How to rank in first position on Google for the keyword ‘divorce lawyers London’.
When targeting a keyword in SEO, it’s essential to analyse the SEO strategy of the top ranking website. This way we can determine exactly what is needed to take their number one position.
Divorce lawyers London is a high value, highly competitive keyword with 880 monthly searches from individuals seeking legal expertise during one of the most challenging times in their lives.
Table of Contents
Osbornes Law LLP has secured top spot for this keyword, ranking above hundreds of other legal practices in London.
In this breakdown, we’ll explore the SEO strategy behind Osbornes Law’s success, analysing how they’ve optimised their website, built authority, and managed to dominate this highly competitive keyword. This analysis will provide valuable insights for understanding what it takes to rank highly in the competitive legal sector.
The brand
Name: Osbornes Law LLP
About: Osbornes Law is an award-winning law firm, recognised as a leading law firm in London by Chambers UK, The Legal 500, Spears, Tatler and The Times Best Law Firm Guide. Angus and Peter were known not only as being excellent lawyers but also for their commitment to clients.
Domain: osborneslaw.com
First seen: March 19, 2017.
Current SEO performance
Osbornes Law’s website demonstrates a solid SEO performance, with a strong presence in competitive legal search terms.
Key Metrics
- Organic Keywords Ranking: 11,596
- Osbornes Law ranks for almost 12,000 keywords, showcasing their extensive content and relevance across multiple legal services.
- Estimated Traffic: 36,400 monthly visits
- This highlights their ability to capture a large audience within the legal services market.
- Traffic Value: $106,800
- The estimated monthly cost of acquiring this traffic through paid ads underscores the value of their organic rankings.
Brand vs Non-Brand Traffic
- Brand Traffic: 18.1% (104 keywords)
- Osbornes Law has strong brand recognition, driven by high-ranking brand terms like “osbornes” and “osbornes law.”
- Non-Brand Traffic: 81.9% (11,490 keywords)
- The majority of their traffic comes from non-branded keywords, indicating a well-optimised strategy targeting high-value legal search terms.
Notable High-Performing Keywords
- “Divorce lawyers London”: Ranked 1st (880 monthly searches)
- “No win no fee solicitors”: Ranked 5th (12,100 monthly searches)
- “Solicitor for buying a house”: Ranked 7th (2,900 monthly searches)
- “Divorce lawyers”: Ranked 6th (2,400 monthly searches)
These high ranking positions demonstrate an ability to balance competitive national keywords with targeted local search optimisation.
Underperforming Keywords
- “Conveyancing solicitors”: Ranked >100 (8,100 monthly searches)
- “Personal injury claims”: Ranked 53 (2,900 monthly searches)
- “Medical negligence claims”: Ranked 47 (1,600 monthly searches)
Keywords like “conveyancing solicitors” and “personal injury claims” are currently untapped. Targeting these could further increase traffic, driving more potential new customers to the website.
Website assessment
Osborne Law’s website is well-structured, clean, and professional, ideal for the sensitive nature of divorce-related services.
Above the Fold
The hero section immediately communicates the page’s purpose with a headline that targets the keyword “Divorce Lawyers London.” A professional photo of a solicitor adds a personal touch, building trust and reinforcing the human element of their service. A prominent CTA button (“Contact Us”) encourages immediate engagement, making it easy for users to reach out.
Introduction and Overview
The introductory paragraph provides a concise summary of their divorce law services, establishing relevance for both search engines and users. It’s written in a tone that is empathetic yet authoritative, which is critical for a service like divorce law.
It contains a Table of Contents, with links that jump to specific sections on the page. This is a great way to get users to the sections they care about most.
Trust Signals
Awards and accreditations, including logos for The Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners, are prominently displayed. These trust signals enhance credibility and assure potential clients of the firm’s expertise. Reviews from Trustpilot are also included, further reinforcing trustworthiness through social proof.
Also, the addition of a Meet the Team section, with photos of solicitors adds additional trust factors to the page.
