Lawyers get a pretty bad rap sometimes. They’re the butt of a lot of jokes and they’re subject to many a stereotype. But, you know what? Abe Lincoln was a lawyer. A group that includes someone who rocked a cool top-hat while making landmark decisions in American history can’t be all that bad. Perhaps that’s a logical fallacy, but it’s the one we’re rolling with.
All lawyers are Abe Lincoln, and Abe Lincoln is all lawyers.
Honest Abe wasn’t perfect, though, and he certainly didn’t know everything. For example, did he know anything about pay-per-click (PPC) advertising? Was he a wizard with long-tail keywords and banner ad copy? High school history textbooks say nothing about his opinions on landing page optimization.
If all those words seem like pure nonsense to you, don’t worry. For the next 500 words or so, we’re going to give you some expert advice on advertising your legal practice. By the end of this article, you’ll know how to market yourself far better than Abe Lincoln did.
Bye, haters.
It’s best to get the bad news out of the way first. Paid search marketing for a law practice is rather expensive—monthly budgets frequently climb up into the range of $50,000-$100,000. What’s more, the landscape is intensely competitive, and landing clients whose cases earn you a sufficient return is a struggle. So, in order to ensure that you’re not throwing tens of thousands of dollars into a raging fire every month, you need to know how the PPC world operates.
Like we said—you’re going up against a lot of competition. In order to stand out, use your ad headlines to offer a solution rather than restate the prospect’s problem. For instance, if you’re a personal injury lawyer, a prospect if much more inclined to click on your ad if it says “Get Your Compensation Today” instead of “Are You Looking for Justice?”
Ad headlines are also great places to promote special offers and features that differentiate you from your competitors. Think about what makes your law firm special. Do you make yourself available to answer questions around the clock? Do you wait to charge clients until they’ve been fully compensated? Whatever it is, make it prominent—something even the fastest skim reader couldn’t miss.
Of course, the ad you show for a particular keyword needs to match the intent behind the searcher’s query. If someone searches something informational in nature (“how much do divorce lawyers get paid?”), it doesn’t make much sense to run ad aimed at divorcees. Doing so will undermine your click-through rate (CTR), which in turn hurts your Quality Score and your position in the ad rankings. Alternatively, if a searcher demonstrates commercial intent with a transactional search query (“boston ma divorce lawyer”), it’s all systems go with your best ad.
A prospect isn’t going to hire a lawyer she doesn’t trust. In order to earn that trust, you can use landing page videos in a couple different ways. You can make a quick, simple video of yourself discussing your background and your mission as a lawyer. This will humanize you to your prospects and give them an idea of your personality and demeanor. Or, you can ask satisfied customers to participate in testimonial videos. Chances are that your prospects can relate to the people you’ve previously worked with, which will make them more inclined to hire you.
Finally, you should make use of remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA). With this tool, you’ll be alerted when a remarketing prospect searches a keyword that you’re currently bidding on. For example, say someone who previously clicked on your AdWords ad searches “family lawyers near me.” RLSA allows you to bid up on the appropriate keyword, effectively ramping up your advertising efforts when a potential customer shows high intent. When the likelihood of a conversion is high, the extra cost is worth it.
For more online advertising ideas, read the WordStream blog.
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