Two months in. Month one mapped the ground. Month two produced the first result that shows on the scoreboard. One guide published on 5 August reached page one of Google inside three weeks, and the AI assistants began naming the firm on a second topic.
August is the quietest month in the legal calendar, and it produced the strongest month so far. One new guide, published on 5 August, took the firm to page one of Google on a non-branded term within three weeks. Separately, the AI assistants began naming the firm on the employment side of the practice as well as the commercial and IP side.
This report tracks two kinds of visibility. Traditional Google search, measured by where the site ranks for the terms buyers type. And AI search, measured by how often assistants name the firm when a buyer asks them who to use. The second is measured across a set of fifteen buyer questions put to ChatGPT and Gemini every cycle, sixty answers in all this month.
Two things to hold in mind. First, seasonality: legal search softens through August, so holding position through this month counts for more than the raw numbers suggest. Second, the tracked AI questions changed at the start of August, by plan. Month one used broad national questions to map who owns which conversation. From August the measurement points at specialist and Birmingham ground instead, which is where a firm this size can realistically win. Three of the four topics therefore started from zero on 5 August and have three weeks of history rather than two months.
Of the 105 tracked keywords, 10 rose, 11 slipped and 84 held. Twenty now sit inside the top 100, up from 18, and one of them is on page one. The average position of the terms that do rank is flat, 51.8 to 52.5, which is what you would expect when the movement is concentrated at the top of the list rather than spread across it.
480 searches a month. The guide went live on 5 August and the position was measured on the 28th, three weeks later.
| what is ip in business | 34 |
| employment law in birmingham | 61 |
| mental health and employment | 63 |
| employers and mental health | 71 |
| collective redundancies | was 59 |
| law work experience birmingham | was 30 |
The four tax-year terms are left out of these charts. They rank, but they sit outside both practice areas.
| ▲ Climbers (10) | Vol/mo | Move |
|---|---|---|
| business ip meaning | 480 | 24→5 |
| what is ip in business | 260 | 100+ → 34 |
| employment law mental health | 70 | 59→51 |
| collective redundancy consultation | 320 | 56→52 |
| mental health at work rights | 50 | 56→55 |
| employment barrister birmingham | 10 | 76→55 |
| employment law in birmingham | 390 | 100+ → 61 |
| mental health and employment | 210 | 100+ → 63 |
| employers and mental health | 210 | 100+ → 71 |
| employer negligence duty of care mental health | 70 | 86→79 |
| ▼ Slippers (11) | Vol/mo | Move |
|---|---|---|
| intellectual property in business | 210 | 51→61 |
| why is the tax year april to april | 140 | 67→73 |
| mental health and work rights uk | 0 | 51→56 |
| intellectual property business | 210 | 52→57 |
| why does the tax year start in april | 210 | 65→70 |
| ip lawyers birmingham | 0 | 17→19 |
| mental health employment law uk | 70 | 52→54 |
| mental health employment law | 70 | 48→49 |
| why does tax year start in april | 210 | 66→67 |
| collective redundancies | 390 | 59→out |
| law work experience birmingham | 140 | 30→out |
These are the ten firms you named, five on the employment side and five on intellectual property and commercial. They went into the tracking this month, replacing the automatic suggestions that appeared in the month-one report. From here they stay fixed, so each month compares against the same names.
The first column is the useful one for reading where the firm stands today. Shared keywords counts the search terms where both sites appear in Google. Only Harper James meets the site with any regularity. Four of the ten show none at all, which is not a tie but no shared ground yet, and with 107 ranking terms against their thousands it is the expected starting position rather than a surprise.
