The term PPC refers to online advertising that charges the business each time a potential client clicks on the ad. Law firms pay for each click, which means if there are no clicks, there is no charge for your ad.
While there are many different platforms that offer PPC advertising, Google Ads is the most popular among law firms and other businesses. There is no doubt why; Google is where 89% of searches happen.
Lead Generation For Law Firms
You went to law school to become a Lawyer, not a Google Ads Expert.
Using paid advertising, your firm will be able to target your audience through demographics and analytics and show your ad to them from the moment they begin their search for an attorney or legal service.
Fill out the form to start generating more leads today!
What Is PPC Advertising?
Also known as paid advertising, pay-per-click advertising is where a business pays each time a potential client clicks on the ad promoting their website. It is one type of marketing strategy for attorneys and complements existing strategies to boost your firm’s success.
Digital ads are displayed on websites such as search engine results pages (SERPs), affiliate websites, and social media. According to the 2020 Legal Trends Report, 58% of consumers said technology was more important to them now than it had been before, and online sales have risen 45% compared to 2019.
With so many users turning to online sources for their needs, setting up PPC ad campaigns for your law firm is a must have if you firm is seeking new business. The web is where potential clients spend a large amount of time.
Why Attorneys Should Use PPC Marketing
- PPC Is Measurable and Trackable
- Fastest Way To Get On Page 1 of Google
- Highly Customizable Targeting Options
- Build Brand Awareness
- Complements Other Marketing Channels
- Directly Target Competitors Branded Search Terms
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a necessary, but long-term strategy. While investing in SEO is key if you want long-term, sustainable growth for your business, it can take longer to see your SEO efforts pay off. That’s why many law firms choose to invest in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising simultaneously so they can immediately start generating leads and gain new clients.
Your firm can also build brand awareness through PPC. By introducing your firm in ads, you increase the familiarity a potential client has with your practice. Use a memorable name and logo to keep your business at the forefront of a potential client’s mind.
Intentional targeting is another reason to use paid advertising. By using ads that directly target a specific demographic, you net more clients for your firm and spend less time worrying about attracting the right clients for your practice.
Benefits of Paid Advertising For Law firms
- Test Keywords
- Collect Data and Analytics
- Quickly Boost Billable Hours
- Increase Website Traffic Instantly
- Complements SEO Marketing
PPC advertising allows you to test different keywords and ad options to see what works the best. This can benefit your firm in the long run by providing a way to test and readjust your marketing strategy without impacting your business too much.
Another great benefit to PPC is that it provides access to a wealth of data and analytics regarding impressions, clicks, traffic, and client conversions to help guide your marketing efforts. The data can show what keywords or phrases work the best for your firm and how clients interact with the ads and your law firm’s website.
PPC should always complement SEO. When it is done well, PPC functions as a marketing barometer for your firm and its specific legal niche. A clear, direct message drives the user to go onto your website or contact you. PPC boosts the number of clients requesting your firms’ services.
Pay Per Click Learning Curve
PPC offers an amazing return on investment for certain kinds of cases.
Some law firms may benefit more than others depending on the area of practice and geo graphical location.
You will need to allocate a budget for learning as you test different types of ads and copy to determine what works best for your firm.
In addition to budget, you will need to set aside time to learn and study the different elements of PPC and best practices.
Keep in mind, setting up PPC for lawyers that yield a high return on ad spend (ROAS) requires a lot of time and testing. There is a learning phase to go through before seeing highly successful results. Before beginning your campaign, you should consider how much you are willing to pay. How much your firm pays per ad depends on which keyword the searcher typed into the search bar. Some keywords can be more expensive than others.
PPC is time-consuming and expensive depending on keyword volume and other factors. Do not let that discourage you. There are still many benefits to using PPC in your marketing strategy. We walk you through determining what the lifetime value of a client is and how much you should be willing to invest to bring in that client.
Google Ads For Lawyers
For the highly competitive legal market, running Google Ads is a necessity because these types of ads are often displayed above organic search results.
