Law Firm Website 2026: Ad-Ban-Compliant Design, SEO and Prices in Türkiye
Building a law firm website in Türkiye? What you can publish under the advertising ban, which pages you need, how lawyer SEO works without ads and what to budget, step by step.
For Law Firms
2026
A law firm website is not like an ordinary business website. A furniture manufacturer can write "industry leader" on its homepage, showcase customer reviews and run Google ads. A law firm in Türkiye can do none of these. Even so, prospective clients look online first when they need a lawyer; if you have no website, or a careless one, the firm on the other side starts a step ahead.
In this article we walk through the rules you need to follow when building a lawyer website in Türkiye, what can and cannot appear on it, which pages are essential and how to stay visible while advertising is off the table. At the end you will find a comparison of the budget difference between a ready-made template and a custom design. If you practise elsewhere, the structure still applies, but advertising rules for lawyers differ by country, so check your own bar or regulator.
Attorneys Act Article 55 and the Advertising Ban Regulation: What Is the Framework?
The core rule sits in Article 55 of the Turkish Attorneys Act: lawyers and law partnerships may not make any attempt that could be considered advertising in order to obtain work, and may not use promotional wording on their signs or printed stationery. How this rule is applied is set out in detail in the TBB Professional Rules and the TBB Advertising Ban Regulation.
The spirit of the regulation fits in one sentence: informing is allowed; promotion and soliciting work are not. A website is viewed within this framework as a source of information that describes your firm and professional activity in neutral language.
Why does the 2024 amendment matter?
The 2024 amendment to the regulation mainly aimed to bring rules on internet, social media and digital channels up to date. Over the years, social media accounts, video content, search engine visibility and platform profiles became part of everyday practice, and the amendment set out to reduce uncertainty in these areas. Rather than summarise exactly which provisions changed and how, we recommend reading the official text, because even a one-word difference can change where a page on your site stands. The practical lesson: if your site was built before 2024, review all its content against the current text from scratch.
What Can and Cannot Appear on a Law Firm Website?
Most mistakes are made in well-meaning copy written in a marketing tone. The table below summarises generally accepted practice; in borderline cases, your bar association's view is decisive.
| Topic | Generally acceptable | Risky / prohibited |
|---|---|---|
| Firm and lawyer details | Full name, bar and registration number, address, phone, email, education, foreign languages spoken | Exaggerated biographies, inflated titles |
| Practice areas | A plain list | Superiority claims such as "expert in the field", "most experienced", "leading" |
| Clients | No client information at all | Client lists, logo walls, references page |
| Reviews | None | Client testimonials, star ratings, thank-you messages |
| Success | Listing professional publications and articles | Success rates, number of cases won, "we will win your case" promises |
| Fees | A general reference to the bar's minimum fee schedule | Discounts, campaigns, "free initial consultation" calls to action |
| Online advertising | Organic search visibility | Google Ads, Meta ads, sponsored content, paid listing sites |
A few concrete examples. A headline like "The best divorce lawyer in Bursa" is clearly problematic. "Advice and litigation in family law" is informative. "We won 500 cases in 15 years" is problematic; "Registered with the Bursa Bar Association since 2010" is factual information. The same yardstick applies to page design: flashing buttons, pop-ups and banners shouting "call now" create an impression of advertising.
The .av.tr Domain and Notifying Your Bar
For lawyer websites in Türkiye, the extension that the regulation and professional practice are built around is .av.tr. It is reserved exclusively for lawyers and law partnerships, which also makes it a trust signal for visitors. If you own .com or .com.tr addresses, you may want to redirect them to your .av.tr address; it is worth asking your bar for its approach on this.
- Application: .av.tr domains are obtained through the TRABIS (nic.tr) system via an accredited registrar.
- Documents: The application requires a document showing your bar registration. Partnerships need their partnership registry details.
- Choosing the name: Usually your full name or the firm's name is used. Keyword-stuffed names such as "bestdivorcelawyer.av.tr" are weak both because they look like advertising and in terms of trust.
- Notifying the bar: When your site goes live, you need to notify your bar association of its address. The form of notification can vary from bar to bar, so confirm with the secretariat.
Pages Every Law Firm Website Needs
A law firm website does not have to be flashy, but it does have to be complete. The pages below cover the essential information both visitors and Google look for:
- Homepage: Firm name, a short and neutral introduction, links to practice areas, contact details.
- About / Our lawyers: For each lawyer, full name, bar and registration number, education, languages and professional publications. A professional photo is enough.
- Practice areas: A separate page for each area, with plain text explaining what you handle in that area.
- Articles / Knowledge base: The section that does the real SEO work, covered separately below.
- Contact: Address, map, phone, email, opening hours and a KVKK-compliant form.
- KVKK privacy notice and cookie policy: A legal requirement in Türkiye (other countries have their own data protection rules).
- Legal disclaimer: A short statement that the site's content is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice.
Our corporate website checklist is also a good technical checklist; for law firms, the only difference is that reference and review sections are removed entirely.
KVKK and Confidentiality: Setting Up Your Contact Form Properly
A lawyer's duty of confidentiality makes the website contact form far more sensitive than an ordinary "write to us" box. People sometimes type every detail of their case, health information or family problems into the form. Under KVKK, some of this counts as special category personal data.
- Ask for minimal data: Name, phone or email and a short subject line are enough. Add a note below the form: "Please do not enter case details or sensitive information here; you can share them during the consultation."
