Short answer: Before you name practice-area pages, check Google Trends for the phrases people actually type. In one comparison, more people searched “defense attorney” than “criminal lawyer.” Build one page per practice area using the winning phrase for your market.

Google needs to see the practice area on your website, not just on your Google Business Profile. A single “Practice Areas” list with ten bullets will not rank for any of them.

“If you're a criminal lawyer, right? You need a page that says that you're a criminal lawyer. You need a page on that.”

Bret Moleta, Google Trends Just Got Dangerous for Local SEO, Here’s How I’d Use It, at 2:41

Check Trends before you lock the page title

The phrase you use around the office may not be the phrase clients type. When I compared terms in Google Trends, the result surprised a lot of lawyers who watched:

“more people are typing in defense attorney than criminal lawyer.”

Bret Moleta, Google Trends Just Got Dangerous for Local SEO, Here’s How I’d Use It, at 8:03

Look up your own terms for your city or region before you name the pages. Divorce, personal injury, mediation and business law each need the same check.

Category and pages have to agree

“that's the reason why he has law firm, but he wants to rank for Criminal Justice Attorney. So, he has to pay.”

Bret Moleta, This GBP Setting Is Silently Killing Your Calls (2 Min Fix), at 2:16

If your primary category is generic “Law firm” but you want criminal defense calls, the map will often send those calls to firms whose category and pages already say so. Fix the category and the page names together.

Each practice-area page should name the service and the city, explain how you handle that type of case, and link to contact. For the full law-firm hire guide, see local SEO for law firms. Note: Guarantee not available for legal, roofing or water damage.