If your competitor is running ads that bury your site in the main search results, it is a good idea to consider running your own paid ads to effectively compete.
Google Ads offers a variety of ways you can display your ad. When setting up your PPC campaign, you will have to specify how and where you want your ads to show up.
Choosing the “Search” option is recommended so that your ad shows up on SERPs when users enter the relevant keywords.
Other options include image or video ads that can appear on websites, Google, or one of Google’s various brands.
Part of setting up your campaign includes directing where users will go once they have clicked on your ad. You can choose to send potential clients sent to your website, an expertly designed landing page or be connected to your office with a phone call.
Google Ads includes a variety of features to tailor your ad campaign to your needs. Not only can you choose where your ad is shown and what page it links to, but you can also use Google’s tools to decide what region to display your ad, specify the time a campaign remains active, and receive great insights into your user-base’s patterns and needs.
Microsoft Ads For Lawyers
Microsoft Advertising works very similarly to Google’s advertising platform.
Microsoft Ads are displayed on Bing and Yahoo, and allow you to reach more potential clients.
Microsoft PPC tends be less competition than Google which results in a lower cost per lead.
Bing consistently has more than 1 billion searches every month.
This number is nothing to be scoffed at. Ads shown on Bing also tend to have less competition. This means the cost per click is lower on this platform, allowing you to get a higher ROI for people that click your ad.
Optimize Keywords For Lawyer PPC Campaigns
Careful selection of keywords is important in paid search advertising.
PPC programs, such as Google Ads, score your ad based on relevancy and helpfulness.
The more relevant your ad copy is, the higher the quality score Google awards to rank your ad. This can determine where your ad appears and your cost per click.
Consider your target audience and their location. It is a good idea to target personas in a specific location, since you likely practice within a certain region.
This way you only compete within your local region rather than nationally, which can be more difficult. It will also save you money on your PPC campaigns, since your ad will only show up within your practice area.
It is important to see which of your target keywords are being dominated by other ads or if your competitors are beating out your website with their own ad campaigns. In order to mitigate the difficulty of certain keywords, try bidding on long-tail keywords, which makes your ads have a lower cost per click and enables you to reach a more targeted audience.
Paid Ads Location Targeting
One of the most popular searches for law firms is find a lawyer near me.
Narrowing your firms ads to a specific geo-graphical area helps get you the right clients in the right area.
Geo targeted ads for law firms is a great way to help keep costs down and increase your return on investment.
When setting up which keywords and key phrases your ads show up on, select a range around your office where your ads will show up. You can also target keywords that include your county or city to further solidify the local intent of the searches your ads show up on.
Set A Budget
After researching and selecting keywords based on your target audience, you can now use that information to set a daily or monthly ad campaign budget for your legal practice.
This allows you to control how much you spend per day or month on your ad campaign.
Performance review is required after your Ad has been approved, and you may need to adjust your spend levels and re-work your ROI forecasts.
When just starting an ad campaign, start small and see how your ads perform after the first month. If they perform well, you can always increase your ad budget to expand their reach. If they aren’t performing as they should be, you can see where optimization is needed by trying different keywords or targeting a more specific audience.
Landing Pages
One of the most important factors in a successful PPC campaign is the landing page connected to your ad. When potential clients click on your ad, you have an opportunity to encourage them to engage with your business.
If a client sees your ad for personal injury services, they do not want to be redirected to your home page, where they will see personal injury, family, and a variety of other unrelated services they are not looking for.
Best practice dictates you have an ad connect to the specific landing page for the service you are advertising. This not only streamlines the process of a client contacting you, but it also decreases the bounce rate, which is the number of potential clients who click away from your website.
The most common mistake is running ads to your home page or other internal page on your website. It is imperative that you have dedicated landing pages. Having multiple dedicated landing pages that align directly with your key words helps increase your quality score and lower your overall cost per click and conversion.
Google also recommends making sure your copy is straight to the point. Search engines, Google included, love websites that provide immediate answers to search inquiries. Optimize your landing pages so that users have their questions answered immediately after clicking on your ad.