| Firm | Shared keywords | Keywords they rank for that you do not | Backlinks |
|---|---|---|---|
| harperjames.co.uk IP and commercial · the one firm you meet regularly | 51 | 11,928 | 9,384 |
| wilkes.co.uk Employment | 7 | 2,152 | 2,859 |
| freeths.co.uk IP and commercial | 3 | 4,479 | 39,140 |
| mfgsolicitors.com Employment | 3 | 1,488 | 15,339 |
| spencershaw.co.uk Employment | 2 | 483 | 1,964 |
| schofieldandassociates.co.uk Employment | 1 | 27 | 323 |
| hgf.com IP and commercial | none | 240 | 17,233 |
| forresters-ip.com IP and commercial | none | 172 | 1,511 |
| neateandpugh.com Employment | none | 49 | 159 |
| codified.legal IP and commercial | none | 19 | 158 |
| burleylaw.co.uk (you) | 107 ranking terms | · | 89 |
Fifteen buyer questions went to ChatGPT and Gemini through the month, producing sixty answers. Burley Law was named in five of them. Brand visibility rose to 10% and share of voice to 2.3%, from 1.6% last month and 1.4% at the baseline. More significant than either number: the firm is now named across two topics rather than one.
Burley Law is the third most-named brand of any kind across the tracked questions, and the second most-named law firm, in a field of more than 100 brands the assistants mentioned.
Visibility counts how often a firm is named. Position counts where in the answer it appears, and it is the number that decides whether a reader acts on it. Across the ten most-visible brands, Burley Law holds the strongest average position.
| Brand | Avg. position when named | Visibility |
|---|---|---|
| Burley Law (you) | 1.60 | 8% |
| Summerfield Browne | 1.75 | 7% |
| Acas | 1.83 | 10% |
| EM Law | 2.00 | 7% |
| Roythornes Solicitors | 2.60 | 8% |
| Weightmans | 2.67 | 10% |
| Myerson Solicitors | 2.75 | 7% |
| Eversheds Sutherland | 3.00 | 7% |
| Moore Barlow | 4.25 | 7% |
| Harper James | 5.25 | 7% |
The remaining 89.9% is spread across more than 100 other brands, including public bodies and directories. Share of voice has risen each month: 1.4%, then 1.6%, now 2.3%.
| Protecting IP for a small business | Visibility |
|---|---|
| Burley Law · named first (rank 1.00) | 25% |
| Neo Percept IP | 19% |
| Federation of Small Businesses | 19% |
| Harper James Solicitors | 13% |
| Sonder & Clay | 13% |
| Workplace mental health & duty of care · Birmingham | Visibility |
|---|---|
| Acas | 19% |
| Pinsent Masons | 19% |
| Wilkes Solicitors | 13% |
| Martin Searle Solicitors | 13% |
| Weightmans | 13% |
Burley Law is named on one of this topic's four questions, at position 4. First appearance, three weeks after the topic started.
| Commercial & tech contracts for software businesses | Visibility |
|---|---|
| EM Law | 33% |
| Myerson Solicitors | 33% |
| Moore Barlow | 33% |
| Summerfield Browne | 25% |
| Russell-Cooke | 25% |
Burley Law is not yet named in this topic.
| Collective redundancy consultation · Birmingham | Visibility |
|---|---|
| Roythornes Solicitors | 31% |
| Weightmans | 25% |
| Acas | 19% |
| Hatton James Legal | 19% |
| Mills & Reeve | 19% |
Burley Law is not yet named in this topic.
Every cycle, these fifteen buyer questions go to ChatGPT and Gemini, four answers each. This is the full picture, including the questions where the firm does not yet appear, because that is where the next month's work is decided.