Content Depth
The page is incredibly in-depth with over 5000 words and the word ‘divorce’ is placed over 200 times. It offers detailed explanations of divorce-related topics, such as:
- The divorce process
- Arrangements for children
- Legal rights during divorce
The inclusion of these sections demonstrates authority and relevance for informational keywords while addressing common user questions and paint points directly.
FAQ Section
A well-structured FAQ section answers common questions about divorce law. This is highly user-focused and ensures visitors can quickly find answers without needing to contact the firm immediately. The FAQ also supports SEO by providing helpful content and covering a wide range of long-tail keywords and search queries.
Contact Options
A dedicated contact form and phone number are displayed prominently in the middle and bottom sections of the page, making it easy for users to take action. The CTA text (“Speak to a London Divorce Lawyer Today”) is clear and action-oriented, directly addressing user intent.
Related Content
At the bottom of the page, links to blog articles about divorce law provide additional resources for users. Topics include financial considerations during divorce and cohabitation disputes, which help expand the site’s topical authority.
On-Page SEO
The page is highly optimised and has clearly been overseen by an SEO expert. It effectively targets the primary keyword “Divorce Lawyers London” by including it the meta-title, H1 and within the body content. There is a danger of it being over optimised and they are skirting the edge of what Google would consider acceptable. Google is doubling down on human centric content and ensuring content is written for humans and not search engines. If they have another update targeting this, Osborne Law could be in danger of being hit.
However, the page is clearly helpful, with rich in-depth content. Secondary keywords, such as “divorce process” and “arrangements for children,” are also integrated into the content, helping the page rank for related queries.
Content strategy
High-quality, well-structured content is one of the more important parts of SEO. It not only attracts users but also signals to search engines that a website is a reliable and valuable resource..
When targeting keywords, the biggest component Google looks for is relevance. Relevance is not just measured by the landing page itself, but also the volume of content on the website.
Volume
- Total Indexed Pages: 2,023
- A large number of pages ensures the site has authority, and increases the opportunity to rank for a wide variety of keywords.
- Total Word Count: 2,914,295
- The sheer volume of content demonstrates a commitment to providing detailed information, reflecting authority and expertise in the legal field.
- Average Word Count per Page: 1,441
- This high average word count suggests most pages are comprehensive, likely covering topics in-depth and answering user intent effectively.
Relevance
Keyword usage across titles, headers, and body text is the biggest indication of relevance. When developing an SEO strategy, one of the first things we should do is assess the relevance of the websites we are competing with. This gives us a strong indication of how much relevant content we need to create.
“Lawyer/Solicitor” appears in 150 page titles, 7.41% of the website
“Divorce” is found in 63 page titles, 3.11% of the website
“London” is included in 95 page titles, 4.70% of the website.
Headers and Body Text:
The keywords “Lawyer,” “Divorce,” and “London” are also heavily used across H1s, H2s, and the body text, providing strong relevance of core terms relevant to their services.
“London” appears less frequently in the body text (0.94% of total word count), but almost 5% of the website has London in the title. On many pages they’ve achieved this by appending ‘London Solicitors’ to the end of titles. However, the website is clearly relevant to the keyword ‘divorce lawyers London’, so it’s understandable they are ranking highly.
Multimedia Content
Videos: 52 (2.57% of total pages)
A good number of videos are used throughout the website. This will be providing an advantage by helping improve engagement and time on page.
Images: 360,872 (17838.46% of total pages)
The high volume of images indicates a strong focus on visual content, which likely aids user experience.
Types of content
Osborne Law has a varied range of content that caters to different needs, stages in the buyer journey, and SEO strategies.
It is a large website and appears to cater to multiple countries, so London is just one part of their business. Hungary, Spain, and Slovakia also appear frequently.
Service Pages:
They have multiple service pages that are targeting keywords and aimed at driving leads. Services are well-categorised into areas such as conveyancing, property, and medical law, each having their own sub pages.
Case Studies:
There are 374 case studies on the website. These provide real-world examples of the firm’s expertise, building trust and authority. Case studies also offer opportunities for keyword optimisation and internal linking.
