How to Build an In-House SEO Team for Your Law Firm

If you've spent 24 months paying an SEO agency $5,000 a month and you still can't point to a specific number of cases that came from organic search, this page is for you.

I know this situation well. I ran a $7M legal SEO agency - Juris Digital - for 15+ years. I've been on the agency side of hundreds of law firm relationships. I've seen what agencies do and don't do, what gets reported versus what gets delivered, and where the accountability breaks down. 74% of lawyers believe their firm has wasted money on campaigns with poor ROI. That number doesn't surprise me. I've watched the pattern play out too many times.

The in house SEO team question is being asked by a specific type of law firm owner right now - someone who has been in the agency system long enough to understand it, can see the gap between what they're paying and what they're getting, and is seriously asking whether there's a better path. The answer is yes, with conditions. This page explains the exact model that works, what it actually costs, and how to build it in 90 days.

Why Law Firms Are Moving Their SEO In-House (And Why Now)

The frustration driving the move to in house SEO has been building for years. Here's the structural problem.

Most legal SEO agency contracts run 12-24 months. During that period, the agency owns the tools, the data, and the strategy. The access lives in their accounts. When you leave, you start over with no keyword history, no content calendar, and sometimes no ability to verify what work was actually done on your behalf. After three years of paying $6,000 a month - $216,000 total - many firms still can't explain what happened to their search rankings or their case pipeline.

37% of law firms have systems to track marketing ROI. That means 63% are writing checks without a mechanism to verify whether the checks are producing returns. Agencies operating within that accountability gap have limited incentive to change.

The cost arithmetic is also shifting. A single in-house SEO manager at $60,000-$70,000 a year costs less than a mid-tier agency retainer. That person works exclusively on your firm. They're accountable to you daily. They show up in your office or on your Slack channel. They build knowledge about your cases, your attorneys, your local market, and your competitive position - knowledge that stays with the firm when the work is done.

The tool barrier has dropped significantly. Ahrefs, Semrush, and Screaming Frog cost $99-$299 a month each. These tools now do what required a full agency team five years ago. A single well-trained SEO manager using a $500/month tool stack can run an effective program for most law firms.

The reason you haven't found a guide specifically for law firms on building an in house seo team is that none exists. Every result in Google for this topic is a generic guide written for SaaS companies, e-commerce brands, or corporate marketing departments. Law firms have completely different SEO priorities - Google Business Profile management, local pack dominance, intake attribution, practice area page architecture. None of that appears in the generic guides. This page fills that gap.

The Roles You Need in a Law Firm In-House SEO Team

Here's where generic in-house SEO guides fail law firms entirely. They describe roles like "Technical SEO Specialist" and "Content Strategist" designed for enterprise companies managing thousands of pages. A law firm's SEO needs are more specific and, in some ways, more manageable. Here are the four roles you actually need.

Role 1: SEO Manager / Digital Marketing Manager - Hire First

This is the most important hire you'll make in marketing. The SEO Manager owns the strategy execution, keyword research, content calendar, monthly performance reporting, and all vendor oversight. Budget: $55,000-$75,000 a year.

Required skills: technical SEO fundamentals, Google Analytics 4, Google Search Console, rank tracking, internal linking strategy, basic content editing, and the ability to present results clearly to non-marketing stakeholders (which means you, the managing partner).

The law-firm-specific requirement: Most general SEO candidates have experience with enterprise SEO or e-commerce. Law firms need someone who understands local SEO specifically - Google Business Profile management, local pack ranking factors, citation auditing, and the difference between national search behavior and local intent searches. Ask every candidate to explain how they would approach improving a law firm's local pack rankings. Their answer tells you immediately whether they understand the channel.

Role 2: Content Writer / Legal Content Specialist - Hire Second

This person produces practice area pages, blog posts, and FAQ content under attorney review. Budget: $45,000-$60,000 a year in-house, or $30-$60 per post as a freelance arrangement.

Required skills: clear writing on complex topics, keyword integration, comfort with the attorney review feedback loop, and deadline reliability.

The law-firm-specific requirement: Legal content requires the ability to write for someone who just had an accident, is facing criminal charges, or is going through a divorce. The reader is often frightened and making a significant decision. Content that condescends or lectures will not convert. Content that acknowledges the situation clearly and moves directly to practical answers will. The writer also needs to be comfortable being corrected by attorneys - accuracy matters here in a way it doesn't for lifestyle content.

Do not hire a content writer who has only written for other industries and has no familiarity with legal topics. The ramp-up cost is significant and the accuracy risk is real.

Role 3: GBP / Local SEO Specialist - Can Be Part-Time or Fractional

This role manages Google Business Profile optimization across all firm locations, runs review acquisition systems, and handles local citation consistency. At smaller firms, this function can be absorbed by the SEO Manager. At multi-location firms, it justifies a separate resource. Budget: $25,000-$40,000 a year, or managed as part of the SEO Manager role with an adjusted salary.

