Pay per click marketing is a form of online advertising whereby every time a user clicks on an advert a fee for the click is accrued.

PPC is an excellent fit for the legal industry because, with our help, it is possible to effectively force your law firm to the top of the first page of Google for selected keyword searches within a matter of hours.

Pay per click advertising via Google Adwords, Bing Ads or Facebook Adverts is extremely flexible and measurable in that you can specify your own maximum bid prices per click, you can cap spending so that you do not exceed a certain daily budget and campaign activity can be stopped and started whenever necessary.

Why should I start a Google Adwords campaign?

Adwords is the pay per click advertising solution offered by Google. There are various other PPC platforms that we can manage on request such as Bing Ads and Facebook Ads, but in terms of volume and the highest return on investment (ROI), our findings suggest that Google Adwords is by far the most effective PPC channel for law firm advertising.

If you have searched on Google you will have seen an Adwords ad. They appear in groups above and below the main organic results content and are known as “search advertising” ads because they appear on the Google search results page.

Personal Injury Adwords Ads

The main types of Adwords ad display options include –

• Search advertising – these text ads appear before and after the main search engine results page content on a Google search page.
• Mobile advertising – this is the version of text ads that show on the search advertising platform but only render for mobile devices.
• Display advertising – these entail adverts that take the form of banner advertising and can be found on Google partner websites and the websites of independent webmasters).
• Video advertising – video ads can appear before, during or after videos that have been uploaded onto YouTube or the Google Display Network

Adwords on the search advertising and mobile advertising platforms are very well suited to promoting legal services with a view to increasing actual business or client leads. Video advertising is more suited to law firms seeking to enhance their brand.

By working with Imageo on your Adwords PPC campaign you would be joining the pool of advertisers that helped to create the 2016 annual revenue figure of $90.3 billion for the Google business.

Google Adwords PPC tips for law firms

Managing PPC campaigns is best left to experienced professionals. This is particularly true when considering campaigns targeted at the legal profession.

Costs per click for popular keywords related to the legal profession can be extremely expensive and if mismanaged it will be extremely difficult to obtain an acceptable return on investment.

We have experience of managing multi-campaign PPC accounts spanning thousands of keywords across a range of areas of law.

A law firm PPC client of ours saw a vast improvement in business since we started managing their PPC campaigns –

Contact us to see how we can increase online leads for your law firm by managing a PPC campaign for you.

Whilst managing law firm PPC campaigns there are Adwords tips specific to the legal industry niche in particular. There are countless best practices that we follow when managing PPC accounts but there are a selection of important principles that we adhere to for legal clients which we will detail.

Negative keyword lists

A negative keyword is a particular keyword that can be included as part of a list which we are explicitly telling Google that we never want to see one of our adverts appear for when a user types the keyword in question.

Google Adwords Negative Keywords List

Using an extensive negative keyword list is extremely important when tackling law related keywords for a number of reasons –

• In some law firm niches there is a low volume of searches so broad or phrase matching keywords is most appropriate. Therefore, it is imperative to have a relevant negative keyword list to prevent irrelevant clicks.
• The use of negative keywords helps to increase an ads’ CTR.
• Using negative keywords will save money across the campaign by stopping your ads appearing for keywords that are irrelevant or unlikely to convert
• A campaign CPA will be reduced.
• Cost per click can be reduced by effective use of negative keywords.
• Keyword quality scores can be increased.
• The interaction with the law firm brand will be enhanced.

Ad extensions

As a service industry where authority and trust are of paramount importance the use of different ad extensions can help to increase the credibility of a law firm ad.

There are a variety of different ad extensions that are not only useful in helping CTR, but they are important to implement to increase quality.

Ad extensions that are certainly worth adding include –

• Sitelinks extensions
• Callout extensions
• Call extensions
• Location extensions

Campaign device bid adjustment

Adwords allows you to adjust percentage bid increases (or decreases) based upon device type – the three types being computers, mobiles and tablets. This can be extremely useful depending on website design and which type of traffic is converting best.

Ad scheduling

If your law firm has a call centre or reception which operates at certain business hours only it is advisable to set an ad schedule rule that automatically turns ads off at the close of business and back on again when operators are available to respond to calls/leads.

Ad Location

If you only want your ads to appear to searchers within a radius of specific towns or cities (or within your office region only) it is possible to set a rule whereby ads will only render to searchers within a set geographic area.

Enhanced ads

This tip is aimed at law firms that already have an Adwords campaign active. It is recommended to ensure that current ads are changed to the “enhanced” type of ad. Previously the Adwords system forced a user to create an individual ad for desktop and another ad for mobile. Now new text ads are “enhanced” by default which means it shows to both mobile and desktop users and it also has an increased number of text fields, therefore, affording more opportunity to add important calls to action in the ad.

PPC Services

The exact PPC services that we offer will be dictated by your exact requirements.

No two law firms have the same needs, aspirations and budgets so we don’t create arbitrary and inflexible service plans.

We will get to know your law firm in detail and from our discussions we will create a bespoke PPC proposal based on your input and our expert recommendations. Our PPC professionals will execute the proposal and manage your PPC campaign on an ongoing basis with regular reporting back to your designated contact to ensure that KPI’s are being maintained.

Our PPC proposal for new campaigns will generally take the form of two phases –

1. Creation of the initial PPC account framework

During this phase Imageo will do the following:

• Establish a PPC marketing budget with you which can be tailored to your specifications. This could mean a regular maximum daily spend over 24 hours, per month or during specified business hours only.
• Select ad campaign delivery mechanics (ads to be shown solely on Google, or Google’s ad network partners or both).
• Select the campaign bidding option types.
• Choose the geographic locations of both where the ads are to be shown and also the desired location of where the potential clients reside.
• Evaluate PPC keywords and look for complimentary additions if required.
• Choose bidding match types for each keyword chosen.
• Create targeted, highly relevant ad groups based upon keyword lists.
• Evaluate the optimum bid at keyword/group level.
• Write a selection of compelling adverts which will be split tested over time in order to ascertain the advert/s with the highest click through rates.
• Create a selection of complementary ad extensions.
• Ensure that PPC landing pages are optimally produced to convert highly using conversion rate optimisation and content marketing

2. Monthly PPC campaign optimisation and management

Once the Adwords PPC campaign has been set up it is essential to closely monitor the campaign in order to obtain the best return on investment, seek new potential opportunities and refine existing ads, ad groups, keywords and bidding strategies.

Therefore, Imageo will do the following on a monthly basis:

• Review the campaign budget to determine whether spend is at an optimum level.
• Check individual keyword performance levels in terms of number of clicks/conversions/quality score and alter based upon findings. This may include a change in matching option, keyword bid, the creation of new keywords and/or the removal of poorly performing keywords.
• Create a list of negative keywords to add at group/campaign level in order to mitigate the possibility of irrelevant clicks. This is an important step in attempting to obtain the best return on investment possible.
• Refine ad groups based on keyword quality as necessary.
• Check the performance of the ad copy and revise if necessary.
• Revise and resubmit disapproved ads if required.
• Ensure that there are no broken links in the adverts.
• Provide advice on landing page optimisation if there would appear to be changes that could aid conversion.

A PPC campaign works best in conjunction with our SEO, CRO and our content marketing solutions so that a co-ordinated online marketing plan is executed to give your law firm the best chance of a significantly improved online presence.

For more details about our PPC campaign management services for law firms please contact us by phone or via our contact form today.