Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is an effective marketing tool used by many businesses. It can be a powerful marketing strategy for your law firm, especially for lead generation. However, if not correctly executed, it can also be risky and may even hurt your marketing efforts. 

In this guide, we highlight 10 questions you should discuss with a PPC expert before enlisting their services.

1. What is PPC Advertising?

Pay Per Click, or “PPC,” advertising is a marketing model used by search engines. With PPC, your law firm’s ad will show up at the top of users’ search results for certain keywords. Displaying the ad is free. You will only pay if and when a user clicks through your ad through the search engine.

Pay-per-click should not be confused with search engine optimization (SEO) for lawyers, another effective marketing model. SEO helps your website rank organically on SERPs using optimization practices. It is not ad-based like PPC. However, most legal marketing agencies provide SEO and PPC services.

2. How Does PPC Work?

You need to budget for PPC if you want to have an adequate reach on search engines and get your ad in front of potential clients. However, PPC requires more than a good budget for your ads to rank on Google and similar SERPs. With PPC, you don’t have to pay more to outrank your competitors.

Ad placement is typically determined by Google’s Ad Auction, an automated process that the search engine uses to determine the relevance and quality of the advertisement. 

The system requires you to bid on keywords that you want to appear for on search results. For example, if your firm specializes in premise liability law, you can bid on a “premise liability lawyer.”

You can also include your firm’s geographic location to create a more narrow keyword, e.g., “premise liability lawyer in Sarasota, Florida.” When an online searcher submits a query using these specific terms, the Ad Auction’s algorithm crawls the web for relevant ads.

If yours contains the terms the user is searching for, it will appear on search results in order of relevance.

3. Is PPC An Effective Advertising Model?

One of the advantages of search engine advertising is that it’s a targeted approach; it’s highly likely to encourage conversion, unlike other marketing techniques.

Another benefit of PPC is that it automatically places you at the forefront of commercial intent.

When you create a PPC advertising campaign, it increases your chances of drawing high-quality traffic and leads to your firm’s website.

4. How Much Does PPC For Attorneys Cost?

Several factors determine the cost of your PPC campaign. These factors include how successful your keyword bid is and your ad’s commercial intent. Some keywords cost more than others. 

PPC for lawyers can be particularly expensive. For example, the words lawyer or lawyers are highly competitive terms that cost about $54 per click. But the good thing is that PPC for lawyers can bring maximum ROI.

Here’s why; Google records the following search statistics for the most competitive legal keywords:

  • 63,000 searches per second
  • 3.8 million searches per minute
  • 228 million searches per hour
  • 5.5 million searches per day

There’s no doubt about it. People are searching for lawyers and legal services. And they are using keywords to do it. Therefore, you need to invest in the most competitive keywords for your PPC campaign to bear fruit and, most importantly, for your ads to appear when it matters the most. 

PPC is not a one-off campaign if you want to see optimal results. Instead, it requires consistency in refining your campaign to attract the most high-quality leads and return on investment.

5. How Can I Make The Most Of My PPC And Achieve ROI?

The good thing about a PPC campaign is that you can control how much you spend on your ads. Even if your specific practice area is not highly competitive, you’ll still need to invest money into optimizing your ads on Google so you get a good ROI.

That doesn’t mean you have to keep injecting money into your PPC ads to get favorable results. 

Here are a few cost-cutting tips to get the most out of your PPC campaign:

  • Use specific terms or match and phrase your keywords in a way that tailors your campaign to a particular audience. This way, you’ll attract relevant clicks from people looking for a lawyer. Schedule your ad to come alive when your target audience is likely to find it. 
  • Use location targeting to limit your search to a specific location, preferably where you practice. Also, consider segmenting your target audience using demographic data like age, income, and marital status.
  • Perform keyword research and ensure that you work with the most competitive phrases to bring results.

By employing these techniques, you can have a reasonably economical PPC campaign with solid ROI.

6. How Will I Manage The Google Quality Score?

Google’s Quality Score covers three things: keyword, the relevance of your landing page, and the text you use in your ad. To ensure you attain a higher score, you’ll need to use fewer search terms and narrow your target audience.