Blog:
Approximately 900 blog pages cover a range of topics in the legal sector. Many of these are in different languages like Spanish and Bulgarian, which shows they operate in multiple countries. This multilingual content expands their reach to international clients and non-English speakers in London.
News & Insights:
Featuring company updates and legal rulings, this section showcases thought leadership and keeps the site relevant to current events in the legal sector.
Team Pages:
Individual pages for each solicitor highlight the expertise of their team, reinforcing trust and professionalism.
Multinational Pages:
Pages for Spanish, Slovakian, Romanian, and Hungarian lawyers cater to a multilingual audience, aligning with London’s diverse population and expanding their client base.
E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness)
Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) is essential in SEO, especially for industries where accuracy, credibility, and professionalism are critical.
The legal sector especially would be considered a ‘Your Money, Your Life’ (YMYL) category by Google, so the importance of E-E-A-T is even more critical. Legal websites deal with sensitive and life-changing decisions, such as divorce, injury claims, or property transactions, so it’s vital to provide trustworthy, reliable, authoritative content.
E-E-A-T Signals within Content
Including E-E-A-T signals within content helps demonstrate to Google that your brand and website are trustworthy and credible. Signals such as professional credentials, client testimonials, affiliations, and citations to credible sources help demonstrate expertise, authority, and trustworthiness.
Academic/Professional Credentials
- With 107,968 mentions (3.70% of total word count), Osbornes Law frequently highlights academic qualifications and professional titles. This effectively establishes their expertise and credibility, especially in the context of legal services.
Content Quality Signals
- Phrases associated with thorough, researched content (e.g., “evidence-based,” “data-driven”) appear 50,208 times (1.72% of total word count). This reinforces their commitment to providing high-quality, reliable information that meets Google’s E-E-A-T standards.
Professional Association Signals
- Mentions of affiliations with respected industry organisations total 2,206 (0.08% of total word count). These references help build authority but could be more prominent to further strengthen credibility.
Authority and Trust Signals
- Keywords and phrases related to trustworthiness (e.g., “trusted advisors,” “approved by”) occur 1,870 times (0.06% of total word count). While present, this could be expanded to better underline authority.
Experience Signals
- Experience-based indicators, such as case studies and client testimonials, appear frequently. Their case study section with 374 case studies will be a huge advantage in this area.
Author & Expertise Signals
- Signals showcasing the expertise of specific authors or contributors are featured 53,009 times (1.82% of total word count). This demonstrates a strong focus on personalising expertise, helping to build both user and search engine trust.
Academic & Research Links
- External links to credible, academic, or governmental resources appear 963 times, so this is another example of well-research, credible content.
Schema Implementation
Schema markup is essential for E-E-A-T as it provides search engines with structured data about a website’s content, helping them better understand its expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. For example, schema types like Person (for showcasing individual expertise), Organization (to establish brand credibility), and Review (to highlight user feedback) directly support E-E-A-T signals.
Person Schema
Implemented on 2,119 pages (104.75% of total pages), reflects a strong emphasis on showcasing individual expertise (e.g., solicitor profiles). This helps search engines associate individual solicitors with their areas of legal expertise.
Organization Schema
Present on 2,181 pages (107.81% of total pages), ensuring Google and other search engines can clearly identify Osbornes Law LLP as an entity and trustworthy organisation.
Review Schema Types and Properties
Included on 34 pages (1.68% of total pages). While minimal, this schema supports trust signals, especially when combined with client testimonials or ratings. Ratings schema is found on 137 pages (6.77%), further bolstering the site’s credibility with structured data that supports positive user feedback.
Professional Schema Signals
No professional schema-specific implementation detected (0.00%). Adding schemas for accreditations or certifications could further boost authority.
E-E-A-T Schema
Limited to 3 pages (0.15%), which is a missed opportunity. Expanding E-E-A-T schema across the site would reinforce expertise and trustworthiness in Google’s eyes.
Educational/Professional Properties
None detected (0.00%). Adding these schema properties would further highlight the site’s authority, especially in the context of YMYL content.
