Imagine having your ad appear at the very top of Google search results and, in order to place it there, you only have to pay per lead it generates. Thanks to Google’s new update, most lawyers now can. Unlike SEO for lawyers these clicks are guaranteed and you only pay for the lead.
The product is called Local Services Ads (LSA), and it has only recently been fully rolled out for lawyers. Let me break it down for you quickly because I highly recommend moving fast on this one.
Once upon a time, someone (who was definitely super cool) nicknamed the internet “the information highway.” And they were right. The internet is a mad rush of data that dumps information on potential clients at the speed of light. In the blink of an eye, people can find thousands of attorneys across the world. But on that “information highway,” lawyers who advertise online can find it difficult to establish a sense of legitimacy and trust with potential clients. How do customers know who to trust? Who is around to verify what you say is true? How do they know that you are actually a legit presence in their community?
Local Services Ads (LSA) creates what I call a “market square” off the main “information highway”– a place where potential clients can trust you. Rather than having the ice cream shop next door vouch for your character and legitimacy, Google does.
Here’s what it looks like on the search results page once you’ve been screened by Google:
There is a pretty intense process that you have to get through in order for Google to let you have a LSAs. There is a reason that you only have to pay per lead in this situation. This is a high-quality advertising approach. If Google is going to give you excellent leads, you are going to have to give it excellent information about yourself.
To create a LSA account, you’ll need to provide Google at least these pieces of information:
You’ll also need to set up your online LSA profile with specifically sized photos, a business bio, service areas, business hours, and job types. You’ll need to set up your bid budget too, but we’ll get into that in a second.
Selecting the right practice areas is the most important part of creating your profile because job types are what Google uses as the key terms for searches. The job types available for you to choose from are based on what kind of licensed practice area your firm is listed as. If you have bar licenses for multiple practice areas, all job types under those practice areas will appear.
The job types weren’t written by lawyers, so please don’t think too much like one when you are choosing them. Think like a potential client. What job types would a potential client type into the search bar if they were looking for the kind of services you offer? Don’t be too narrow or you may miss some leads. Don’t be too broad or you will dilute the power of your other, more accurate job types. However, if you are on the fence, we suggest erring a bit on the side of being too broad because you can always dispute bad leads (we’ll cover that in the next section).
Here’s an example of job types available for personal injury lawyers. The ones with blue sliders have been selected and will be used as search terms. The others have not been selected and will not be used as key terms:
I’ll be completely honest with you. Getting your profile set up involves a lot of back and forth with Google. They are only just now offering this product to attorneys for the first time so it isn’t a well-worn, smooth process for anyone. Here are problem-solving tips that we’ve learned so far (so you don’t have the urge to throw something across the room like we did):
Obviously I have some bias, but I honestly believe that you are better off hiring a firm like ours to handle this process, avoiding the time-suck and headaches that are basically inevitable with LSA at this point.
Here at Juris Digital, my team will:
When you successfully finish the verification process and your background check is approved, Google puts a big green check mark on your ad, with the text “GOOGLE SCREENED.” And remember, your ad with that big beautiful green checkmark is listed at the very top of the results page.
Simply put, in Local Services Ads (LSAs), you pay per lead, whereas with Pay Per Click, you… pay per click. So what’s the catch? Why would you pay per click when you could instead only pay per lead? There really isn’t a catch. LSAs are the new iteration of online marketing. We recommend you start the sign up process immediately for LSAs.
With that being said, PPC is still a super important tool in the tool box for now. It does things that LSAs can’t:
Ok, so we’ve established that with LSAs you only pay per lead. But what does Google count as a lead? For Google, a lead in LSAs is when a potential client uses the phone number Google lists on your LSA. It records the call and lists it on the back end of your account.
One thing I do for my LSAs clients every morning is check these recorded calls to make sure they are truly good leads. Google doesn’t charge you for calls where a potential client hang-ups before the call is answered, although it does list those as leads. But Google will usually charge you if the call is picked up, even if the case isn’t a good fit. For example, your staff might spend ten minutes with a potential client on the phone, only to ascertain that they don’t have a case that you can help them with. Google will probably charge you for this lead. However, it is possible to dispute this call on the back end of your LSAs. I have found that Google generally does refund you in the case of a dispute. I like checking these calls every day for my clients so their money is refunded faster and so the call won’t count towards their leads cap (more lead caps in a second).
