Google Ads for Lawyers helps you attract high-quality leads and grow your client base. In this article, I will help you understand how to run Google Ads for this industry effectively.
We’ll cover the necessary costs, the best practices for setting up your campaigns, and common mistakes to avoid, ensuring you get the most out of your advertising budget.
Let’s get to it.
Table of Contents
Is Google Ads Effective for Law Firms?
Google Ads can be highly effective for law firms. According to WordStream, the average click-through rate (CTR) for legal services is 5.30%, which is a strong performance metric for driving traffic to a law firm’s website.
1. High-Quality Local Leads
Google Ads provides a highly targeted approach, allowing law firms to focus on specific geographic areas, which is crucial for attracting local clients. With Local Service Ads (LSAs), law firms only pay when a potential client contacts them directly through the ad, ensuring cost-efficiency and high-quality local leads.
Additionally, these LSAs require a minimum budget setting but often cost less per week due to their efficiency.
2. Competitive Conversion Rates
Law firms benefit from high conversion rates when using Google Ads. According to Constellation Marketing, the average conversion rate for legal industry ads is approximately 6.98%, significantly higher than the overall average of 3.75% across all industries. This higher conversion rate indicates that clicks on legal ads are more likely to turn into valuable client engagements, making the investment in Google Ads particularly fruitful for law firms.
3. Optimized Ad Spend and High ROAS
Google Ads allows law firms to achieve a high return on ad spend (ROAS) through detailed analytics and optimization. Esquire Interactive notes that focusing on high-quality scores for keywords can significantly reduce the cost per click (CPC) while improving ad positioning and effectiveness.
For example, a keyword with a quality score of 10 may cost up to 50% less than a keyword with a score of 5. This ensures that law firms can maximize their advertising budget and achieve a higher ROAS by targeting the most effective keywords and continuously optimizing their campaigns.
Which Types of Google Ads is Best for Lawyers
Let’s now explore the various types of Google Ads that are optimal for lawyers.
1. Local Service Ads (Most Recommended)
Local Service Ads (LSAs) are particularly effective for law firms. These ads appear at the very top of Google search results, making them highly visible to potential clients. LSAs operate on a pay-per-lead model, meaning law firms only pay when a user contacts them directly through the ad. This model ensures cost-efficiency and high-quality leads.
Why it works:
- Cost-Effective: LSAs are typically budget-friendly because you only pay for actual leads, not just clicks.
- Visibility: They appear above standard Google Ads and organic search results, increasing the likelihood of being seen by potential clients.
- Trust: LSAs include a “Google Screened” badge, which adds credibility and trustworthiness to your firm.
Note: Setting a high initial budget (e.g., $4,000 per week) for LSAs can result in better ad placement, though actual spending might be significantly lower, around $250 per week in practice. This strategy ensures your ads get more visibility without overspending.
2. Search Network Campaigns
Search Network Campaigns are also highly effective for law firms. These text-based ads appear on Google search results pages when potential clients search for specific keywords related to legal services. They are particularly useful for targeting clients who are actively seeking legal help.
Why it works:
- High Conversion Rate: The legal industry has an average conversion rate of 6.98%, significantly higher than the overall average of 3.75% across all industries.
- Quality Score Impact: Ads with high-quality scores (7-10) can result in lower costs per click and better ad positioning.
- Targeted Reach: By focusing on specific, high-intent keywords like “personal injury lawyer near me” or “best criminal defense attorney”, law firms can attract highly relevant traffic.
The REAL Cost of Advertising in the Legal Field
According to Google Ads, 78 out of the 100 most expensive pay-per-click terms are related to the legal field, with costs reaching up to $500 per click in certain locations, even without considering nationwide figures.
It’s understandable because the substantial fees associated with certain cases make it worthwhile for law firms to invest significant amounts in bids to attract their next potential clients.
As you can see, the CPC for legal-related keywords is extraordinarily high, with “best mesothelioma lawyer” topping the list at $935.71 per click. It’s clear that in such a competitive environment, only firms with substantial marketing budgets can afford to compete effectively.
Keywords targeting specific locations, such as “louisville car accident lawyer” also command high prices, indicating strong localized demand.
How Much Should Law Firms Spend on Google Ads?
In short, if your goal is to secure five car accident cases in a month, you should budget at least $12,000 for Google Ads. This amount can vary significantly depending on the market, so it shouldn’t be considered a fixed number. For instance, in New York City, you could easily spend over $100,000 per month on English search queries alone.
As you scale your campaign, the cost per signed case will increase because gaining more market share in Google PPC for lawyers’ advertising drives up the cost per click.
To start experimenting with PPC search advertising, a budget of around $3,000 per month can be sufficient to obtain 1 or 2 cases. In less competitive practice areas, such as family law, this amount might yield better results.
If you’re considering Google Ads for lawyers but hesitant due to high costs and fierce competition in the market, the best solution is to seek assistance from an experienced agency like Mega Digital. Moreover, as the sole agency with access to Google Market Explorer and real-time industry data, partnering with us offers numerous benefits and enhances your competitive edge, while keeping costs at a minimum.
Top “Google Ads for Lawyers” Keywords to Bid on
Avoid using terms like “lawyer” and “attorney” by themselves. These one-word ‘head’ terms come with extremely high costs, making them affordable only for the largest firms.
Targeting overly general keywords on Google Ads can be very expensive. However, there are numerous other keyword opportunities to take advantage of.
