Writing about your practice areas in the words clients use

Aug 27
3 min read

Updated: 2 days ago

Introduction

Professional firm websites are organised by practice area, which is how the firm is organised internally and not how clients think about their problems.

Nobody searches for a term they have never heard. They search for what has happened to them, and the firm whose page describes that situation in those words is the one they find.

1. Writing about your practice areas means starting from the client's situation

The practice area is your category. The situation is theirs.

"Contentious probate" is a discipline. "My brother is contesting our mother's will" is a search. Both may lead to the same work, and only one of them is findable by the person with the problem.

2. Write one page per situation, not one per department

A single page covering an entire practice area cannot rank for anything specific or answer anyone's actual question.

Break it into the distinct situations you handle. Each becomes a page that speaks directly to one kind of client, which is both better for the reader and considerably more findable.

3. Use the words clients actually use, including the imprecise ones

Professionals are trained to be precise, and precision is the enemy here.

Clients say "sacked", not "dismissed"; "sued", not "proceedings issued"; "tax bill", not "assessment". Using their language is not dumbing down — it is writing in the register of the person you are trying to reach.

4. Answer the questions clients actually ask

Every practice fields the same questions repeatedly in first meetings.

Those questions are your page structure. How long does this take, what will it cost, what are my chances, what do you need from me, what happens if the other side does X. A page answering those does more than any description of your expertise.

5. Explain the process, because the opacity is the barrier

Clients hesitate more over not knowing what happens than over the outcome.

Set out the steps, roughly how long each takes, and what will be required of them. This is straightforward to write, it differentiates you from firms that describe only their credentials, and it converts.

6. Say what it costs, as far as you are able

The question behind most unmade enquiries.

Fixed fees where you have them, ranges, what drives the number, or the cost of an initial meeting. A page that discusses everything except cost sends the reader to a firm that mentioned it.

7. Include an example, within your rules

Abstract descriptions of capability persuade nobody.

A short anonymised illustration of a comparable matter and how it was resolved makes the work concrete. Check what your regulator permits regarding case examples and outcomes before publishing, because the constraints differ by profession and jurisdiction.

8. Write it yourself, or have it written from your knowledge

Generic professional content is obvious to read and does nothing.

The pages that work contain things only a practitioner knows: the mistake clients commonly make, the thing that determines the outcome, the step people underestimate. That material cannot be researched from outside the profession.

9. Track which pages produce enquiries

Not traffic. Enquiries.

A page attracting many visitors and no contact is answering the question too completely or reaching the wrong people. One attracting few visitors and several enquiries deserves more attention. Without measuring at the page level, a firm cannot tell which of its writing is working.

Conclusion

Organise the writing around client situations rather than around your internal practice areas, because nobody searches for a term they have never encountered.

Write one page per situation, use the imprecise words clients actually use, structure each page around the questions you are asked in first meetings, explain the process step by step, state what it costs as far as you can, include an anonymised example within your regulator's rules, write from practitioner knowledge rather than generic material, and measure enquiries per page rather than traffic.