Pay-per-click, popularly known as PPC advertising, offers one of the most effective means to reach out to potential customers online, hence offering a targeted and measurable marketing strategy. Law firms who invest in PPC advertising will be in a better position to acquire qualified leads, thus propelling growth and expanding their clientele. However, setting up an effective PPC campaign for lawyers requires an immensely structured and thoughtful approach. Let’s now look at how to create successful PPC campaigns specifically for attorneys.
Clearly, not all PPC ads can be the same for each business type, especially when it comes to law firms. Each law firm will have different practice areas, target markets, and geographic regions that need to be taken into consideration when designing campaigns. Moreover, PPC for law firms is difficult because firms must be compliant with advertising regulations and pay the high costs that result from the competitiveness of certain relevant keywords. We will now walk you through everything from the very basics of how PPC works to choosing the right keywords, creating appealing ad copy, and how to track your campaigns effectively. Through this informative article, you will have a hint of what to expect in building and maintaining a profitable PPC campaign for your law firm.
There are really only four components to a PPC campaign – keywords, ad copy, landing pages, and bidding strategy. In a day and age where everything is about timing and hitting the right audience at the right time, these pieces need to come together to guarantee that, in fact, your ads are hitting the audiences you are hoping to capture. The trick is to know the fine points of each of these so you can be successful in the very competitive world of legal advertising.
Keyword selection probably makes up the core of any PPC campaign. These are particularly competitive and often quite expensive in CPC. For law firms, the keywords should be drawn from areas of practice that you want to promote, such as “personal injury lawyer,” “criminal defense attorney,” or “estate planning attorney.” Long-tail keywords, being more specific, are often less competitive but can also yield good traffic. For example, “DUI lawyer in Chicago” will be much cheaper compared to just a “lawyer,” but at the same time, it may also bring better-targeted traffic. However, real successful keyword selection goes far beyond just CPC; it’s about deep research of what potential clients are searching for and understanding what will bring qualified leads on board.
Once the right keywords are selected, the next step is crafting ad copy that resonates with potential clients. The ad must be clear, concise, persuasive, and adhere to the legal advertising rules. The tab for professionalism and trust in the legal industry is undeniable, and that must be explicitly seen in the ad copy. An ad for a law firm might push years of experience, client success stories, or a value proposition unrelated to anyone else’s. Importantly, the call to action needs to be clear and direct so that the potential client may take the desired step, call the firm, or enquire more via a contact form.
A landing page is a page the potential clients are taken to once they click on an ad; more importantly, the landing page is relevant to the message the ad sets and delivers on that promise. For example, if an ad is giving away a free consultation for personal injury cases, the landing page must be about personal injury law with Live Chat or a web form to schedule a consultation. It helps create consistency between the ad and the landing page, which, in turn, improves conversion rates by guiding potential clients to what they’re searching for. Additionally, the technologies available to a majority of people have shifted to touch- and smartphone-based, therefore it is important to make the landing page mobile-friendly and quick to load.
In the case of pay-per-clicks, one can decide on the mechanism to use to bid for the amount they will be willing to pay for a single click. Legal marketing tends to be quite competitive, and if the PPCs are not run correctly, the costs can add up in no time. It’s all about the balance between bid amounts and expected ROI. For some campaigns, automated bidding—where Google Ads or any other PPC automatically adjusts the bid—is going to work pretty well as it relates to getting the most conversions possible within your set budget. On the flip side, manual bidding allows you to have more granular control but, in turn, requires more oversight and experience. For attorneys, the right bidding strategy can make all the difference between your campaign being effective and your advertising dollars being wasted.
Optimization is central to making a Lawyer PPC campaign result-oriented. The conversion rate would be optimal, and the cost incurred in each acquisition would be minimized based on continual adjustments in the campaign. It begins with meticulous tracking of key metrics such as click-through rate, conversion, and quality score, among others.
A PPC campaign should be based on data-driven efficiency. Track the performance of your ads, either through Google Analytics, Google Ads, or the software used in tracking calls. Clicks are not just enough to provide the full story; hence, track the conversions from clicks that get to any form of conversions, whether through a phone call, a form submission, or a live chat. From the CTR of the metrics, you will figure out how effective the words in your ad copy really are, and statistics on conversion rates are going to help you understand which words and landing pages perform the best.
Last but not least, A/B testing is a supremely powerful optimization tool for your PPC campaigns. This includes running two versions of an ad or landing page versus the other to see which performs better. These might be different headlines, CTAs, or even the types of services promoted within an ad. For example, within law firm marketing, you may want to test a personal injury firm ad against an ad focusing on “No fees unless we win” to an ad focusing on “Free case evaluations.” Always test and refine the ads and your landing pages to unlock that incremental campaign improvement.
These are ‘extras,’ through which the marketer can pile more information onto the PPC ads, be it phone numbers, locations, or additional links. For law firms, it is important to include call extensions to potentially have clients call directly from the ad. To other practice area pages, testimonials, or even FAQ sections, add site link extensions to increase the visibility and appeal of your ads. The right ad extensions can significantly enhance the performance of an advertisement without increasing the CPC.
While it is obviously possible for law firms to run their own PPC campaigns, the common result would be a waste of money and terrible performance. A great deal of expertise is called for in PPC, especially in advertising lucrative areas like legal marketing. This is an important benefit accruing from working with PPC agencies – their experience and common insights help continuously optimize campaigns and get value from the advertising budgets of law firms.
Moreover, such agencies are always equipped with advanced tools and technology, literally helping to take out much of the stress involved in campaign management. These tools help to ensure that the campaigns get optimized in real-time by making timely adjustments in bids, ad copy, and targeting to be in sync with performance data. In addition, it allows law firms to outsource what is not their core business—practicing law—while leaving the experienced PPC managers to manage the campaign.
A well-managed PPC campaign is one that is consistently monitored and adjusted based on the numbers. For companies stretched too thin or lacking the expertise to manage advanced campaigns in-house, turning to a marketing agency to handle PPC is typically the most efficient and effective solution.
Legal keywords tend to be among the most expensive in the PPC ad auctions. Their CPCs can be anywhere from $20 to $100+, depending on the keyword and location.
While it is true that PPC can generate traffic almost immediately following the start of the campaign, the usual time it takes to optimize, depending on how complex the campaign is and to achieve consistent results, is a few weeks or even months.
That, in other words, implies the use of tools like Google Analytics, call tracking software, and CRM systems by all agencies to track how PPC campaigns are performing. Conversions, CPA, and CTR, are the key metrics that are important for any campaign to track and work on improving the outcomes so that they keep improving continuously.
The legal industry is highly competitive, with many law firms bidding on the same keywords. Additionally, legal cases can be highly lucrative, so law firms are willing to pay more per click to acquire clients, driving up the cost of PPC advertising.
At FORWARD Lawyer Marketing, our forte lies in creating some of the best-performing PPC campaigns for law firms throughout the nation. Our marketing team is indeed a talented lot who understand exactly what the challenges for a law firm are in competing for a share in the digital ad space. We offer personalized solutions that bring home only qualified leads and optimize your returns on investment. Ready to rise above your law firm PPC campaigns? Contact FORWARD Lawyer Marketing today for a free consultation at (888) 590-9687.
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