Three options. Only one actually works for your business.
The SME owner Googles for the document, not the firm
Commercial lawyers compete on a SERP where the dominant intent is product, not advice. The SME owner with twelve staff and a turnover under $5m types 'shareholders' agreement template Australia' or 'business sale due diligence checklist' or 'commercial lease lawyer Sydney' and the first page is a wall of LegalVision and Sprintlaw landing pages selling a $99 template, plus a handful of legaltech tools (Lawpath, LegalZoom-style aggregators) that promise the document without the advice. The ASX-200 firms (Allens, MinterEllison, KWM, Ashurst, HSF) don't compete here because they're targeting ASX-listed clients at $1,200 an hour, and the right firm for this SME, a Specialist Business Law-accredited practice at $350 to $500 an hour with five lawyers and a senior partner who'll actually meet the client, ranks underneath both. So the SME owner buys a $99 template, signs it without legal advice, and your firm only hears about it eighteen months later when the dispute resolution work comes in.
Good commercial law marketing for an SME and mid-market practice is three things, in this order: a matter-type service-page library that splits business sale and purchase (with due diligence checklist), shareholders' agreement plus buy-sell agreement, IP licensing and trademark and patent and design, commercial lease (retail vs office vs industrial), dispute resolution and commercial litigation, employment law and Fair Work Commission, and business succession and family succession into their own pages, each ranking for the search that brings the SME owner with that specific matter, instead of competing with the template shops on a generic 'commercial lawyer' query; an SME-positioning layer that names the firm size honestly (5 to 12 lawyers, not 'global'), states the fee bracket ($350 to $500 an hour, with fixed-fee scoping available), surfaces the Specialist Business Law accreditation where held, and lists the typical client (SME 1 to 50 staff, mid-market 50 to 200 staff) so the wrong-fit prospect self-excludes before the first call; and a Google Business profile that calls out the matters you actually take, the industries you know (tech, hospitality, professional services, light industrial) and the senior partners' deal history.
Six agents, working in your accounts.
Account Lead, Web, SEO, Advertising, Social Media, and Content. One platform, one bill, you approve the work.
Builds your annual plan around the matter types and industries you actually want more of (business sale work with strong vendor positioning, IP licensing for tech SMEs, shareholders' agreement work for founder teams) rather than chasing every commercial-law query. Briefs the other agents so the service pages, the SME-positioned ads, the LinkedIn explainers and the Google Business profile all reinforce the 'Specialist Business Law firm sized for the SME and mid-market, with senior-partner attention on every file' positioning, instead of competing with LegalVision on template price or Allens on global capability.
Imports your existing site so you stop paying for hosting plus a CMS subscription, and makes spinning up a new matter-type page a fast job. Ships a clean service page for business sale, shareholders' agreement, IP licensing, commercial lease, employment law, dispute resolution and business succession, each with the Specialist Business Law badge above the fold, plain-English matter-type explainers, fixed-fee scope brackets where they apply, the senior partner's deal history attached, and a free 30-minute scoping call CTA. Two taps to ship.
Goes through your live site for the things that actually move commercial-law rankings: matter-type-specific H1s on every page, legal-services schema with Specialist Business Law accreditation status, industry-served markup (tech, hospitality, professional services), and a Google Business Profile that beats the template shops on completeness and the ASX-200 firms on local relevance for your CBD or fringe location. Auto-applies the low-risk fixes, flags anything implying a guaranteed outcome on dispute resolution.
Launches Google Ads on the queries that actually convert ('shareholders agreement lawyer [city]', 'business sale lawyer [city]', 'commercial lease lawyer [suburb]', 'IP licensing lawyer [city]', 'Fair Work Commission representation') with a built-in Legal Services Commissioner advertising-rules check on every ad copy variant. Excludes the broad 'template' queries that bring DIY buyers who won't book. Switches Meta off for commercial work (LinkedIn carries the audience); keeps Google Search and LinkedIn ads as the paid mix.
Turns the deal-experience topics your senior partners would discuss at a chamber of commerce breakfast into compliant LinkedIn posts: 'commercial lease incentive negotiation 2026', 'shareholders' agreement clauses every founder misses', 'business sale due diligence for sellers under $5m', 'IP licensing royalty structures'. Every post pre-checked against the LSC rules. Builds the senior-partner-thought-leadership trust signal that wins the SME owner who's been burned by a template once. You suggest topics from chamber breakfasts and accountant conversations, the agent drafts, you approve.
Drafts the long-form pieces that rank for the queries SME owners Google before they ring any lawyer: 'shareholders agreement vs constitution', 'business sale due diligence checklist for SMEs', 'commercial lease make-good clauses explained', 'IP licensing royalty structures', 'when an SME actually needs a Privacy Act compliance review', 'how Fair Work Commission unfair dismissal claims work for a 12-person business'. Two drafts a month, in your senior partner's voice, that bring the careful SME owner to your site weeks before the matter.
Your first 30 days.
- Seven matter-type pages (business sale, shareholders agreement, IP licensing, commercial lease, employment, dispute resolution, business succession) indexed and starting to rank on long-tail matter queries
- Annual plan weighted to the matters and industries you actually want, delivered by Sam
- Google Business Profile rebuilt as 'Business Attorney' with Specialist Business Law accreditation and typical client size in the description
- Compliance-checked Google Ads live on matter-type queries, with LegalVision and Sprintlaw template-buyer queries excluded as negatives
- LinkedIn cadence live with two senior-partner explainer posts a week
- Plain-English shareholders' agreement vs constitution explainer published as the cornerstone organic asset
- Legal-services structured data plus Specialist Business Law schema deployed sitewide where held
- Fixed-fee scoping page wired in for the matters where fixed-fee actually applies, so the SME owner can self-budget before the call
Commercial law clients in the SME and mid-market bracket do not shop firms on hourly rate alone. They buy a $99 template because the advice option doesn't make itself visible at a price they can stomach. The work is making sure your matter-type page is the first calm result for the search they actually run, with the Specialist Business Law accreditation visible, the fixed-fee scope where it applies, and the senior partner's name attached, not a LegalVision landing page that funnels into a template upsell.
Agencies are too dear to actually run the matter-type service-page library and the SME-positioned ads for $4k a month. Tools are cheap but you draft the shareholders' agreement explainer between matters at 9pm and it never ships. In-House is the third option: for $299 a month the agents ship the matter-type pages, launch the SME-positioned ads with template-shop queries excluded, post the senior-partner explainers, and keep your Google Business profile beating LegalVision on completeness in your CBD. You stay in the driver's seat, two taps to approve from between matter calls.