Featured · Solo & Small Firm
Attorney digital marketing on a solo practitioner's budget
Nearly all the advice written about digital marketing for attorneys assumes somebody else will be doing it. It assumes a marketing manager, a content calendar, a retainer and a budget that survives a quiet quarter, none of which a solo or two-attorney practice has.
What a small practice actually has is a few hours a month, a modest budget that must show a return fairly quickly, and the considerable advantage of being able to decide something on a Tuesday and have it live on a Wednesday. This guide is written for that.
What a small practice should actually do
There is a short list of things that reliably produce work for small practices, and it is considerably shorter than the list most agencies present. Do these before considering anything else.
Your Business Profile, completed properly, with accurate categories, real photographs and correct hours. It is free, it takes an afternoon, and for a local practice it outperforms almost everything else.
Reviews, asked for as a habit at the end of every matter. The cheapest competitive advantage available to a small firm, and the one most consistently neglected.
One page for each thing you actually want to be instructed for, written to a specific situation rather than as a service description.
A telephone number that works on a phone, on every page, and somebody who answers it.
A small, tightly targeted advertising budget on the one or two matter types worth the most to you — not on everything you are qualified to do.
That is the whole list. It costs very little beyond time, and a practice doing all five well will out-perform a great many larger firms doing a great deal more badly.
The advantage a small practice has is not budget; it is speed and specificity. You can be genuinely narrow in a way a full-service firm cannot, and narrowness is what makes modest budgets work.
The disadvantage is that there is nobody to delegate to, which makes the discipline of doing a little every month the whole discipline.
What to leave alone
Small practices are sold a great deal that does not suit them. These are the things most often bought and least often useful at this scale.
A full rebuild of a site that works. Structure and copy on the existing site will move the number; a rebuild mostly moves the money.
Broad advertising across every practice area you are technically able to handle, which spends a small budget too thinly to win anything.
A content calendar of weekly posts. Four good pages a year beat fifty thin ones, and the fifty will not get written anyway.
Presence on four social platforms. If any, choose the one your referrers actually use, and treat it as a relationship channel rather than an advertising one.
Cheap bulk link packages, which range from useless to genuinely damaging and are never worth the saving.
Long retainers with no defined deliverables. At this size, discrete pieces of paid work with a clear scope are almost always the better structure.
A realistic first year
Assume a few hours a month and a budget that has to justify itself. This sequence front-loads the free work and only spends money once there is something worth sending traffic to.
Month one: complete the Business Profile, fix the telephone number on every page, and start asking every client for a review.
Month two: write one page for your single most valuable matter type, to one specific situation.
Month three: measure what happens, and record where every enquiry came from, including the calls.
Months four and five: two more pages, chosen by what the first three months suggested rather than by what you assumed.
Month six: start a small advertising budget aimed only at the best matter type, and stop it if it does not produce within a quarter.
Months seven to twelve: keep asking for reviews, add a page every second month, and improve the pages that half-work rather than adding new ones.
Buy help for the specific things you cannot do — page speed, a technical fix, one well-written page — as discrete jobs rather than as a retainer.
Review it once, properly, at twelve months, on the only figure that matters: how many instructed matters arrived and what they cost you.
A year of that is genuinely enough to build a working pipeline for a small practice, and almost none of it requires expertise you would have to buy. It requires turning up monthly, which is harder.
FAQs
Can a solo attorney do digital marketing without an agency?
Most of what matters at this scale, yes. Business Profile, reviews, a few well-written pages and a telephone number that works cover the majority of it. Buy help for discrete technical jobs rather than committing to a retainer.
What is the highest-return thing for a small practice?
A properly completed Business Profile and a habit of asking every client for a review. Both are free, both take very little time, and for a practice serving a local area they routinely outperform paid advertising.
How much should a small practice spend on advertising?
Start small, aimed at one matter type — the one worth the most to you — and only once there is a page worth sending people to. Stop it if it has not produced within a quarter. Broad advertising across everything you can do is the reliable way to waste a modest budget.
Do we need to post on social media regularly?
No. A weekly posting schedule is the first thing to abandon at this scale, because it will not be sustained and it produces little. If you use one platform, use it to maintain relationships with people who refer work.
Should a small firm sign a marketing retainer?
Usually not at first. Discrete pieces of paid work with a defined scope suit a small practice better — you keep control of the budget, and you can stop after any one of them without a negotiation.
End Note
Small practices are consistently sold the marketing of large ones, at a scale that cannot work and a price that cannot be justified. The version that suits a practice of one or two is much smaller, much cheaper and considerably duller.
Complete the profile, ask for the reviews, write the few pages that matter, answer the telephone, and spend a little money in one narrow place. Then keep doing it for a year.
Key Takeaways
Five things matter at this scale: profile, reviews, pages, phone, narrow ads.
A small practice's advantage is speed and specificity, not budget.
Leave alone rebuilds, weekly posting, four platforms and bulk link packages.
Buy help as discrete jobs rather than as an open-ended retainer.
Judge the year on instructed matters and what they cost — nothing else.
