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Law Firm SEO ROI Calculator

Enter how much money you spend, how many leads you receive, how many of those leads actually convert into signed cases, and also how much each signed case is worth. This lets you find out cost per signed case, ROI (return on investment), and also how many cases you need every month to break even. And nothing you type ever goes beyond your browser.

Open the calculator See the formulas

In short

SEO ROI for a law firm is the fee revenue from cases that came in through organic search, minus what you spent on SEO, divided by that spend. To find the revenue, multiply your monthly leads by the share who book a consultation, the share of those who sign, and your average fee per case.

Calculator

Run your own numbers

Each field begins blank; the only important numbers here belong to you. Use numbers for the same channel and the same months and rely on intake records rather than your recollection for conversion rates.

Your numbers

Your math calculations happen right in your browser. What you type never goes anywhere including GLP or anyone else; nothing gets saved or tracked either. Then once you close that page, everything is deleted too.

Spend

The monthly cost for what you're measuring includes fees paid to an agency along with costs related to staff time and content creation and tools used. If you're just tracking performance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) then do not include advertising spending.

Leads

Calls, forms and chats from that channel in a typical month. Count people, not repeat calls.

Visits from unpaid search, from your analytics.

Share of those visitors who call or fill in a form. Leads divided by visitors, times 100.

Intake and value

Share of leads who book and attend a consultation, from your intake records.

Share of consultations that turn into a signed engagement.

The fee your firm keeps, not the settlement or the amount in dispute. For contingency work, use your share.

Adds totals for that many months. Leave it empty to see one month.

The example numbers are made up to show how the math works. They are not benchmarks, averages or typical results for any firm.

Results

Fill in every required field to see your results.

Fractions of a case are averages: 2.5 signed cases a month means 5 cases every two months.

The math

The formulas behind the calculator

Nothing is hidden. The calculator runs these steps in order, and each result card shows the arithmetic with your numbers.

  1. Leads = organic visitors × visitor-to-lead rate (or the lead count you enter)
  2. Consultations = leads × lead-to-consultation rate
  3. Signed cases = consultations × consultation-to-signed rate
  4. Cost per lead = monthly spend ÷ leads
  5. Cost per signed case = monthly spend ÷ signed cases
  6. Fee revenue = signed cases × average fee per signed case
  7. ROI = (fee revenue minus spend) ÷ spend × 100
  8. Break-even cases per month = monthly spend ÷ average fee per signed case
  9. Break-even leads per month = break-even cases ÷ (lead-to-consultation rate × consultation-to-signed rate)

A worked example with made-up numbers

These figures are invented to show the arithmetic. They aren't averages for any practice area or market.

A firm spends $5,000 each month and generates 20 leads through organic search results. Half of these leads convert into consultation bookings, so that means there are 10 consultation bookings per month. One quarter of these booking leads end up signing, which means they get 2.5 signed cases per month, or 5 cases every two months. The average fee per case is $5,000; this results in monthly fee revenue totaling $12,500.

  • Cost per lead: $5,000 ÷ 20 = $250
  • Cost per signed case: $5,000 ÷ 2.5 = $2,000
  • ROI: ($12,500 minus $5,000) ÷ $5,000 × 100 = 150%
  • Break-even: $5,000 ÷ $5,000 = 1 signed case a month, which takes 8 leads at these rates

If you reduce the rate of consultations that sign up from once in four to once in five, then the cost per signed case goes up to $2,500 and ROI drops to 100%. Often intake is just as important as ranking performance for results.

How to use it

Getting numbers you can trust

  1. Decide what you are measuring

    SEO is fine on its own or along with other marketing efforts, as long as the money spent matches up to the leads acquired. If you are using paid ads as part of what you spend money on, also count those paid leads.

  2. Count leads by source

    Use call tracking along with information collected through forms to distinguish leads that come from organic search from those who were referred, came from ads or walked in. If you can't yet split them out clearly write this down; results will be based on an educated guess.

  3. Pull rates from intake, not memory

    Your CRM system or case management software tells you how many leads have booked a consultation and how many have signed up. Use months that match those used for spending and also use those for tracking leads.

  4. Use the fee you keep

    For contingency work this means your share of the recovery left over after case costs. For work done on an hourly or fixed fee basis, use the average that has been billed and received for each case rather than using the quoted amount.

  5. Add a time horizon if you want totals

    Choose the window for judging the work that you want: say twelve months for example. Totals are based on assuming that every month matches what you have inputted. Treat them as an approximate framework rather than forecasts.