The bid budget process for LSAs is identical to that of Pay Per Click. If you need a refresher, check out our blog post.
There are two rules of the game to keep in mind when you are starting to think about your bid budget. One, Google always sets the floor for the bid price. You can’t try to bid $0.01 for a lead– Google doesn’t want that nonsense. So far, I have seen Google set the minimum bid price anywhere from $16 to $150 for LSA leads, depending on the geographical location and the practice area. Minimums will likely rise as more attorneys find out about LSAs, so move fast if you want to take advantage of the low minimums. The second rule is that you have to provide a weekly budget. By working in units of 1 week, Google keeps the bidding process fairly stable and manageable. Remember, you only pay if you get a lead. A budget just says “I will allow Google to take up to this amount of money out of my account this week if/when leads come in.”
We typically recommend going with the “Maximize Leads” option. With this option, Google helps you automatically compete with rival bidders. You can set your ideal bid, but then Google takes your whole weekly budget amount and strategically raises your bid when needed to make sure you don’t get bumped out by higher rival bids. Here’s an example: Let’s say you want to bid $50 per lead which puts your weekly budget around $1,500 (again, Google forces you to think in terms of a week, not just a one-off lead). If your rival comes along and bids $90 per lead, Google will automatically raise your bid to around $100 per lead so your ad still shows. That means you will be capped at 15 leads for the week ($1,500 divided by $100) instead of 30 ($1,500 divided by $50), but if Google hadn’t raise your bid price you could have been bumped way down and not gotten any leads at all.
Some of my current clients have lost money in the past because they hired someone who said they knew how to bid on Google Ads. Let me tell you, there is a big difference between knowing how to bid on Google Ads and being good at it. If you aren’t sure if you are getting the biggest bang for your buck, I’m happy to take a look at your numbers for you and let you know what I think.
As always with everything online marketing related, your LSAs do best when they are complemented by good PPC and SEO content and strategy. Google is learning to think more and more like a potential client. That means there are no more magic bullets or quick results in online advertising any more. Quality and consistency are critical.
With that being said, if you miss out on LSAs you are going to be behind. I would move quickly on this one. I’m in the back end of LSAs every day so don’t hesitate to shoot me any questions you may have!
One of the more annoying things our local SEO client’s have expressed frustration about is the message showing below your business hours in Google My Business listing saying “Hours or services may differ”.
It looks like this:
The frustrating thing about this particular message is that it will show up even if you have logged in and recently updated your business hours. But the good news is that you can remove this message, although I’ll admit it’s kind of a pain.
All you have to do to remove this message is to set special hours under Info > Special hours.
The problem is that you have to make this change based off a single date as opposed to a date range.
This means you have to go in and manually add the specific date and the “special” hours, even if they are not “special” and just regular. Here is what it looks like logged into Google My Business.
This may not be a big deal, but I could see a small percentage of potential clients being deterred by this message.
Also, it’s a simple change to make that might provide some advantage over businesses that do not do this.
Let me know if you made this change for your law firm and what you saw (if anything?).
Facebook traffic is growing and more people are spending time on the website and app every day. The current pandemic situation has actually inflated these numbers.
In fact, a recent study by the Wall Street Journal revealed that Facebook traffic was up over 50% since the pandemic started. Whether you love it or hate it, you can’t (and shouldn’t ignore it).
This is one of the most common questions I get asked when attorneys are exploring whether or not they should engage with Facebook as way to generate new cases. I think now more than ever, Facebook is an effective channel to build your brand and generate new cases.
As a Law Firm SEO Expert at heart, it used to pain me to say this. But at the end of the day, you need to focus on the marketing tactics that bring the most business to your firm with the strongest ROI.
Now before you get too excited, you have to understand that it’s essential to put in the work before you see any type of return on investment on Facebook. It takes time, money, and attention to detail to make it work for your law firm.