To help with this, use the same or similar keywords from your PPC ad campaigns in your content. Focus on quality over quantity. Include consistent imagery and branding used in your campaigns, too. Visuals are important because they help break up text and tie your ad campaigns in with your website’s branding.
Match Types
Law-related search terms can get expensive, especially if you are targeting general terms, such as “car accident attorney” or “personal injury lawyer.”
Google Ads uses keyword match types, which dictates when your ad is displayed depending on what search term is used.
There are three match types that you can be used in ads for law firms that are outlined below.
Broad Match: Close variations of your chosen keyword, related searches, or other relevant variations will trigger your ad being displayed to the searcher. With this type of matching, the exact keyword does not have to be used in order to display your ad.
Exact Match: If you select this type of match, your ad will only be displayed if the search results are an exact match for the keywords used in your ad or close variations of that exact term with the same meaning.
Phrase Match: Your ad will be displayed for matches of the phrase or close variations with any additional words before or after. For example, if “family lawyer in San Diego” is your keyword, your ad will also show up for searches that include “best family lawyer in San Diego” or “family lawyer in San Diego reviews.”
Search Intent
Understanding and properly utilizing search intent is key in when creating an optimized PPC campaign for lawyers.
Understanding intent will help you pick the right keywords that will get your ads directly to who you want them to go to.
This will also help you create an attorney landing page that converts leads.
Check the search results for different keywords and phrases to refine and optimize your PPC campaign. The intent of the keywords you use and the intent of the users should match. For example, someone searching for a lawyer contact should receive your landing page for your lead sheet instead of an informative blog about filing divorce.
Certain underperforming keywords should be paused to save you money and so you can test other keywords that can fit that subject better.
Ad Extensions For Attorney PPC
Legal based Ads need to connect with the audience right away.
First impressions are everything, especially with advertising.
Google ads have very limited space to make a first impression great, so that is where Ad Extensions come into play.
Ad Extensions will help your law firm dominate more space on the search results page, giving you the edge you need over your competitors.
The space you’re given in your PPC ad is incredibly important to utilize to its fullest extent. Ad extensions expand the options that a searcher can click on. In addition to the link that leads to the main landing page, extensions allow you have additional links that can lead to other pages on your website.
You can link onto a contact page, an about us page, or just link your office’s phone number. Linking your phone number means there’s a chance you’ll get a lead that calls you directly without even having to visit your website. This saves you the client time and is a great way to get more clients for your practice.
Responsive PPC Ads For Lawyers
An increased number of searches are conducted on smartphone. As a result, mobile searches out pacing desktop searches, making up more than half of searches on Google alone.
For your PPC campaigns to make the biggest impact, you need to make sure they are optimized for mobile, and that is where Google helps out with responsive ads.
You want your ad to show up on multiple devices, not just a desktop computer.
Google’s responsive PPC campaigns can be complex and require a significant amount of time to manage. However, Google recently introduced Enhanced Campaigns which have made mobile ads much easier to create and use.
Mobile PPC ads for attorneys can drive calls and mobile website visits. It is critical that your website is optimized to be mobile friendly and responsive, to maximize the number of potential clients who reach out to your firm.
Retargeting
Retargeting keeps track of the pages someone visits online through cookies and general browsing history.
The main drive behind this form of marketing is to get a grasp on what appeals to the consumer.
You can leverage this data to display ads specifically targeted toward website visitors who may have bounced from your website for one reason or another.
This makes for a specific and hyper targeted audience for your ads. By taking the time to learn what service a potential client was interested in, you can increase the likelihood they will engage with your ad and convert to a paying client.
The ads can be displayed on countless websites that users visit, giving you the ability to reach them with frequency. Because of options that are specific to PPC, you can get many impressions from an audience, while only paying for those who click on the ad.
An added benefit of retargeting ads is that they cost only a small fraction of what the initial click costs for a PPC campaign. This helps keep the cost of running an ad campaign down and can improve your ROI.