It’s better to concentrate on long-tail and body keywords, which consist of more than just a single word.
Here are some examples of long-tail keywords:
| Exact Match Keywords | Phrase Match Keywords | Match |
|---|---|---|
| [personal injury lawyer near me] | “personal injury lawyer near me” | personal injury lawyer |
| [best criminal defense attorney] | “best criminal defense attorney” | criminal defense attorney |
| [divorce lawyer free consultation] | “divorce lawyer free consultation” | divorce lawyer |
| [DUI lawyer local] | “DUI lawyer local” | DUI lawyer |
| [workers compensation attorney] | “workers compensation attorney” | workers compensation |
| [child custody lawyer] | “child custody lawyer” | custody lawyer |
| [estate planning lawyer near me] | “estate planning lawyer near me” | estate planning lawyer |
| [bankruptcy lawyer free consultation] | “bankruptcy lawyer free consultation” | bankruptcy lawyer |
| [immigration lawyer local] | “immigration lawyer local” | immigration lawyer |
| [real estate attorney] | “real estate attorney” | real estate lawyer |
How to Run Google Ads for Lawyers?
After going through the basic steps such as selecting a campaign type and choosing a campaign goal, we will now dive into the detailed settings for running Google Ads for lawyers.
Step 1: Customize Campaign Setting
You will input your website and phone number. Then, you can adjust your campaign’s general settings. Begin by reviewing your current settings, and then give your campaign a name.
Make sure to uncheck the option for display or other networks suggested by Google Ads. Otherwise, a portion of your advertising budget will be allocated to these media instead of Google search ads.
It’s important to note that the display network can be beneficial for advertising, particularly for remarketing and building brand awareness. For instance, you could show a display ad to users who have already visited your website at least once.
However, to make display ads effective, they require a separate, dedicated campaign strategy. These ads use visual elements and need content specifically designed for display ad networks.
Under the “general settings” section, there is a link to show more settings. Click on this, and you will be able to set the start and end times for your PPC campaign. This step is optional but can help you manage your ad spending. Without selecting this option, your campaign will run continuously, and you will be charged for any clicks your ad receives.
You will also find options for campaign URLs and dynamic ad settings, which allow for detailed campaign tracking. However, most lawyers won’t need to use this level of detail.
Step 2: Build Your Lawyer Ad
Google Ads recommends having at least three ad creatives for each ad group. This variety increases the likelihood that Google Ads will display a top-performing ad to your target audience.
In Search ads, you can add text to the headline and description of your ad. If you have previously created ad extensions, they will appear in the preview. The text specifications are as follows:
- Headlines 1, 2, and 3: 10 characters each (Headline 3 is not always shown)
- URL Display Path 1: 15 characters
- URL Display Path 2: 15 characters
- Descriptions 1 and 2: 90 characters each
Each headline is separated by a pipe. Additionally, a period is automatically added to the end of the first description line. You may need to experiment to get your Google ad copy to look exactly how you want it.
Step 3: Organize Ad Groups
This strategy might seem like extra work for your law firm, but it is highly beneficial. It involves organizing keywords and ads into groups based on the themes of your legal services. For instance, if your firm specializes in personal injury cases, you could create one ad group for car accidents, another for slip and fall accidents, and so forth.
This approach allows you to craft more targeted ad copy and landing pages tailored to each type of case, improving the quality score of your ads. A higher quality score can lead to lower cost per click and better ad rankings. Additionally, organizing your ad groups by themes makes it easier to monitor campaign performance, helping you identify which groups are performing well and which need adjustments.
Google Ads for Law Firms: Top Common Mistakes
Finally, here are the key things you should avoid when running Google Adwords for lawyers.
Skipping Negative Keywords
You can use negative keywords to restrict who sees your ads. Properly chosen negative keywords prevent your ads from showing up when specific phrases are searched. This strategy can help you:
- Boost your click-through rate
- Increase conversions
- Save on your advertising budget
- Improve your return on ad spend
- Attract higher-quality leads
If you’re getting many clicks but few conversions, adding negative keywords might help improve the relevance of your traffic.
Adding Too Many Keywords
“Keyword stuffing” involves cramming too many keyword phrases into a website to try to get the page to rank for those keywords.
Nowadays, Google uses advanced algorithms that can detect keyword stuffing and prevent such content from ranking highly. It’s much more effective to create quality, relevant advertising content rather than repeatedly using the same phrase.
Overlooking Ad Extensions
Ad extensions can make your search ads more noticeable to users by adding extra information, which can increase clicks and conversions.
When you create ad extensions for a campaign, they will appear on all ads within that campaign. For instance, if a campaign has two ad groups with three and four ads respectively, the extensions will be shown on all seven ads.
There are several types of ad extensions, including:
- Call Extension: Adds your phone number to the ad.
- Callout Extension: Allows you to add several lines of text after your ad description.
- Location Extension: Adds a clickable link to an address in your ad that links to a map.
- Sitelink Extension: Includes additional links to your law firm’s website in your ad.
- Promotion Extension: Adds a special promotion to your ad.
- Message Extension: Provides a link for prospective clients to text your business.
Conclusion
I believe that through this article, you now have a solid understanding of Google Ads for Lawyers. With this knowledge, you’re ready to start implementing these strategies on your own and see your law firm grow. I will continuously update useful information about Google Ads, especially for industries that can benefit from it, so stay tuned for more valuable insights!