Most of the time, after I speak with an attorney about their past experiences with Facebook and Facebook Ads, I hear that it was a waste of money or that it didn’t work. If that’s the situation you’re in, I encourage you to ask yourself if anything below sounds like your campaign:
Wherever you’re coming from if you think about tactics that work for inbound marketing (e.g. someone doing a Google search for your services) and apply them to Facebook, you have it wrong.
This is where most SEO experts get Facebook (and social media in general) wrong. If you are using the same tactics for inbound marketing (where the client already knows what they want) to an audience who isn’t actively looking for you, you’re doing it wrong.
Think about it. Do you go to Facebook and look for someone to mow your lawn? If you do it’s your neighbor. If you want to buy something it’s the Facebook marketplace.
The fact is though, that as an attorney if someone is “looking” for you on Facebook, then they are asking their friends or family on their timeline or asking for recommendations in a group. They are not typically going to the search bar and typing “best personal injury lawyer”.
And if they’re not looking for you – a general brand message that shows the services you offer, targeted towards people who don’t need you probably won’t be very effective.
Generally speaking, if someone needs to hire an attorney they either have a problem or a future concern. Both of these are pain points that speak to your potential client.
One commonly overlooked strategy of effective social media promotion is giving away information. If you want to establish yourself as a true expert and stand out from your competitors, using social media to give away free information is a great way to start.
For some reason, many people are afraid to give away “free’ information online, even if it’s not specific.
Generally speaking, giving away information is a great way to show people you know what you’re talking about as well as establish trust that you’re the one someone should hire. When attorney’s don’t engage in this tactic, it’s typically because they’re scared of one of these things:
I wanted to say all of this to tell you that people have problems and you can help them by providing a solution. In the marketing world, we call these pain points and they will drive your potential clients to take action.
Considering testing Facebook for your law firm? All the way back n 2017, Facebook was expected to capture nearly 40% of the online display advertising market. Translation: Facebook can be a powerful marketing channel for lawyers..
Online advertising is becoming more of a necessity than an option for businesses—but it’s only worth the investment when done right. As a busy lawyer, you need to know how to get started on the right foot quickly, so that you can bring in new clients without breaking the bank or investing a lot of time.
Here are six tips that can help you drive more traffic to your website via Facebook, and ultimately get more clients for your law firm.
Facebook advertising isn’t free. In the past, having a page for your law firm meant that your posts would organically reach at least anyone who liked your page, and potentially more Facebook users too. But as of a few years ago, organic posts from Facebook pages only reach about 2.6% of their fans.
If you decide to start a Facebook page for your law firm, don’t just post updates and hope for new leads to roll in.
Pay to boost your posts to a targeted audience so that potential customers actually see them.
With Facebook advertising, you’ll have plenty of options to target the type of people who’ll be most interested in your services, so take advantage when setting up your campaigns. For example, if you’re a wills and estates lawyer, and you’re posting a link to a blog post entitled “Just Married? 3 Ways to Structure Your Will to Protect Your Loved Ones,” you could target:
You can choose who to target with your ads based on any number of life events that people might post about on Facebook, and you can set geographic targets based on where you practice—targeting a newly engaged couple in New York when you practice in Texas won’t help your business. Take time to do this right, and your ads will be more effective.
Note: Facebook advertising may not be the best bet for all practice areas. For example, if you’re a personal injury lawyer, consider that potential clients will likely use Google, not Facebook, to find a lawyer quickly. Before spending, ask yourself, “Will potential clients see this ad when they need my services?”
If you can make your ads helpful, you’ll pay less to advertise on Facebook.
Facebook uses algorithms to determine how well your ad content is received—and posts that don’t resemble an ad are usually more popular, making them cheaper for you to promote. For example, it might be more expensive to promote an ad titled “Looking For a Divorce Lawyer?” than to promote a link to a blog post or video titled “5 Things To Do If You’re Considering Divorce.” Which brings us to our next point.
The best way to collect leads from Facebook is to first drive visitors to your website. And the best way to keep visitors on your website is to provide helpful, engaging content.
Give as much information as you can, and provide it in a format that is helpful and actionable. For example, family law firm Fresh Legal has written an extremely useful post on the first steps to take after a separation.
As a bonus, this type of content helps position you as a subject matter expert and builds trust with potential clients. They’ll be much more likely to remember your name when they’re ready to hire a lawyer if you’ve helped them already. Useful informational content can also help with SEO, as this post from Juris Digital explains.