The law-firm-specific requirement: GBP for law firms has specific constraints and opportunities that general social media managers don't understand. Attorney-client privilege affects how reviews can be responded to. Google's verification process for legal businesses has specific requirements. Category selection for law firms affects which local searches your profile appears in. The person managing your GBP needs to understand these constraints - not just know how to upload photos.

Role 4: Intake Attribution Analyst - Often Existing Staff with Training

This is the most underrated function in a law firm marketing team. Someone needs to close the loop between marketing spend and signed cases. In most firms, this becomes the intake coordinator or practice manager who also manages call tracking reports.

The capability required: monthly reporting that connects which organic keywords, which pages, and which content pieces are generating calls that convert to signed cases. Without this function, nobody in the firm can measure in house SEO ROI. The entire case for building this team depends on being able to show that it's working.

This doesn't require a dedicated hire in most firms. It requires a call tracking platform (CallRail is the standard in legal), a CRM that records lead source, and someone who runs the monthly attribution report with intention.

Hiring order matters. SEO Manager first - they set strategy and oversee everything else. Content Writer second - production is the primary volume of work. GBP specialist third - local visibility is law-firm-specific enough to deserve dedicated attention. Attribution function last - formalize this once the first two roles are producing output worth measuring.

Law Firm SEO Priorities Your In-House Team Must Master

This is where law firm SEO separates entirely from generic corporate SEO. Every priority below is specific to law firms. None of them appear in the general in-house SEO guides.

Google Business Profile Optimization

64% of initial law firm discoveries occur through GBP listings. Firms with complete profiles - 20+ images, regular updates, active review management - see 3.2x higher client inquiry rates compared to incomplete profiles. Your GBP is not a set-it-and-forget-it asset. It requires active weekly management.

Your in-house team should operate on a GBP management cadence: weekly posts tied to relevant local content, monthly photo updates, active review responses within 24 hours of every new review, and quarterly audits of service listings and business description. This is a dedicated time investment, but it compounds directly into local visibility.

Local Pack Dominance

Appearing in the Local Pack delivers up to 5x more profile views and 2x more engagement compared to organic listings alone. The three ranking factors for local pack are proximity (can't change), relevance (optimize GBP category, services listed, and description), and prominence (reviews, citations, and links).

Your in-house team should run a citation audit quarterly. Inconsistent Name/Address/Phone data across directories is a local pack ranking problem. It's also fixable in a single focused sprint. Most agency-managed firms have never run a citation audit. Completing one in the first 30 days gives your in-house team an immediate win.

See local SEO for lawyers for the full framework on local pack ranking factors specific to law firms.

Practice Area Page Architecture

Every practice area your firm handles needs a dedicated, keyword-targeted page. "Personal injury lawyer [city]" and "car accident lawyer [city]" are different searches made by different people at different points in the decision process. They need separate pages. A mid-size personal injury firm may need 15-25 distinct practice area pages targeting different case types, locations, and searcher intents.

This is content production work that never truly ends. Your in-house team should maintain a running list of practice area pages that need to be created or updated, and content production should continuously work through that list alongside the topic cluster blog program.

Review Acquisition System

80% of people consider attorney reviews before hiring. 83% of consumers use Google to find local business reviews. Reviews are not passive - they require an active acquisition system. Your in-house team should operate a standardized review request process: text or email to clients at case close, using simple language and a direct Google review link.

This is not optional. Firms with 100+ Google reviews with strong ratings consistently outperform firms with fewer reviews in both local pack rankings and conversion rates. The firms with weak review profiles are typically not asking. The ask is the system.

Call Tracking and Intake Attribution

62% of law firms plan to adopt call-tracking technology. For an in-house team, this is not a future upgrade - it's a day-one requirement. Without call tracking tied to keyword data, the in-house team cannot prove their work is generating cases. That proof is what justifies the team's existence to the managing partner.

CallRail assigns unique phone numbers to each traffic source. When someone calls the number on your blog post about car accident settlements, you know that post generated a call. When that call converts to a signed case, the content program gets credit. This is how you build the ROI case for continued investment.

Google Local Service Ads Management

LSA ads appear above standard Google Ads. They're pay-per-lead and require the "Google Screened" verification for legal professionals. The average cost per lead for personal injury through LSA is approximately $240 - significantly lower than the cost per lead through standard PPC for most competitive markets. An in-house team that manages LSA is capturing the highest-intent local search traffic at a fraction of standard paid search costs.

LSA management is operationally straightforward once the verification is complete. The primary ongoing tasks are disputing invalid leads, adjusting weekly budget caps, and maintaining the review profile that affects placement. A properly managed LSA account can generate leads at lower cost than any other paid channel for local practice area terms.