- Privacy notice: Link, right next to the form, to the notice explaining why the data is processed. Do not add unrelated consent boxes such as marketing permission.
- Encrypted connection: The site must run on SSL (https).
- Where the data goes: Form submissions should land in the firm's business email, not a personal Gmail inbox. Our business email article can help here.
- Third-party tools: Check whether live chat, analytics and form plugins transfer data to servers abroad.
Lawyer SEO: Informative Articles as the Only Ad-Free Channel
The advertising ban effectively closes off Google Ads and social media ads for lawyers in Türkiye. What remains is organic search. That is why lawyer SEO works differently from other sectors: instead of stuffing keywords or producing "best lawyer" pages, you write articles that answer the legal questions people actually ask, in plain language.
A good article topic is the question a prospective client types into the search box:
- "What documents are needed for an uncontested divorce?"
- "When is severance pay owed?"
- "How do I challenge a rent increase?"
- "What is the deadline for renouncing an inheritance?"
Because this kind of content is informative, it is also the safest ground under the regulation. Still, watch a few limits: do not end articles with calls to solicit work such as "call us now about this", avoid describing a specific client case even in anonymised form, and regularly update articles that rely on outdated legislation. If you are new to the basics, start with our what is SEO article.
Do not neglect technical SEO
However good the content, a site that loads slowly and breaks on mobile falls behind in rankings. Page titles and descriptions, a clean URL structure, mobile compatibility, fast loading and correctly structured data (firm name, address, phone) are the basic requirements.
Google Business Profile: Appearing on the Map
For searches like "lawyer Nilüfer" or "law firm near me", the results shown on the map come from Google Business Profile. Creating a profile is free, and it is a record of address and contact details, not an advertisement. When setting it up:
- Write the firm name exactly as it appears on your sign; do not add keywords to the name.
- Keep the address, phone, opening hours and website address identical to the details on your site.
- Keep the same neutral tone in the description field as on your site.
Reviews are a sensitive topic. You cannot completely stop users from leaving reviews on your Google profile, but asking clients for reviews, promising anything in return or featuring reviews on your website can conflict with the advertising ban. When replying to reviews, never share any details about a case or client. For setup steps, see our Google Business Profile guide.
Law Firm Website Cost: Ready-Made Template or Custom Design?
The cost of a law firm website varies considerably depending on the approach and number of pages. The ranges below are rough indicators observed in the Turkish market for 2026.
| Criterion | Ready-made template | Custom design |
|---|---|---|
| Indicative budget (Turkish market) | Approx. 10,000 - 35,000 TL | Approx. 40,000 - 150,000 TL and above |
| Delivery time | A few days to 2 weeks | 3 - 8 weeks |
| Compliance with the advertising ban | Review, reference and counter sections in the template must be removed manually | Designed to comply from the start |
| Speed and technical SEO | Depends on the template; unnecessary plugins can slow it down | Measurable and optimisable |
| Article infrastructure | Usually a basic blog module | Categories, authors, last-updated dates and similar structures are planned |
| Best suited to | A newly opened sole practitioner, limited budget | Partnerships with several lawyers, firms that want to publish content regularly |
Ready-made templates are often designed for other sectors and come with sections like "happy clients" or "completed projects" counters and testimonial sliders. For a law firm, these are a direct risk. If you go with a template, make removing these sections part of the agreed setup scope. Also budget for recurring costs such as the domain, hosting, SSL and annual maintenance. For a more detailed breakdown of general cost items, see our website cost article.
Compliance and Technical Checks with Site X-Ray
If your site is live or about to launch, the final step is checking it. We recommend doing this on two levels:
- Regulatory read-through: Compare every page with the table above, one by one. Include homepage headlines, lawyer biographies, meta descriptions and image alt text. Sometimes a piece of self-praise hides only in the description shown on Google.
- Technical scan: Fietto Creative's free Site X-Ray tool runs more than 40 checks covering technical gaps such as speed, mobile compatibility, SSL, title and description tags and structured data. It shows the first 10 issues instantly and emails you the full report. The tool does not interpret regulatory compliance for you, but seeing all your meta descriptions and page titles in a single list makes it easier to catch wording you might have missed.
If you are still in the planning stage and want a site built from scratch with the advertising ban in mind, at Fietto Creative we plan the content structure around these rules from day one in our corporate website projects. Whichever route you choose, the yardstick stays the same: a clear, accurate, up-to-date and informative site strengthens trust with both your bar association and your prospective clients.
Frequently asked questions
Can lawyers in Türkiye have a website?
Yes. The advertising ban does not prevent lawyers from having a website. The site must be informative rather than promotional and must not contain self-praise, client information or claims of success.
Can lawyers in Türkiye advertise on Google Ads?
Because of the advertising ban in the Turkish Attorneys Act, paid search and paid social media ads carry a disciplinary risk. That is why lawyers in Türkiye rely on organic SEO and informative content for visibility. Rules in other countries differ, so check with your own regulator.
How do you get an .av.tr domain?
The .av.tr extension is reserved for lawyers and law partnerships registered in Türkiye. You apply through TRABIS via an accredited registrar and provide a document showing your bar registration details.
Can a law firm website list practice areas?
Listing practice areas in plain language is generally accepted. The problem starts when those areas are presented with superiority claims such as 'expert' or 'leading', or with promises about outcomes.
Are client testimonials allowed on a law firm website in Türkiye?
Client testimonials, client lists and examples of won cases are considered problematic under both the advertising ban and the duty of confidentiality. Leaving this kind of content off the site entirely is the safest approach.