That way, it’s easy to write a relevant ad copy that targets specific leads. 

7. How Does The Google Auction Work?

The Google Auction process works like this: When a user enters a search query, AdWords unveils all the relevant keywords that match the user query. Irrelevant ads are ignored. 

Only those ranking highly on Ad Rank will be displayed. This is a crucial aspect of your PPC campaign, and your PPC expert should be knowledgeable in it. 

8. Does Ad Rank Impact Cost Per Click (CPC)?

Cost-per-click (CPC) is the amount Google charges per click when a user clicks through your ad. The most you can pay per click is the minimum amount needed to maintain your ad position. 

Typically, ads that appear at the top page of the search engine have a higher CPC than those that appear at the bottom of search results.

9. What Is a Click-through Rate?

Click-through rate, also called “CTR,” is the number of users who click on your ads relative to the number of times your ad is shown.

To calculate your CTR, you will divide the number of clicks on your ad by the number of impressions it receives. For example, if your ad has 10 clicks per 200 impressions/times shown, it has a click-through rate of 5%.

10. Which Tools Can You Recommend For Keyword Research?

Besides Google’s search query, there are other valuable tools you can use in your keyword research to discover the most competitive terms. 

Your PPC expert should use and be familiar with the following:

If your PPC campaign doesn’t use more than one keyword research tool, you may be missing out on crucial information about what terms users are searching for in your area when they are seeking legal services. 

Common Mistakes Lawyers Make When Working With PPC

As effective as PPC is in attracting high-quality leads to your site, it can backfire if it is not implemented correctly. 

Below are the common mistakes law firms often make when using PPC:

Using irrelevant keywords: Remember that the most expensive legal search terms don’t always perform better than your more economical keywords. Be sure to perform keyword audits every six months to update your most underperforming keywords and improve the highest-performing ones.

Neglecting your PPC campaign: Even if you hire an expert to handle your PPC campaign, you need to demonstrate some level of commitment to ensure that your investment is performing as desired. Be sure to monitor your PPC performance daily and discuss areas that need tweaking to improve performance.

This is especially true for poor and underperforming PPC campaigns; you want to avoid overstretching your budget. 

Not capitalizing on media platforms for lawyer PPC campaigns: An estimated 85% of internet users in the US watch video content online. If your campaign is struggling with low conversion rates, you can use video content to improve conversion by as much as 80%. 

Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram offer unlimited opportunities for posting video content. A good PPC campaign should run on multiple platforms — not just Google — to make the most of each one.

Working with ineffective landing pages: One of the best PPC campaign best practices for lawyers is optimizing a landing page for conversions.

The worst thing that can happen in your PPC campaign is having a qualified lead click on your ad only to find themselves on a landing page that doesn’t have the information they are looking for. 

All landing pages should have an active CTA plus valuable content that answers the searcher’s question. Otherwise, Google may penalize your landing page for containing information irrelevant to or inconsistent with your ad.

Tip: Have multiple landing pages to double lead generation. Statistics show that websites with more than 40 landing pages can potentially attract up to 500% in leads.

Not doing targeting: For most lawyers, their target location is critical for lead generation. The same should be applied when doing PPC advertisements. By using geo-targeting, your ads will become visible to searchers in your specific location. This feature helps you target leads by city, county, zip code, and economic status. 

Working With A Reputable SEO Company For Lawyers Who Will Manage Your PPC Campaign

Pay Per Click (PPC) is one of the best strategies for lawyers seeking to increase web traffic and conversions. It comes with multiple benefits, including the ability to control your ad spending. 

When done right, this advertising technique can boost your client base. But that’s just it; it must be done right. We understand that lawyers are busy providing legal services to the people who need them most. They don’t have time to get in the weeds of an SEO or PPC campaign.

At LawRank, we handle all of your law firm’s legal marketing needs, from law firm SEO services and website design to pay-per-click and search engine optimization.

Let us take charge of your legal digital marketing as you focus on your client’s needs. Contact us to discover how we can expertly handle your PPC campaign needs.