Trust and Authority Features
Clear contact information, privacy/cookie policies, accreditations, and awards are essential for reinforcing trust and authority in line with E-E-A-T standards. These elements signal to users and search engines that the business is transparent, credible, and compliant with legal and ethical guidelines.
Clear Contact Information
The site features prominently displayed addresses for two offices, adding transparency and enhancing trustworthiness.
Privacy & Cookie Policies
Privacy and cookie policies are easily accessible, ensuring compliance with legal and user trust standards, a critical factor for E-E-A-T.
Awards & Accreditations
Multiple awards and accreditations are highlighted throughout the site, supporting the perception of authority and professionalism.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is essential for a website’s performance, ensuring it is optimised for search engines to crawl, index, and rank its content effectively.
A technically sound website provides a fast, seamless user experience, which is essential for reducing bounce rates and improving engagement. Key factors like site speed, mobile-friendliness, secure connections (HTTPS), and structured data ensure that a website meets search engine requirements while delivering a positive experience for users.
Core Vitals and Loading times
Core vitals such as CLS has a direct impact on rankings since the Google ‘page experience‘ updates. Slow pages can also lead to higher bounce rates, which can negatively impact rankings, particularly for competitive keywords.
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): 1.5s
- LCP measures the time taken to load the largest visible content element. At 1.5 seconds, this score is well below the recommended threshold of 2.5 seconds, ensuring a fast and user-friendly experience.
Interaction to Next Paint (INP): 121ms
- INP tracks responsiveness to user interactions, with anything under 200ms considered excellent. Osbornes Law’s score of 121ms indicates highly responsive pages.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): 0
- CLS measures visual stability during page loading. A perfect score of 0 ensures users experience no unexpected shifts, which is critical for accessibility and user satisfaction.
First Contentful Paint (FCP): 1.5s
- FCP indicates the time taken for the first piece of content to appear, with 1.5 seconds being well within the optimal range for a fast-loading site.
Time to First Byte (TTFB): 1.1s
- TTFB measures the time it takes for the server to respond to the initial request. While slightly above the ideal threshold of 800ms, this is still within an acceptable range for performance.
On-site issues
Technical issues have been identified that could impact Osborne Law’s performance and user experience.
Things like broken links can have a direct impact on ranking positions and should always be discovered and fixed swiftly.
13 broken internal links
Broken links disrupt the user experience and can negatively impact search engine crawlability. Fixing these links will improve navigation and SEO performance.
69 broken external links
Broken external links lead to a poor user experience and diminish credibility. Replacing or removing these links will enhance site quality and maintain user trust.
Incorrect Pages in Sitemap
Having incorrect pages in the sitemap can confuse search engines and lead to indexing inefficiencies. Removing or correcting these entries will streamline crawling and indexing.
Duplicate H1s and Meta Descriptions
Duplicate H1 tags and meta descriptions reduce content uniqueness, which can hinder rankings. Auditing and revising these elements to ensure each page has a unique focus will boost SEO relevance.
Off-page SEO and link building
Backlinks are one of the most important elements of SEO. After all, it was Google’s ‘PageRank’ algorithm that made it such a success in the first place.
Backlinks are a big part of SEO, especially for highly competitive keywords. High-quality backlinks from reputable and relevant sources demonstrate that content is valuable, which helps improve rankings and visibility for competitive keywords.
Backlink Metrics
Authority Score: 39
A respectable score that reflects a strong domain authority relative to other players in the legal services sector. Building additional high-quality links from authoritative legal or industry-specific sources could further enhance this metric.
Total Backlinks: 373,451
A high volume of backlinks indicates a robust link-building strategy. Ensuring the quality of these links is key to maintaining and improving SEO performance.
Referring Domains: 1,849
A diverse range of domains contributes to the site’s overall authority. Expanding this further with links from niche-specific legal or government websites could strengthen relevance.
Primarily Branded Anchor Text
Using mainly branded anchor text ensures a natural backlink profile, which aligns with best practices and avoids the risk of over-optimisation.