See Google Ads for lawyers for the full breakdown on LSA versus standard PPC.

Content Cluster Strategy

Practice area pillar pages need supporting topic cluster content to compound their ranking authority. See content marketing for law firms for the full three-layer framework. For in-house SEO purposes, the team's job is maintaining the cluster map: tracking which supporting posts have been published, which link correctly back to their pillar page, and which gaps remain in the cluster architecture.

Technical SEO Monitoring

Monthly Screaming Frog crawl combined with a Google Search Console review catches most technical issues before they affect rankings. Core Web Vitals, mobile performance, broken internal links, crawl errors, duplicate content, and page speed issues are all identifiable through this routine. Technical problems that go unnoticed for months can suppress rankings silently. A monthly audit takes two to three hours and prevents that.

The In-House vs. Agency Cost Comparison for Law Firms

Here's the financial case in one table.

The in-house cost reality:

An SEO Manager at $65,000 a year plus a content writer at $55,000 a year (or $15,000 a year in freelance costs) plus $5,000 a year in tools (Ahrefs, Screaming Frog, CallRail, rank tracking) equals $85,000-$120,000 a year. That team works exclusively on your firm, 40 hours a week per person, directly accountable to you.

A premium legal SEO agency runs $8,000-$15,000 a month - the same dollar range or higher. The difference: the agency allocates a fraction of that time specifically to your account. They're managing 30 to 50 other law firm clients with the same team.

What you lose with pure in-house

External perspective matters. A team working only on your firm can develop blind spots. They may not know when a tactic has stopped working because they've never seen the pattern across other firms. This is the legitimate argument for not going fully in-house.

The hybrid model addresses this directly. An in-house execution team handles the day-to-day - content production, GBP management, reporting, technical monitoring. A fractional CMO handles strategy, oversight, quarterly priority reviews, and keeping the team current with algorithm changes and industry shifts. The total cost of the hybrid model is comparable to a premium agency retainer - with dramatically more control, accountability, and institutional knowledge that stays with your firm.

The 3-year SEO ROI for the average law firm is approximately 526%. The firms achieving that return are not doing it through vendor dependency. They're doing it through consistent, accountable execution - which is exactly what an in-house team provides.

The 90-Day Law Firm In-House SEO Buildout Roadmap

Here's the specific sequence. This is the process I've used to help law firms move from agency dependency to in-house capability.

Before starting: if you don't have a clear picture of what your current SEO program is producing, a marketing audit gives you the baseline data your new team will need to measure improvement against.

Days 1-30: Foundation

1. Hire SEO Manager or assess existing staff for the capability and willingness to own this function.
2. Verify all tool access: Google Analytics 4 with goal tracking configured, Google Search Console with all site properties claimed, Google Business Profile verified for all firm locations.
3. Export current keyword rankings as your baseline. This is the before-snapshot you'll compare against at 90, 180, and 365 days.
4. Set up CallRail (or equivalent) across all major traffic sources: organic, paid, GBP direct, referral. Every channel gets a tracked number.
5. Build the monthly reporting template: organic sessions, tracked calls by source, consultations from organic, signed cases from organic. Run it empty in month one to establish the process.

Days 31-60: Production Start

1. Complete keyword research for all primary practice areas. Build the cluster map: pillar pages, supporting blog topics, FAQ targets for each practice area.
2. Complete GBP optimization across all locations: photos updated (minimum 20), services listed accurately, description keyword-optimized, category selection reviewed, posting calendar started.
3. Begin content production. Target 4-6 pieces in the first 60 days. Prioritize the highest-intent, highest-volume practice area pages first, not blog posts.
4. Activate the review acquisition system. Build the text and email sequence triggered at case close. Test it on the next three case closings.
5. Start the attorney review workflow for all content. Every piece that publishes in month 2 and beyond has attorney sign-off.

Days 61-90: Systems and Iteration

1. Complete the first full monthly performance report using the template built in month one. Review it against case outcomes.
2. Lock the content calendar for the next 90 days. Prioritize gap-filling in the cluster map over general blog topics.
3. Run the first Screaming Frog technical crawl. Identify and prioritize the fix list from Google Search Console and the crawl data.
4. Complete the citation audit. Use a tool like BrightLocal to identify NAP inconsistencies across directories. Correct the highest-authority citations first.
5. Start the LSA verification process if applicable to your practice areas. Approval takes 2-4 weeks; start it early.

Month 3 and beyond: Iteration and acceleration. Most firms see meaningful ranking movement within 90-120 days of this systematic process. Case attribution from organic typically becomes measurable at 6-9 months. The compounding begins in year two.

How a Fractional CMO Supports Your In-House SEO Team

I want to be direct about what I actually do with the law firms I work with, because it's different from every other option in this market.

