The US states with the most people facing criminal charges – local keyword analysis

Analyzing how often people search for “criminal defense lawyer nearby” provides valuable insights into where in America many people have a pressing need for legal assistance. Local keyword analysis reveals which areas have the highest demand for criminal defense services, helping to pinpoint cities and other regions where people are actively seeking urgent legal support.

For policy makers, results from this local keyword analysis can be used to identify in which areas they need to concentrate on crime prevention. For example by providing better support in education, mental health, housing, and job training.

Law firms can use the findings to make informed marketing decisions, shedding light on: 

• Which states record the highest local search volume per capita?
• In which states is the demand for criminal defense lawyers low?
• In which states is it the easiest to rank high on Google and generate good amount of monthly leads?

For this study, the 1000 most frequently entered local searches for a criminal defense lawyer in the US were analysed. The data were obtained using ahrefs.com in November 2024. If you want to optimise your website or your marketing based on solid keyword research, contact Kirande and schedule a call.

Top U.S. States by search volume per capita for nearby criminal defense lawyers nearby

New Jersey leads the nation in searches for criminal defense lawyers nearby. With 13 local searches per 10,000 residents, the state has nearly six times the national average of 2 searches for legal help nearby. This high demand for criminal defense services suggests that disproportionate amount of New Jersey residents are in trouble with the law.

When looking more closely at New Jersey’s search data, two areas stand out for having an unusually high demand for criminal defense: Hackensack, with 1,150 searches per month, and Mays Landing, with 150 searches each month. These numbers are surprising because both areas don’t have a lot of residents. Per capita, they have more than 240 searches for every 10,000 people, which is 120 times higher than the national average. 

For criminal defense lawyers looking to get more clients, Mays Landing is a good opportunity. It’s easy to rank first on Google for ‘criminal defense lawyers Mays Landing’ because not many firms are competing for that search query. 

With 7 local searches per 10,000 residents, the District of Columbia records the second highest demand for criminal defense services nearby. New York State and Arizona follow closely with 6 searches per 10,000 residents. 

1. New Jersey (12.7)
2. District of Columbia (7.3)
3. New York State (5.8)
4. Arizona (5.5)
5. Rhode Island (5.3)
6. Colorado (4.8)
7. Nevada (4.7)
8. California (3.9)
9. Georgia (3.0)
10. Texas (2.9)

Fourty states record less than 3 searches for criminal defense lawyers per 10,000 inhabitants. Of the top 1,000 searches analysed, none of these mentioned the states of Montana, North Dakota, West Virginia and Mississippi. From a keyword analysis perspective, it appears that residents in these states are the most law abiding of the nation – or are better at staying clear of criminal law enforcers.

This local keyword analysis points out that in some state the competition to rank high on Google for criminal defense lawyers is high. In Las Vegas the competition is the strongest. Interestingly enough, the search volume is about 1500, which is a fraction of the search volume in California (15.000+ monthly local searches). In contrast, it is much easier to end up on Google’s first page for the search query “criminal defense lawyer California”.

Understanding keyword search patterns and interpreting them in light of “keyword difficulty” to rank high on search engines, can help law firms to focus their marketing strategies on areas where they can get the best results online.

For new criminal defense lawyers, Louisiana is an interesting state. It’s relatively easy to rank high on Google for the search query “criminal defense laywers Louisiana”. One would only need to optimise your website for local search and gather a few “back links” to improve the firm’s ranking. This term, and variations thereof, are entered about 840 times a month. Meaning, if you rank number 1 for the search term, you can reasonably expect about 400 organic leads a month – without paying for ads.

All of the states below have a local search volume of higher than 500 monthly searches, most well above 1000 monthly searches. The keyword difficulty refers to how hard it is to rank high on search engines like Google for “criminal defense lawyer nearby”.

1. Louisiana (7)
2. New Jersey (11)
3. Maryland (11)
4. Alabama (12)
5. Virginia (14)
6. South-Carolina (15)
7. Georgia (15)
8. New York State (18)
9. Texas (19)
10. California (22)

Which of these states you or your firm can rank high, depends on the firm’s current SEO profile. Based on the strength of the firm’s website and backlink profile, it can be best decided where to expand business. Contact me to find out how strong your website is and for which search terms with accompanying keyword difficulty level you can rank well.

The data provided shows the total local search volume (SV) for criminal defense lawyers in different U.S. states. California leads by a significant margin with 15,120 monthly searches, showing a high demand for criminal defense lawyers.

Additional interesting findings include:

• Most of the searches in California are “criminal defense lawyer Orange County” (3200 monthly searches). The top Californian cities where criminal defense lawyers are sought are Los Angeles (2970 monthly searches) and San Diego (1770 monthly searches). Demand for criminal legal assistance in Sherman Oaks, a Los Angeles’ neighbourhood, is very high (1000+ searches a month).
• Within Texas, most local searches focus on respectively Houston, Dallas and San Antonio.
• Of the 1000 most frequently entered searches for criminal defense lawyers, none of these included (regions of) the states Montana, North Dakota, West Virginia and Mississippi.