanly and is genuinely useful.
Pennsylvania law firm website content: frequently asked questions
Does a Pennsylvania law firm website have to follow other states’ advertising rules?
A website that markets into another state is communicating with that state’s residents, and states take differing positions on the reach of their rules. How another jurisdiction’s rules apply to your specific marketing is a question for your ethics counsel; the practical content answer most multi-state firms adopt is to write to the strictest standard among their target states.
Should a Pennsylvania firm build separate websites per state?
Rarely. Separate sites split authority, multiply maintenance and reliably produce a stale second site. One site written to the strictest standard, with per-lawyer admissions and honest location pages, is the approach that holds up.
Is geo-targeted content a good solution for border markets?
It creates more problems than it solves. You lose visibility of what your own site showed a given visitor, it is fragile, and search engines index a version you did not choose. Prefer one clear version.
How should awards and rankings be handled on a cross-border site?
This is the content question where neighbouring states diverge most, and New Jersey sits at the strict end — see our New Jersey guide. Writing to that end usually means naming the awarding body and describing the selection methodology, which reads better everywhere.
How long before new content ranks in Pennsylvania?
Philadelphia is a top-tier competitive market; Pittsburgh is competitive but less so; the rest of the state moves faster. Cross-border location pages usually take longer, because you are competing against firms based in that market.
Pennsylvania law firm website content: the short version
If you take one thing from this guide, take this: write down the list of states you actually market into — including the ones your ads reach rather than the ones you meant to target. Then write one standards note saying which state’s rule you follow on awards, results and specialisation language. Most Pennsylvania border firms have never written either document, and everything else in this guide depends on them.
Official source: the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
Legal Web Agency is a marketing agency, not a law firm, and nothing here is legal advice. Nothing here states how any state’s rules apply extraterritorially, or that any particular multi-state approach complies. Confirm current requirements with the Disciplinary Board or your ethics counsel.
Related reading: Law Firm Website Content: Complete 2026 Guide, plus the Pennsylvania advertising rules guide and our guide to law firm practice area pages.