Blog posts are just one form of content you can create for your website. Other options, like infographics, slideshares, or videos, can also be effective for driving visitors to your website.
If you’re advertising on Facebook, uploading a short video rather than a blog post can make a big difference in terms of engagement. Why? Four times more consumers would prefer to watch a video than read an article, and with Facebook’s autoplay feature, videos are extra eye catching.
When creating videos, keep them short, and include captions so that viewers can watch your videos without sound—over half of Facebook’s users access the site via mobile, and they may be in a situation where they can’t turn their sound on (e.g., on a train or bus).
When it comes to Facebook advertising, don’t just set it and forget it. Try different headlines and different versions of ads to see which are most effective for your firm. For example, if you’re boosting a blog post or video, does a title in the form of a question work better, or a title in the form of a list?
You can see how your ads are performing in the Facebook Ads Manager, under the “Ad Reporting” screen. If your ad is bringing in plenty of clicks, you may want to run it a little longer, or run a similar campaign. If not, it might make sense to try something different for your next ad.
If you’d like to learn more about setting up Facebook advertising campaigns for your law firm, check out this guide to Facebook advertising campaigns from Clio.
If your law firm has the budget, time, and resources to test Facebook advertising it’s a no brainer. For the most part, just don’t expect results overnight. You have to put in the time, effort, and be willing to look at the data.
The firms that are the most successful with Facebook advertising take this approach.
The short answer is yes… But they are taking a VERY big gamble and risk getting penalized & removed from Google search results for a long time.
Link building for law firms has always proven to be a difficult task. The importance of links as a Google Ranking factor is still very prominent and the best attorney SEO companies know this.
On one hand, lawyers know they need to have strong links, but on the other, they recognize that getting legitimate links takes a lot of time and effort, and thus, a lot of money.
It’s due to these reasons that people start wondering “how can I cheat the system?”. Whether it’s buying links, automated links, or building a personal blog network (PBN), there is no shortage of these link schemes.
Just two weeks ago I had a potential client call me and tell me how he just spent “a small fortune” on a link network for his firm, just to help with SEO rankings. This shocked me because it had been a while since I have heard anyone talking about PBNs. But what is a PBN?
A PBN or Private Blog Network is a network of authoritative websites used to build links to your primary website. In other words, PBN’s are a series of websites built for the sole purpose of passing link equity back to your website to manipulate Google’s rankings.
These websites are typically owned by marketing agencies or independent law firms for the sole purpose of interlinking.
They are not as good as you would think.
Google has made many significant link updates over the years through major algorithm updates like Penguin geared towards targeting low-quality links. In addition to this, they have attacked and taken down many private blog networks with manual actions.
So all in all, Google has gotten better at tackling private blog networks, but people have also gotten smarter. When SEO companies build PBN’s I typically see them going to extreme lengths to obfuscate their presence by using different hosting companies, domain registrars, analytics code, etc.
At this point you might be thinking… well how can they build authority to their own PBN websites and not their own? Great question, let’s start by looking at a common trick!
One common PBN trick is buying previous websites on expired domains.
In this scenario, people will typically monitor expiring domains that already have a strong backlink profile or purchase websites outright that have a strong link profile. One common theme I’ve seen used over and over for this are event websites.
Let’s start by looking at the website for the 2012 Eagle Forum San Diego Convention. At first glance, it’s easy to see that this domain was registered for a conference and the website was created for a conference in that specific year.
Moz Open Site Explorer only shows the domain as a 16/100, but AHREFS which has the biggest link index gives this domain a domain rating of 36/100. In fact, it’s one law firm’s most popular linking domain with over 2,200 backlinks according to AHREFS.
So how would I know that this is likely part of a privately owned blog network? Step 1, look at the two-page website:
Did you throw up a little as well looking at this website? It’s pretty clear looking at this website that it’s absolute crap and is not there to serve any real user intent. In fact, even the contact button on the right sidebar is blank.
To dive deeper I started by checking the source code for Google Analytics. There was none.
