In 2025, digital marketing for lawyers requires adopting different strategies to attract clients and stay competitive. The main game changer will be the continued rise of AI and the role it plays on Google’s results page. Also people are changing the way they are searching for information.
These two trends drive three main changes:
1. Increased need for local SEO
2. Increased need for digital PR
3. Increased for “explainer videos”
Digital marketing tactics that continue to be important for lawyers are technical SEO and being findable and reachable on all major social media platforms.
Below I break down these five essential strategies for lawyers in the evolving digital landscape.
1. How does local SEO help law firms?
Digital marketing for lawyers will take on a more local focus. A decade ago, the Google search term “lawyer near me” was entered less than a 1.000 times per month. That amount has been steadily increasing to over 13.000 times in the US alone in 2024. This local search trend is expected to rise throughout 2025.
People also look more specifically. As a matter of fact, “personal injury lawyer near me” is already more searched for in the US (26.000 times per month). This is double the search volume of just “lawyer near me”.
Here’s how to enhance your local SEO:
- Update your Google Business Profile with accurate contact details and accurate (holiday) hours.
- Use local keywords like “employment lawyer in Manchester.”
- Collect and manage online reviews to build trust.
- Build backlinks from websites that are popular in your catchment area; i.e.
- get published on by local newspapers
- sponsor community events
- support cultural or sport’s organisations
- contribute to local directories.
2. What is digital PR, and why does it matter for lawyers?
AI-generated answers and Google’s heavy use of “featured snippets” reduce the importance of traditional content marketing. More people enter a search query into Google and then read the answer on the Google search results page without having to visit your website.
One way to still drive meaningful traffic is via digital PR. Digital PR focuses on building brand awareness and authority through online media exposure. Key tactics include:
- Publishing newsworthy study results and get them featured in (local) media outlets
- Securing interviews or quotes in industry publications.
- Collaborating with influencers or legal thought leaders.
Digital marketing for lawyers should ideally include generating digital PR. Getting featured on noteworthy websites enhances your reputation and improves SEO by earning high-quality backlinks.
3. Why should lawyers invest in video marketing?
Video marketing is perhaps the only content marketing strategy that still pays off in 2025. Google’s AI-generated answers and feature snippets are still text-based, and I don’t expect it to change in the upcoming months. Video is therefor a powerful way to simplify legal concepts for potential clients.
Examples include:
- Explainer videos: Break down complex answering questions such as “custody agreements” or “tenant rights”.
- Short-form content: Share quick tips on platforms like TikTok and YouTube Shorts.
- YouTube is interesting as it’s part of Google, so your content gets indexed.
- TikTok is increasingly used as a search platform by younger generations, which is interesting for certain lawyers, such as personal injury lawyers and car accident lawyers.
Digital marketing for lawyers via videos can improve engagement, increase trust, and boost search engine rankings. This can result in more (high-value) clients.
4. Why is technical SEO important for lawyers?
Digital marketing for lawyers should continue to include technical SEO. Technical SEO ensures that both humans and search engines can easily read and, in the case of Google, index your website. Lawyers should focus on these steps, such as:
- Separate service pages: List each legal service on a dedicated page (e.g., “divorce lawyer” or “criminal defence lawyer”).
- Optimise page speed: e.g. use light weight images, avoid decorative video illustrations
- Use schema markup: help Google understand your site better.
- Mobile optimisation: your site must perform seamlessly on all devices, check your Google analytics to see how often your website is visited on a mobile phone.
5. What is omnipresence in digital marketing?
Digital marketing for lawyers does not need to include being on social media. Being merely present and reachable across multiple platforms is enough. You do not necessarily be active and post regularly on all the platforms. What is important is that lawyers:
- Clearly display what they do, who they serve and when/how they can be contacted
- Be reachable and responsive via each platform thus via comments and private messaging on LinkedIn, via comments and DM on Instagram, messenger on Facebook, etc.
- Use automation tools to manage inquiries across channels efficiently.
Digital marketing for lawyers – the conclusion
Digital marketing for lawyers can still result in more clients. Prioritise on local visibility, digital PR and video content. Quite like the years before technical SEO and omnipresence on social media channels remain important. These strategies ensure their practice stays competitive, credible, and accessible in an ever-changing digital landscape.