ND Media Hertfordshire
What a Hertfordshire solicitor should publish for search
A law firm's website carries a regulatory burden that most business sites do not. The pages that satisfy the regulator are usually the pages that win the work. Named solicitors, clear costs, honest process explanations and genuine town coverage all serve both purposes at once. This guide sets out what to publish across a Hertfordshire practice and what to keep off the site entirely.
What it is
Why do the compliant pages and the ranking pages overlap?
Regulatory transparency and search quality ask for the same things. The regulator wants a named and accountable person, honest costs and no misleading claims. Search systems reward a named author with verifiable credentials, specific answers and content that matches the promise. A page built to satisfy one usually satisfies the other.
That overlap is useful for a Hertfordshire firm with no marketing department. A partner already knows how to write about probate timelines and what a conveyancing quote covers. Those are the pages that carry the most search value. Nothing here needs a change of voice.
What it covers
Which pages should a law firm actually publish?
Five page types cover almost everything a Hertfordshire firm needs. Depth in these matters far more than volume elsewhere.
| Page type | What it carries |
|---|---|
| Practice area page | One per area the firm genuinely runs. States the work, the process and who it suits. |
| Solicitor profile | Named person, admission date, SRA number, practice areas and the towns they serve. |
| Costs page | Published fees or fee ranges where the transparency rules apply to that area of work. |
| Process explainer | What happens week by week. The page a worried client reads twice before ringing. |
| Town page | Written only for towns where the firm takes instructions, describing that town's clients. |
Page types rather than a publishing schedule. Check current SRA transparency requirements for your own practice areas.
The solicitor profile does more work than partners expect. A page naming the individual, the admission date and the SRA number gives a reader something checkable and gives an AI assistant a fact it can corroborate against the public register.
Where it sits
How does the Hertfordshire town layer apply to a law firm?
Instructions in this county cluster by town rather than arriving evenly across it. A St Albans firm sees residential conveyancing and private client work shaped by an affluent commuter population. A Hertford practice takes agricultural and rural property matters from the east of the county that a Watford firm rarely touches. Commercial work in Hemel Hempstead follows the Maylands business area. Leases, logistics contracts and employment matters dominate there.
Those differences give each town page something true to say. A page for a town where the firm has never taken instructions has nothing true to say. That is why it ends up as the same body text with the place name changed. That pattern is the definition of a doorway page. The multi-town guide covers the test in full.
FIXED
0
invented testimonials, star ratings or case studies published on this site.
Limits
What should never go on a law firm site?
Four things carry real risk and no benefit worth taking. Each appears regularly on firm websites because an agency added it without asking a solicitor.
- An outcome claim implying that a similar result is likely, which misleads a reader making a decision under stress.
- A client story with enough detail to identify the person, published without documented consent.
- A review or testimonial the firm wrote, commissioned or edited, which breaches both advertising rules and platform policies.
- A statement of law published without a named solicitor reviewing it, whatever produced the draft.
The fourth item has grown sharply as generative drafting has spread. A model producing a confident paragraph about limitation periods is not a source. The firm carries responsibility for the statement once it is published under the firm's name.
What it needs
How does a busy practice keep this current?
Set a review date on every page that states law, costs or personnel, and put the date on the page where a reader sees it. A visible review date does two jobs at once. The reader gets evidence that the page is maintained. An AI assistant reading the page gets a signal about how current the statement is.
Personnel changes need the fastest response. A departed solicitor still listed as a contact is the single most common broken fact on professional practice sites. That damages the record an assistant reads as well as the impression a client forms. The record consistency guide covers the same mechanism for accountancy practices. It applies here without change.
Questions raised
Frequently asked questions
Can a law firm publish prices on its website?
Price transparency rules require published costs for several common areas of work. Publishing them clearly tends to help rather than harm enquiries. Check the current SRA requirements for your own practice areas before publishing.
Should a solicitor use AI to draft website content?
A draft is fine and a published page without a named solicitor's review is not. The firm carries responsibility for every statement of law on its site regardless of what produced the first version.
Do case results belong on a law firm site?
Only with client consent, without identifying details, and without implying that a similar outcome is likely. An anonymised outcome carries far less weight than a clear explanation of the process.
How many town pages does a Hertfordshire law firm need?
One for each town where the firm genuinely takes instructions and can describe that town's clients specifically. Duplicated pages with the place name swapped are doorway pages.
The first engagement documents what a Hertfordshire firm currently publishes and what a client finds instead.
The fee schedule
The £400 Sprint and the Standing Brief, with their terms in full.
Prefer to ask something first: [email protected]