| Tracked question | Who the assistants name | You |
|---|---|---|
| Burleylaw vs other UK intellectual property law firms for small businesses | Burley Law, then Marks & Clerk, DAC Beachcroft, J A Kemp | 1st · 100% |
| Which law firm advises employers on mental health duty of care in Birmingham? | Pinsent Masons, Martin Searle, Wilkes, Weightmans, Burley Law | 4th · 25% |
| Best intellectual property protection services for small businesses in the UK | Harper James, Sonder & Clay, UK IPO, Briffa Legal | 0% |
| Which intellectual property lawyer should I hire for a small business? | CIPA, Neo Percept IP, USPTO, Ignition Law | 0% |
| Affordable IP protection options for small businesses near me | FSB, CIPA, Cleveland Scott York, the IPO | 0% |
| Which law firm handles tech contracts for small software businesses in Birmingham? | Summerfield Browne, EM Law, Trowers & Hamlins, Harper James | 0% |
| Recommended solicitors for drafting SaaS terms and conditions in the UK | Jonathan Lea Network, Myerson, Adlex, Blacks Solicitors | 0% |
| Which UK law firm should a SaaS startup use for its commercial contracts? | Myerson, Russell-Cooke, Moore Barlow, Harper James | 0% |
| How long does collective redundancy consultation take, and do I need a solicitor? | Acas only | 0% |
| Best employment solicitors for employers making redundancies in Birmingham | Roythornes, Hatton James, Averta, Spencer Shaw | 0% |
| Legal advice for employers on collective redundancy rules in the UK | Acas and GOV.UK, then Weightmans, Landau Law, Clyde & Co | 0% |
| Which employment law firm should an employer use for collective redundancy consultation in Birmingham? | Mills & Reeve, Roythornes, Weightmans, Shakespeare Martineau | 0% |
| Can an employer dismiss someone on long-term sick leave with mental health issues in the UK? | No firm named at all | 0% |
| Is an employer liable for an employee's mental health problems in the UK? | No firm named at all | 0% |
| Legal advice for an employer managing an employee off sick with stress in the UK | Acas, HSE, Equality Act 2010, UK GDPR | 0% |
The on-page score held at 80 ("high") and open issues held at 121, unchanged across a month with no site work in it. Of 189 pages crawled, none are broken. The site is technically sound; the outstanding items are about depth, not repair.
| Item | Pages | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Thin / low word count | 28 | High |
| Titles too short | 88 | Medium |
| Titles too long | 5 | Medium |
| Item | Now |
|---|---|
| Pages crawled | 189 |
| Broken pages | 0 |
| Blocked from search | 24 |
| Desktop load time | 1.09s |
Desktop load is 1.09s, up from 0.64s last month and still well inside the 2.5 second target, with interactivity at 17.5ms and visual stability at 0.03. Performance is not a constraint on this site.
The UK audience held steady through August: 125 UK visitors against 126 in July, in the month when legal search is at its lowest. Estimated organic traffic rose to 157 a month from 146, and organic keywords to 107.
| Home | 361 |
| Contact | 47 |
| We are | 42 |
| Understanding Business IP | 29 |
| Des Burley | 19 |
| Legal Internship Experience | 19 |
| Commercial Law and IP | 15 |
Legal search softens over the summer holidays and builds again from September through to the winter peak. Holding the UK audience flat and lifting estimated organic traffic through the quiet month is the part worth noting.
| Metric | Baseline · 30 Jun | Month 1 · 30 Jul | Month 2 · 28 Aug | Move |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best non-brand position | 14 | 18 | 5 | ▲ |
| Keywords in top 100 | 17 | 18 | 20 | ▲ |
| Keywords on page one (non-brand) | 0 | 0 | 1 | ▲ |
| Average position (ranking terms) | 45.9 | 51.8 | 52.5 | · |
| AI brand visibility | 6.7% | 9% | 10% | ▲ |
| AI share of voice | 1.4% | 1.6% | 2.3% | ▲ |
| AI questions naming the firm | 1 of 15 | 1 of 15 | 2 of 15 | ▲ |
| Average position when named in AI | 1.0 | 1.0 | 1.6 | · |
| On-page SEO score | ~77 | 80 | 80 | · |
| SEO issues open | 133 | 121 | 121 | · |
| Est. organic traffic | ~163 | 146 | 157 | ▲ |
| Organic keywords | · | · | 107 | · |
| UK visitors (Google Analytics) | 145 | 126 | 125 | · |
| Organic search sessions | · | 192 | 187 | · |
| Organic engagement time | · | 31s | 27s | · |
| Backlinks | 89 | 89 | 89 | · |
| Desktop load time | 1.49s | 0.64s | 1.09s | within target |