Types of Links
Forum Links
While forum links can provide value, their quality varies. Ensuring these links come from reputable, relevant forums can help maintain authority without diluting the link profile.
International Links
Links from Eastern European countries diversify the backlink profile, but relevance is key. Links from regions where the firm actively operates or serves communities add the most value.
Media Coverage
High-authority links from respected outlets such as The Independent, The Express, The Times, and The Sun significantly enhance the credibility and trustworthiness of the site. These are standout links for building authority.
Lifestyle Websites
Backlinks from well-known publications like Tatler and Good Housekeeping suggest a well-rounded link-building strategy that extends beyond legal contexts. These links can drive additional referral traffic and appeal to lifestyle-conscious users.
Directories
Directory links provide foundational support for local SEO but have limited authority. Focusing on legal-specific directories, such as Law Society or niche platforms, would boost relevance.
Social media
While social media isn’t a direct ranking factor for SEO, it plays a significant supporting role in enhancing visibility and engagement.
Sharing content on platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram can drive traffic to a website, increasing user engagement and improving key metrics like time on site and bounce rate, all factors that can influence rankings.
- Followers: 1.1k
- Activity: Last updated in 2022.
- Content includes company news and updates but lacks consistency and recent engagement. Reviving this platform with fresh, engaging posts—such as legal advice snippets, community outreach highlights, or behind-the-scenes content—could improve visibility and client trust.
- Followers: 4k
- Activity: Updated more regularly than other platforms.
- Content focuses on news updates, advice, and promotional materials. LinkedIn is well-suited for legal professionals and B2B networking, and maintaining consistency here is key. Including more educational content or thought leadership posts could expand reach further.
X (Twitter)
- Followers: 5k
- Activity: Inactive for a year.
- Content includes media coverage and behind-the-scenes posts. While this platform may not deliver direct conversions, reactivating it with legal news, industry trends, or FAQs could help improve engagement and drive referral traffic.
Final assessment
On the whole, Osbornes Law are doing an great job of SEO, especially their on-page and E-E-A-T scores.
They have a diverse range of content that is well structured and broad. They have excellent case studies which are likely helping a lot, not just with content authority, but also with E-E-A-T.
They are targeting multiple countries in Europe and it will be interesting to see their ranking positions in countries like Spain and Hungary. I didn’t analyse their international SEO efforts, but they would be well placed to have domains in the countries they’re targeting and really ramp up their visibility throughout Europe.
They have a good backlink profile and are gaining some high quality links. They are probably utilising a platform like Response Source to gain links from journalists and content creators.
It is clear they are employing an expert SEO service who has been managing their SEO for a number of years. They’ve done a great job in ensuring the website is fast loading and on-page SEO is excellent.
Areas for improvement
There is room for improvement for Osbornes Law, and their website isn’t the finished article. There are many highly searched keywords they aren’t ranking for, that are directly related to services they offer. They would need to increase their relevancy for these keywords in a similar way to how they’e managed for divorce lawyers in London.
Keywords such as “conveyancing solicitors”, which isn’t ranking at all has 8,100 monthly searches. Similarly, the keyword “personal injury claims” has 2,900 monthly searches, and would definitely gain more clients if they could increase ranking positions.
They also have some technical issues such as broken links that seem to be going unchecked. With such a large website, they should have a process in place where they are alerted of broken links and other technical issues as and when they occur. This way they can fix any issues before Google decides to lower their ranking positions.
Advice to competitors
My advice to other law firms wanting to break on to page 1 for divorce lawyer London and other related keywords, would be to focus on YMYL. Build out your case studies. Feature solicitors prominently throughout the website. Integrate schema to inform Google about your people, your organization, your expertise and your customer reviews.
After this, focus on creating highly engaging content that is helpful to anyone entering the process of a divorce. If you can do this to the volume of around 2,500 pages, you will be in an excellent position to start ranking highly on Google and gaining new clients through organic search.
What did you think of this SEO strategy breakdown. Did I miss anything? Let me know in the comments and let’s chat!