Next, I conducted a WHOIS search to see who owns the domain. It looks like someone named LOTTIE BROWN who lives on Pooh Bear Lane registered this domain. Really? Thankfully they provided some more information for me to dive a bit deeper:
Tech Email: MARYNEWMAN713@YAHOO.COM
Name Server: NS29.CROCWEB.COM
Name Server: NS30.CROCWEB.COM
A reverse DNS lookup using the email address shows that Mrs. Brown only has one domain registered to her.
I also did a reverse DNS check and basically found that they’re trying to keep this website on an island by itself.
So this website appears to be operating independently from my observations. In cases like this, it’s best to continue your investigation down the on-page rabbit hole. So I analyzed the outgoing links to see what I could find.
I found a bunch of outgoing links to Divorce360.com as well as links to websites such as:
colleylaw.net/personal-injury-wrongful-death/brain-injury/
www.apricotlaw.com/lawyer-seo/
www.brocklawfirm.com/ (x)
www.calahanlaw.com/ (x)
www.crowelllawoffices.com/personal-injury/sacramento-car-accident-lawyer/ (x)
www.greenberglawoffices.com/ (x)
The apricot link stood out to me for sure so I checked out their portfolio page which shows 4/5 law firms I listed above on that page. I think we know who owns it now.
For my second example, I looked at the same link profile of the firm I was initially analyzing and found this link which as an AHREFS domain rating of 34/100.
This domain is registered by Marie Nelson who lives on 2480 Pooz Street, which appears to not exist. This domain owner also only owns one domain and also does not believe in tracking website visits through Google Analytics.
This website has 12 outgoing links, 3 of which domains looked pretty familiar:
So after looking at this, it’s pretty easy to see that this company engages in private blog networks for their clients.
The hardest part about PBN’s is figuring out if they’re working for a client. While the anecdotal evidence seems to always point to Yes, there are variables we don’t have control over such as – did the website disavow these links?
Soon we will be publishing a study on the effectiveness of these PBN’s in the legal space along with data to support our claims.
No. Do not consider damaging your brand all because you want to appease the Google gods for an effective quick win. If you get penalized you will have screwed yourself over for some time to come.
Writing high-converting ads is tricky enough, and lawyers have extra considerations when it comes to Google Ads.
In this post, we’re going to show you exactly how to write great Google Ads for lawyers.
We’ll discuss the following:
… and more.
Let’s dive right in.
There are a few elements of a Google Ad that you can optimize for rankings and conversions.
Make sure to include all these elements in your ads (even though Google won’t always show all of them). You can increase your click-through-rate (CTR) by taking up more “real estate,” or space, on the search engine results page (SERP).
Let’s discuss these in detail.
The final URL is a link to the ad’s corresponding landing page.
However, the display path is what actually appears in your ad. So the final URL might be www.lawfirm.com, but the ad shows the display path, such as www.lawfirm.com/practice-area/location.
Your display path should include keywords. You have 15 characters to work with for each of the two subfolders, for example: lawfirm.com/_____/_____.
Headlines are perhaps the most important element of your Google ads.
Often, searchers read only the titles. Note that each headline allows up to 30 characters.
When writing titles, try to do the following.
Like organic SEO for lawyers, keywords are crucial. Your first title needs to include a target keyword, like “personal injury lawyer LA.”
Your second title should be catchier and emotional, leveraging either a unique value proposition or empathetic statements targeting potential clients.
In most cases, your headline 3 should be your law firm name.
Your descriptions should include keywords, value propositions, and other selling points. If possible, relate your descriptions directly to the landing page to increase your Quality Score.
We’ll discuss Quality Score later.
To further optimize your descriptions, include a call-to-action, like “schedule a consultation.” Remember that descriptions can be up to 90 characters.
Sitelinks are deep links that take users to specific pages of your site. For example, you could include sitelinks that direct users to contact, case results, about, and practice areas pages. You could also link your sitelink extensions to certain practice areas.
There is a sitelink extensions heading (25 characters) and 2 descriptions (35 characters each).
Sitelinks and callouts may look the same on the backend, but the key difference is that sitelinks contain a link while callouts are just text. As you might expect, sitelinks appear in blue, indicating a clickable link. Callouts look like regular gray ad text and are 25 characters long.
