How to plan practice-area pages clients actually read

Why most firm websites under-explain

Professional firm websites often list practice areas as headings with a paragraph each: "We provide a full range of corporate and commercial services." That tells a prospect nothing they didn't assume. It also gives search engines almost nothing to match against the specific problems people search for.

Prospects don't search for departments. They search for situations:

• "partner wants to leave our company what happens to shares"
• "do I need stamped drawings to remove a load-bearing wall"
• "corporate tax return late penalty small business"

A page that clearly describes the situation, explains how the firm approaches it and tells the reader what to prepare is far more likely to be found and believed.

Step 1: Choose which pages to write

Start with strategy, not with your current menu. List every service the firm offers, then score each from one to three on:

Write pages first for the services that score highest. Services that score low on priority and profitability may not need a dedicated page at all; a mention on a broader page is enough. If the partners haven't agreed which work to grow, settle that first, which is what practice growth strategy is for.

Step 2: Structure each page around client questions

A dependable structure for a practice-area page:

1. Who this is for. One or two sentences naming the client and situation: "Owner-managed companies where a shareholder wants to exit."
2. When you need help. The triggers that should prompt someone to call.
3. How the process usually works. The stages in plain language, without promising outcomes.
4. What to prepare. Documents, information or decisions the client should gather.
5. Common mistakes. What people get wrong before they call, described generally.
6. Questions we're often asked. Three to five short answers.
7. Who handles this work. Links to the profiles of the professionals responsible.
8. Next step. How to contact the firm.

This structure works across professions. An engineering practice's page on building envelope assessments and a CPA firm's page on succession planning follow the same logic: situation, process, preparation, people.

Step 3: Gather the questions

Your own intake is the richest source of questions. If you keep an enquiry log, as described in our consultation conversion guide, the matter-type column already contains them. Other good sources:

• Questions staff hear repeatedly on first calls.
• Questions clients ask at the end of consultations.
• Search suggestions that appear when you type the situation into a search engine.
• Questions referral sources say their own clients ask them.

Collect fifteen to twenty per specialty, then group them. Each group usually becomes a section of the page.

Step 4: Divide the writing sensibly

Partners' time is the constraint, so divide the work:

A practical method is a thirty-minute recorded conversation where the editor asks the partner the brief's questions. The editor drafts from the recording, and the partner corrects the draft. Many partners find that far easier than facing a blank page.

Step 5: Review against your regulator's rules

Every profession and province has rules on how firms may advertise. They can cover descriptions of expertise, use of designations and titles, comparisons with other firms, statements about past results, client endorsements and fee information. We don't summarise them here because they differ and change. Instead:

• Identify your regulator. Our areas page links the law society, engineering regulator and CPA body for every province and territory.
• Read its current rules or guidance on marketing and advertising.
• Build a short internal checklist from that source, and have one designated person apply it to every page before publication.
• Re-check pages when rules change and at least annually.

Step 6: Connect pages to people and intake

A practice-area page is the start of a conversation, so link it to the professionals who handle the work and make the next step obvious. Then check whether the enquiries the page generates are being handled well. A page that attracts ten good prospects a month is wasted if half of them wait three days for a reply.

Ask every new client how they found the firm and record the answer, so you can see which pages produce work.

Common mistakes

• Writing for peers. Technical detail impresses colleagues and loses clients. Save it for articles aimed at referrers.
• One page per department. Departments aren't searches. Split by client situation.
• Copying competitors' menus. If every firm's pages say the same things, none of them helps a prospect choose.
• Promising outcomes. Describe process and approach; leave outcome language out unless your regulator's rules clearly allow it.
• Publishing without review. Compliance review is part of the process, not an afterthought.
• Never updating. Out-of-date pages, especially on tax or regulatory topics, undermine credibility.

A simple first-quarter plan

For a small firm starting from scratch:

1. Weeks 1 to 2: score services and choose three specialties.
2. Weeks 3 to 4: collect questions and write briefs.
3. Weeks 5 to 10: one recorded interview and one draft per fortnight, with partner corrections.
4. Weeks 11 to 12: compliance review, publication and intake-source tracking.

Three strong pages a quarter is a realistic pace for most firms. Over a year, that builds a meaningful library.

For help planning the work, see expertise visibility, or return to the guides overview.