I don't do your SEO for you. I teach your team how to do it, set the strategy each month, and hold the outcomes accountable. The goal is to build a firm that owns its marketing capability and doesn't need an agency - or me - to survive.

The gap in-house teams consistently face

In-house teams are strong at execution. They're often uncertain about strategy - specifically, which priorities to focus on from a long list of things they could do, how to diagnose ranking drops versus algorithm shifts, and how to stay current with changes in Google's local and organic ranking signals. These are not failures of the team. They're the predictable consequence of working inside a single firm rather than across dozens.

What a fractional CMO actually does

Monthly strategy sessions where we review the team's performance data and identify the three highest-priority actions for the next 30 days. Quarterly priority reviews that assess whether the overall program direction is correct given current rankings and case volume. On-call advisory when the team hits problems or decisions they need a second opinion on. And ongoing knowledge transfer - I'm actively working to make myself less necessary over time, not more.

The law firm seo consultant role I serve in the hybrid model is specifically not an execution role. Your in-house team executes. I set direction, review performance, and train the team to make better decisions independently.

Why this model works better for most law firms

The external strategic perspective that agencies provide is genuinely valuable. But you shouldn't have to pay for it at agency execution rates. A fractional CMO at $2,000-$5,000 a month gives you strategic oversight while your in-house team handles execution. You get the cross-firm pattern recognition and strategic expertise without giving up control, data ownership, or the compounding institutional knowledge that only builds when the work stays in-house.

Build in house seo team capability. Add external strategic oversight through a fractional CMO. Own your results. That's the model that produces the 526% three-year SEO ROI that most law firms are currently leaving on the table.

For the full picture on strategy oversight: fractional CMO for law firms explains exactly how that relationship works and what it costs.

Frequently Asked Questions About Building an In-House SEO Team for a Law Firm

How much does it cost to build an in-house SEO team for a law firm?

An SEO Manager runs $55,000-$75,000 a year. A content writer runs $45,000-$60,000 a year in-house or $15,000-$25,000 a year as a part-time or freelance resource. SEO tools - Ahrefs, Screaming Frog, CallRail, rank tracking - add roughly $5,000 a year. Total: $85,000-$120,000 a year for a functional in-house team. This is comparable to a mid-tier legal SEO agency retainer, with significantly more control and direct accountability.

What is the difference between in-house SEO and agency SEO for law firms?

An in-house team works exclusively on your firm, is directly accountable to you daily, and builds institutional knowledge that stays with the firm when they leave. An agency divides attention across 30-50 clients, operates with limited accountability to your specific case outcomes, and owns the strategy and tools - meaning you start over when you exit the contract. The most practical model for most growing firms is hybrid: in-house execution with a fractional CMO for external strategy and oversight.

How long does it take to build an in-house SEO team for a law firm?

Most firms can hire their SEO Manager and begin executing within 30-45 days. A functional team producing content, managing GBP, and running attribution reports typically comes together within 90 days of the first hire. Ranking results typically appear within 90-120 days of systematic execution. Case attribution from organic typically becomes measurable at 6-9 months. The compounding return becomes visible in year two.

What skills should a law firm SEO manager have?

The non-negotiable: Google Analytics 4, Google Search Console, local SEO fundamentals including GBP management and local pack ranking factors, keyword research, basic technical SEO, and content strategy. The differentiator: experience with law-firm-specific SEO, not just enterprise or e-commerce SEO. The two are different channels with different priorities. Interview candidates by asking them to explain how they would improve a law firm's local pack rankings. The quality of that answer predicts performance better than a resume scan.

Should a law firm use an agency or build in-house?

It depends on your firm's size, budget, growth stage, and appetite for building internal capability. Agencies make sense for firms that want to outsource the execution entirely and don't have bandwidth to manage an in-house team. In-house makes sense for firms that have been in the agency model long enough to see its limitations, want to own their marketing data and rankings, and are willing to invest in building a team. The hybrid model - in-house execution plus fractional CMO strategy - delivers the benefits of both at a comparable total cost to premium agency retainers.

Ready to Build Your In-House SEO Team?

Most firms that build this capability successfully don't do it alone in the first 90 days. There are decisions to make - who to hire, what tools to set up, what priorities to tackle first - that are much clearer with someone who has done this before.

Here's what working with me looks like: I help you hire the right first person, set up the systems in the right order, define what the team should be measuring and reporting on, and then coach the team through the first 12 months as they build the skills to run this independently.

The goal is a law firm that owns its organic search capability. Not a firm that's traded one dependency for another.

Talk to Casey about building your in-house SEO team. Most firms are operational in 90 days. The first conversation is free.

Or if you're not ready to commit to hiring yet, start with a clear picture of your current state: a marketing audit shows you exactly what your current SEO program is producing and what an in-house team would need to improve on. That baseline is what makes the first 90 days of the buildout measurably productive.