Of course, you can’t retarget people forever. The best way to decide how long your retargeting campaigns run is to base it off the specific service you are offering in that ad. For example, if someone were looking for a property attorney, it could take a while for them to act, so your retargeting campaign can run longer. If someone is looking for a personal injury or criminal law attorney, that person likely has a more pressing and time-sensitive issue, meaning campaigns should run for a shorter amount of time. While there are best practices, no two PPC campaigns are identical.
Review Analytics and Regular Testing
Analysis and optimization are a critical part of any ad campaign. The cycle of checking and assessing the data helps turn a good campaign into a great one.
This ensures your ads are working as intended.
PPC campaigns should maximize your return on ad spend, meaning money is not wasted on campaigns that aren’t working for your practice.
Regular audits of your law firm’s PPC campaigns are absolutely necessary. You can ensure that your ads are targeting the right audience, users are clicking through to your website, and that you’re staying within your advertising budget.
Look for your campaign’s quality score, click-through rate, conversion rate, cost per conversion, and any wasted spending. The quality score is determined by the relevance of your keywords in your ad to the search query, how well the match up with your landing page and your click-through rate. For this reason, it is important to pay special attention to the click-through rate.
The click-through rate can tell you whether your ads are relevant to users. Low click-through rates indicate that your keywords or ad design or both have room for improvement and require further optimization.
Conversion rates tell you the percentage of people who clicked on your ad and followed through on your call-to-action to contact you and your firm. The conversion rate is just as important as click-through rate because it determines whether money is being wasted on users who are not turning into paying clients.
Cost per conversion determines your return on investment (ROI). If you are spending more money trying to net clients than you are gaining clients, it shows your ad campaign has a poor ROI. You want to use this metric to improve the cost-effectiveness of your PPC.
Cut down on wasted spending. You want to maximize the number of conversions without wasting more money than you are bringing in. Using the other data listed above refines your ad campaigns so that you get the most ROI for your budget.
Fraudulent clicks and robots may take advantage and negatively affect your ad campaigns. A solution is to actively monitor your account to ensure your ads have not become a victim of bots with software that alerts you whenever there is suspected fraud activity. This makes sure your money isn’t being spent on false leads.
Is PPC Right for Your Law Firm?
Website visitors from PPC are 50% more likely to purchase products or services compared to organic visitors!
Although PPC campaigns have their benefits, it is not always the right strategy for every law firm.
Other marketing strategies, such as optimizing your SEO, may be a better fit for your budget and marketing needs.
The most important factor to consider when making this decision is to determine if your law firm will profit from a paid ad campaign. Depending on the legal services you want to advertise, this will determine the data you use to attract specific clients.
Why Hire A PPC Specialist?
If you have decided your firm needs an ad campaign, you need to hire a marketing agency to help you create and manage your firm’s advertising.
PPC can be tricky to work with, having a reliable and experienced PPC expert a must.
A PPC Specialist will save you tens of thousands of dollars! They will determine what keywords to focus on, sets your parameters, and your advertising budget so money is not wasted.
Communication is key to any relationship you develop with your marketing agency. It ensures both parties are on the same page and minimizes the risks of miscommunication, so that everyone is successful in achieving their goals. This includes monthly data reports that show how your ads are performing.
A good marketing agency will be able to explain the all the components and related to your campaign. You will fully understand how well your PPC campaign is performing. This can help you adjust your goals and boost your conversion rate.
Managing a PPC campaign is a time-consuming task, especially when considering the constant optimization and monitoring a successful campaign requires. At Just A Web Company, we actively monitor your campaigns to make sure your paid ads are working. This means your ads are reaching your targeted audience and bringing in the most ROI.
Though PPC can get expensive, we make sure that we stay on budget so that you get the best ROI. We adjust our strategies based on real-time data so that your firm stays on top of the competition with best optimization practices. We will help you converts more leads into clients. We use software to monitor any fraudulent clicks and work with Google to make sure you aren’t losing money.
Contact Just A Web Company today to discuss how we can help your firm get qualified leads through PPC campaigns. We would be glad to answer any questions you have and help you understand the options available to you.