Searching engine marketing, whether with paid PPC ads or through organic search traffic from SEO are excellent ways to drive more traffic, sign up more divorce and family law clients, and grow a law firm.
Whether you’re just getting started with these channels or are looking for better results than you’re currently achieving, we’ll look at the most profitable divorce and family law keywords for both SEO and Google Ads below.
We’ll also go over some important details on finding the right keywords in your local vicinity as well as how to evaluate them.
Best Family Law and Divorce Attorney Keywords for SEO & Google Ads
There is a lot of overlap between the best SEO and AdWords keywords when it comes to driving more family law and divorce clients. There’s more great SEO keywords in terms of volume than there is for ads. This is because SEO traffic is “free” or earned, whereas ads are paid and you want to be careful which searches and keywords your ads appear for and control the type of clicks and traffic you pay for and receive.
For this reason, the best keywords for both organic search engine optimization and Google Ads are known as transactional keywords. These are bottom-of-funnel and correspond with high conversion rates leading to calls and form submissions of people ready to buy or at least inquire directly with a law firm.
Top 65+ Keywords Using Google AdWords’ Keyword Planner
Most divorce attorneys are typically handling a number of different family law services and a lot of people searching for a lawyer might type in a number of different searches depending, sometimes including the specific service or preference in their search.
Here are the keywords that typically have the most search volume along with their costs. You’ll see that some of these specific family law services and consumer preferences show up in these keywords.
| Keyword | Estimated Average Cost per Click |
| adoption attorneys | $16.09 |
| adoption attorneys near me | $12.16 |
| adoption lawyer | $19.69 |
| adoption lawyers | $14.43 |
| adoption lawyers near me | $30.26 |
| affordable divorce lawyers | $20.72 |
| alimony lawyer | $14.47 |
| best child custody lawyers near me | $15.89 |
| best divorce attorney | $19.50 |
| best divorce attorney near me | $23.34 |
| best divorce lawyers | $19.78 |
| best divorce lawyers near me | $19.62 |
| best family law attorney | $18.54 |
| best female divorce attorney near me | $10.95 |
| cheap divorce attorney | $21.80 |
| cheap divorce lawyers | $23.27 |
| cheap divorce lawyers near me | $20.54 |
| child custody attorney | $16.98 |
| child custody attorney near me | $26.35 |
| child custody lawyer | $18.02 |
| child custody lawyers | $15.56 |
| child custody lawyers near me | $19.98 |
| child lawyer | $17.15 |
| child support attorney | $16.63 |
| child support attorney near me | $25.29 |
| child support attorneys | $16.45 |
| child support lawyer | $19.42 |
| child support lawyers near me | $25.73 |
| cps lawyers | $21.25 |
| custody attorney | $15.48 |
| custody attorney near me | $19.42 |
| custody lawyer | $20.77 |
| custody lawyers | $17.70 |
| custody lawyers near me | $23.38 |
| divorce attorney | $20.10 |
| divorce attorney for men | $19.34 |
| divorce attorney for women | $24.10 |
| divorce attorney near me | $25.91 |
| divorce lawyer | $19.46 |
| divorce lawyer for men | $18.20 |
| divorce lawyers | $21.66 |
| divorce lawyers for women | $17.63 |
| divorce lawyers near me | $24.31 |
| family attorney | $17.49 |
| family attorney near me | $22.59 |
| family court attorney | $15.57 |
| family court lawyers | $17.68 |
| family court lawyers near me | $23.50 |
| family divorce lawyer | $15.71 |
| family law attorney | $15.99 |
| family law attorney near me | $22.44 |
| family law firm | $14.82 |
| family law lawyers | $15.39 |
| family law lawyers near me | $21.26 |
| family lawyer attorney | $21.57 |
| family lawyer near me | $24.42 |
| fathers rights attorney | $13.16 |
| fathers rights lawyer | $15.99 |
| fathers rights lawyers | $19.94 |
| female divorce lawyers near me | $19.30 |
| good divorce lawyer near me | $16.24 |
| lawyers for dads | $28.78 |
| mediation lawyer | $16.18 |
| military divorce lawyer | $23.52 |
| paternity lawyer | $15.69 |
| qdro attorney | $17.36 |
| spousal support lawyer | $10.72 |
| spousal support lawyers | $9.97 |
These keywords were pulled directly from Google’s Keyword Planner. Some are less desirable than others, such as “cheap divorce attorney”. But if you’ve just hung up your shingle or you have a firm with many associates with a range of hourly fees, it could still be beneficial to target.
However, they’re also the top SEO keywords to pool search optimization efforts towards to rank organically as well. The rule of thumb is that all keywords that are profitable to pay for in Google ads auctions are worthy of ranking for organically.
Is There a Difference Between ‘lawyer’ and ‘attorney’ keywords?
You’ll see that many of the keywords listed are very similar to each other. Sometimes only differing by a single word such as ‘lawyer’ or ‘attorney’. In other cases, the only variation is whether they’re singular or plural.
So what gives?
Google is simply reporting what users are typing in as well as the average CPC bids associated with each keyword. Some people use ‘lawyer’ and others type in ‘attorney’. In some geographies one term is more popular than the other and vice versa.
When evaluating the keywords, the one with higher search volume is typically the more competitive, most expensive and more difficult to rank for organically.
When optimizing your website for organic search, you will want to optimize for both, with a bias towards the term with higher search volume.
How to Find the Top Keywords for your Local Market
Finding the best keywords for your target market requires being very definitive in the areas your firm will serve as well as areas it will not. Make a list of cities and counties that you serve. If you practice state-wide or in multiple states, add them to the list, too.
Once you have your list, you can use our keyword combiner tool to speed up the process of creating localized keywords for your market using the list of locations and the keywords listed in the table above.
This is important as it will allow you to develop a strategy on which keywords to bid on based on your firm’s strategy and keyword data such as CPC bids, search volume and competition.
You can use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs and SEMRush to find search volume, estimated CPC costs as well as the competition for organically ranking for these keywords.
Find Top Low-Competition SEO Keywords for Family Law & Divorce
While it’s not always the case, lower search volume terms and keywords tend to be less competitive. Often, these make for great, low-hanging fruit in SEO campaigns, since you can create content and powerful practice area pages with thorough and in-depth information on these searches with lower competition. These searches can generate profitable traffic and leads quickly and more easily than the high-competition keywords.
For family law, this would include, but is not limited to keywords for topics including the following:
- Modification of custody
- Modification of parenting plan
- Prenuptial agreements
- Postnuptial agreements
- Name change
- Engagement ring law
- Child support enforcement
- Child abduction
- Child support payments
- Paternity
- Marital agreements
- Divorce lawyer costs
Use tools like Ahrefs and SEMRush to find keyword ideas as well as Google’s Related searches and People also ask features to make a shortlist of topics and ideas to implement into your SEO strategy.
Conclusion
Incorporating Google ads and search engine optimization are two of the top online marketing sources for attracting and signing up more family law clients in the modern age. A principle component of either the paid or organic channel is developing a plan, which includes the right keywords to target for both SEO and AdWords, respectively.
Remember that all keywords that are good for PPC ads are also good to rank for organically, but not necessarily the other way around. Hence, there are many more keywords to rank for organically which will still produce a strong ROI. Use tools like Google’s ‘People also ask’, ‘Related searches’ features as well as the Keyword Planner tool, Ahrefs and SEMRush to find keyword opportunities that will make your efforts and campaigns shine.
