Google Ads For Law Firms: Indispensable Tricks You Need to Know

Did you know that Google processes over 3.5 billion searches per day on the platform? It’s no wonder that Google Ads (formerly known as Adwords) is the world’s largest and most widely used online advertising platform. 

Law firms that advertise on the platform can effectively supplement SEO organic traffic, enhance brand awareness, and deliver quality traffic and leads right to their website. However, for all of the benefits promised by Google Ads, many law firm marketers find themselves disappointed by the results of their campaigns.

If you’re struggling to achieve a strong ROI on the platform, try these optimization tricks to ramp up your law firm’s campaign performance.

Google Ads For Law Firms: Indispensable Tricks for Better Campaign Performance

1. Focus on more niche, long-tail keywords.

Forget single-word, expensive terms and instead focus on long-tail keywords that incorporate more than one word into a search query. For example, rather than “attorney” or “law firm” try “personal injury attorney”, or even better, “workplace injury attorney Manhattan”. When you target more specific keywords, it makes it more likely that you’ll attract potential clients interested in your specific services, rather than general browsers.

2. Target very specific locations.

Don’t just target cities, try specific zip and postal codes. Drill down to locations that have proven themselves to be more profitable. Take a look at your most valuable clients and where they are located.

3. Focus on negative keywords.

Negative keywords can be added to your campaign or ad group to prevent your ads from being shown for specific searches. This will help ensure that you target and spend money reaching only the most qualified leads. Consider locations that you do not serve or terms like “cheap/free”. 

4. Segment your campaign ad groups by theme.

Don’t group all of your keywords together in one ad group. Rather, segment your keywords based on themes (aka your audience’s intent) to make campaign management, learnings and optimization easier. Separating ad groups by keyword themes will allow for greater targeting accuracy.

5. Get educated on an effective keyword bidding strategy.

There is a fine balance between being positioned high enough and blowing through your budget too quickly. Understand your goals and how your strategy leads to clicks. Bear in mind that bidding too high or for the first position can eat away at the daily budget too quickly. In our opinion, being in the first position isn’t always necessary and you could fare well targeting the 4th position. Test out different strategies and find out what works best for you. The important thing here is to never “set it and forget it” and rather always look to optimize your law firm’s Google ads bidding strategy.

6. Test out Dynamic Keyword Insertion.

This is an advanced feature that allows you to dynamically insert a keyword into your ad copy, based on the searcher’s query. Prospects are much more likely to click on a headline that reflects more closely what they were searching for.

7. Use different keyword match types.

You can use exact match for precise matches, or broad match for to show your ad to a wider audience. Also consider phrase match and negative match. If you’d like to learn more about keyword match type, check out this article.

8. Optimize Ads as you would on-page SEO.

Make sure they appear in the display url, the ad headline, extensions, and body copy. 

9. Test compelling ad copy.

Try different messages to see what is compelling. Make sure the copy speaks to the needs and concerns of your target audience. Fortunately, Google provides plenty of tools that can help you test and measure different versions of your copy to see what works best

10. Leverage the free ad extension tools offered by Google.

They lead to increased visibility and more clicks. Ad extension options include:

• • Sitelinks – to add more links to your ads
  • Call outs – to promote particular features or offers
  • Call extensions – to add phone numbers for mobile calls
  • Location extensions – to show your law firm’s address in ads

11. Develop local search ads.

Link your Google My Business account so that you can display your address and reviews too. This is particularly important for firms that service more local clients.

12. Use remarketing lists for search ads.

Serve these ads to reconnect with people who clicked on a landing page and didn’t take a desired action. 

13. A/B testing is key.

A/B test elements related to the performance of your ads, including keywords, ad copy, bidding strategies, ad rotation, ad extensions, and geo-targeting. 

14. Measure telephone and contact form conversions.

The most important part of law firm’s Google Ads is creating new interactions that lead to potential engagements. The way to fully understand if this is happening is to track calls, record the origin of leads, and monitor revenue from converted leads. 

15. Advertise for your own branded terms.

Just because you already show up in SERPs (search engine results pages) for your term doesn’t mean you should let up. Your competitors are likely bidding on those terms as well. 

Takeaway

A smart Google Ads strategy can lead to plenty of new leads and signed clients for law firms, but it’s important to properly manage tactics and campaigns to generate the highest ROI. Follow the techniques listed here for improved performance and remember that you should never “set and forget” your Google Ads campaigns. Always be testing new strategies, whether you’re optimizing your bid strategy or testing out new ad copy.

If you’d like assistance managing your Google Ads, contact us for a consultation. We can help you deliver the highest quality traffic and ensure you’re seeing a true return on your investment.