Reading the results

What the numbers tell you, and what they don't

Cost per signed case is the number to watch

Reducing cost per lead involves targeting less expensive leads which can be weaker. But cost per signed case can't be fooled like this. Compare that to your average fee. If signing a case costs $2,000 and you get paid $5,000 for it, then the channel is worthwhile. But if you spend more on cases than what you charge clients, it's not worth it no matter how attractive the traffic graph is.

Break-even shows how much room you have

Break-even cases per month is the bar the channel has to clear before it pays for itself. A result of 1.2 means the work pays off once it brings in a little more than one signed case a month. Break-even leads tells you how many leads that takes at your current intake rates, which makes it a useful check on whether a target is realistic.

Small rate changes swing the result

When you look at the three metrics together they multiply and if you see something small going wrong in any of them, it can have big downstream impacts. When you think that a channel is not performing well, check into the quality of the intake process first. Check things like call response rate, form response time and consultation processes.

Limits of this calculator

  • It assumes flat months. Real search programs ramp up, so the first months usually look worse than later ones.
  • It ignores timing. Contingency fees can be paid long after a case signs, and the calculator treats them as same-month revenue.
  • It can't solve attribution issues; people who already know you and search using your name are considered brand traffic rather than new customers coming through the door for the first time. If you mix those leads together, performance metrics in SEO will look better than they really are.
  • It counts one fee per case. Referrals from happy clients and repeat matters aren't included.
  • It's a planning aid, not financial or accounting advice.

How GLP does it

How we measure cost per signed case

"Every marketing dollar should trace back to a signed case. When one doesn't, we change the plan."

Matt Khorsandi, Founder & CEO, GLP Marketing

For clients, we work out this number from records rather than estimates. The chain looks like this:

  • Calls: We use call tracking numbers to see where phone leads come from. For Westview Law, we installed CallRail and hooked that up to their CRM when we launched the website (you can see the case study).
  • Forms: each web form submission carries its source, campaign and landing page, so a lead from a practice page in organic search is told apart from a paid click.
  • Intake: we match those leads against the firm's intake or case management records to see which booked a consultation and which signed.
  • Fees: the firm tells us the fee on signed matters, or an average by practice area if case-level fees are private.

Monthly data for each channel and practice area will show how much money was spent, how many leads were generated, how many of those leads actually signed up, and the cost of signing each one. We shift budgets when cost per signed case exceeds the amount the firm earns from those cases. Additional details about reporting are available on our site under how we work. Search results for two recent client sites are also located on the case studies section of the website.

Keep going

Related reading

Related services and guides

SEO ROI questions

Want a second pair of eyes on your numbers? Talk to our team.

How do you calculate SEO ROI for a law firm?

To get ROI: take the revenue from leads that come through organic search results. Then subtract what you spent on SEO during that same time. After that, divide that result by the amount you spent on SEO. And then finally multiply by 100 to get your percentage. To calculate revenue, first multiply the number of monthly leads that come organically by the proportion that go on to book a consultation. Then multiply that by the proportion of those who actually sign up and then by your average fee for each signed case.

What should count as SEO spend?

Everything you pay to get and keep organic search traffic: agency or consultant fees, the hours your own staff spend on content and the website, writers, tools and any one-off site work spread over the months it supports. Leave out paid ads unless you want to measure all of your marketing together, in which case count every lead source too.

What is a good cost per signed case?

One that is comfortably below the fee you keep on that kind of case. A cost that works for a firm with large contingency fees would sink a firm that bills a flat fee for a simple matter, so we don't publish a single target. Compare your cost per signed case with your own average fee, and with the same number for your other channels, measured the same way.

Why does my ROI look negative in the first months?

The search results typically take months to start showing leads but spending begins right away. Also, contingency fees can come much later. So run your calculations using the numbers you expect when things are actually going forward, and then keep track of actual numbers monthly instead of judging just the first quarter as a whole.

Does the calculator save or send my numbers?

No, calculations happen directly on your browser. Nothing gets submitted or sent to GLP or to any analytics service and nothing is saved either. After closing the page or reloading it, those numbers will disappear.

Should I use the settlement amount or the fee?

The fee. ROI measures what the firm earns against what it spends, so use the part of the recovery or the billing your firm keeps. Case costs you advance and never get back should come off that number too.

Want the real numbers for your firm?

During a free strategy call, we look into how you track leads currently and what gaps there are. We also discuss what it takes to report the cost per signed case on a monthly basis for different channels.

Book a strategy call
Or call Call (661) 388-5526