Callout links draw potential clients’ attention to what you have to offer, such as special promotions or value propositions. Since they allow you to add more text to your ads, callouts can increase your click-through-rate.
Location extensions are a must. Not only do they provide potential clients quick access to your contact information, they help completely fill out your ads (which Google does take into consideration when ranking ads).
Location extensions are also the only way that your call ads can appear in the “map pack,” or the top three local search results on the search engine results page. Since Google prioritizes a searcher’s location, appearing in the local results can get you a lot of leads.
These are simple. Add your phone number so users can call your firm right on the search engine results page.
Structured snippet extensions are essentially larger callout sections with a brief headline and description. They are an opportunity to mention and explain unique attributes of your firm, like how many clients you’ve served and how long you’ve been in business.
There can be a few, but they are only 25 characters each.
Promotion extensions are 20-character snippets of text that announce a special or promotion. For example, “100% free consultations.”
At the time of this writing, lead form extensions are a new feature and still being tested. That being said, they are a huge opportunity for capturing leads right on the search engine results page. Additionally, you can integrate these leads directly into your firm’s CRM for tracking.
If you don’t strategically identify target keywords to rank for, your Google Ads are far less likely to reach potential clients.
There are a few ways to create a keyword list.
There are a few tools that you can use to identify keywords for your Google Ads for lawyers.
For Google Ads, the simplest and most affordable tool is Google’s Keyword Planner. If you have an ad campaign, the tool is free.
To start, enter a keyword you would like to rank for in the search bar. The Keyword Planner will suggest lots of keywords (sometimes thousands) to add to your list, along with data about average cost-per-click (CPC) and search volume per month.
If you have room in your marketing budget for paid tools, we highly recommend Ahrefs.com, Spyfu.com, or SEMRush.com. Relying on Google Keyword Planner alone isn’t highly advised; it’s always best to cross-reference data across tools to get a more accurate picture.
If you’re not interested in paying for tools or are looking for more information outside of Google Keyword Planner, the SERP is a great place to start.
When you enter a search term, there are a few features on the SERP that provide keyword ideas to use when you start out.
First, you can analyze your competitors’ ads.
For example, the top-ranking ad uses “injury lawyers” for car accident search terms.
However, be aware that many ad agencies use keyword insertion, one of Google Ads’ dynamic ad features. Advertisers that use keyword insertion allow their ads’ target keywords to be automatically filled using the searcher’s search phrase. So, when you’re doing research, the ads you see may be automatically filled with the search term you used.
Second, examine the organic results. Typically, you’ll see a variety of synonyms based on your search term.
Finally, scroll to the bottom of the page and look at Google’s search suggestions. You’re less likely to find dynamite keywords here, but it’s worth checking.
Although underutilized, negative keywords are a game-changer for your legal Google Ads.
Negative keywords are keywords that you do not want to show up for. By adding negative keywords to your keyword list, you can exclude your ads from appearing for certain searches.
For example, a negative keyword for your firm could be “pro bono” or “free.” By excluding your ads from ranking for search terms with these words, you can avoid attracting unqualified leads.
Minimizing your CPC is a no-brainer. In big cities like Houston and LA, personal injury keywords can be a nearly staggering $500 per click. With a hopeful conversion rate of 10%, you could be spending thousands of dollars to sign one client.
So how do you minimize your CPC?
In both SEO and PPC, Google rewards quality.
Enter Quality Score: Google’s quality assessment of your ad and corresponding landing page. Quality Score is a number between one and 10 that assesses the expected click-through-rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience.
Note that a Quality Score of 10 is very rare. Shooting for 6-8 is generally a good goal. Anything less than that could negatively impact your campaign’s performance and budget.
There are a few fail-safe tactics you can use to increase your quality score.
Your ads should be the highest quality possible.
By following the best practices mentioned earlier, you can optimize your ads for Quality Score AND click-through-rate (the rate of people seeing your ad and clicking it).
Landing page writing and designing is an art.
There are a few ways to increase the quality of your landing pages. Note that by increasing your landing page for user experience (UX), you will likely increase your Quality Score.
Highlight social proof. Include testimonials and reviews whenever possible.
Present yourself as an authority. Thought leadership is huge, especially in the legal field. Offer articles and case studies.
Display results. Avoid bragging, but don’t be shy about displaying your wins. Link to case studies if possible.
Use empathic language. Show potential clients that you truly understand what they’re going through and that you’ve helped many people like them before.
Be specific. Use one idea per landing page. Don’t create one landing page for all your practice areas—your Quality Score and conversion rate will plummet. Keep in mind that the keywords on your landing page should match your ad copy exactly.
Carefully select imagery. Avoid stock photos—especially cheesy car accident and business meeting pictures. Use professional photography of your staff looking friendly and capable.
Highlight benefits. In your banner and throughout the landing page, explicitly highlight the benefit of hiring you.
Address your clients’ concerns. When facing legal problems, people have a lot of questions and fears. Boost potential clients’ confidence in you by assuring them.
Your ads and landing pages should be directly related. If your ad and landing page copy are specific, this should be simple to accomplish.
Reach more potential clients by using a few advanced optimization tactics.
Unfortunately, many Google Ads agencies that work with lawyers provide misleading analytics to exaggerate the success of a campaign. For this reason, before launching your ads campaign, you must identify how you will qualify leads.
For example, do first-time callers qualify as leads? If your law firm qualifies only first-time callers as leads, then you should set up your campaign to report on that analytic specifically.
If your law firm qualifies a lead as a person who has a viable case, your campaign requires further, more qualitative tracking. At Juris Digital, for example, we use a simple thumbs-up/thumbs-down system on CallRail to keep everyone on the same page and ensure a positive ROI.
Additionally, you have to pick up the phone, answer messages, and follow up on leads. Your agency gets leads to the door—you have to welcome them in. Your support staff should be aware that you are investing in advertising and that answering the phones is crucial to your success—thousands (even millions) of dollars hang in the balance.
If your law firm practices in a few different states or areas, create different campaigns targeting different areas. These can be cities, counties, states, or even zip codes.
This is an excellent tactic, especially if you’re trying to break into new markets.
Geo-fencing is hyper-focused location targeting. Essentially, you “fence off” a specific area and show ads to only people in that location. For example, a personal injury campaign could use geo-fencing to target a hospital, while a criminal defense campaign could target a local jail or courthouse.
Whether your audience speaks Spanish or German, you should make ads and landing pages in their language. Hiring a translator or having a bilingual individual on-staff is crucial.
Be sure to run separate campaigns for each language and update audience settings based on the audience’s language. This is simple to do, but its importance cannot be overstated.
Additionally, when making ads in another language, complete the ads in their entirety by adding information for all possible extensions.
Finally, your law firm website should be optimized for multiple languages using hreflang tags and language plugins.
Over time, A/B testing your ads and landing pages decreases your ad spend and increases Quality Score and conversions.
You can A/B test a few different aspects of your campaign.
When you conduct testing, take special care in tracking what exactly you’re testing.
For example, you could test keyword placement, CTA language, and landing page design.
As an attorney, you understand the gravity of bar-compliance.
Although many attorneys fail to prove their website and ads against their state bar’s requirements, we highly recommend taking additional measures to ensure compliance. Advertising can get expensive, and unnecessary litigation regarding bar-compliance could significantly set you back financially and on the SERP.
Before running ads, head to your local bar’s website to check advertising regulations.
For example, the Florida Bar requests law firms to submit their advertisements 20 days before running them. Additionally, in Florida, law firms are required to pay a fee for each ad.
Google and other major advertising platforms like Facebook are very strict about ad content for lawyers.
Similar to web content, attorneys cannot do the following:
Google reviews all ads before running them, so your ads will likely be rejected if they find any of these elements.
Although we don’t invest our clients’ entire marketing budgets in paid advertising, it can be a highly beneficial channel in your marketing mix.
If you’re interested in running Google Ads, contact us today for a free consultation about possible campaigns.
How will you improve your Google Ads? Comment below!
North Carolina divorce attorney Lee Rosen (@leerosen) has one of the best legal websites in the game, and so I was excited when he critiqued a fellow attorney’s website on his blog .
One of the points that Lee drives home is that a legal website ought to be more than a digital business card.
Instead, a good legal website should solve problems and answer questions.
I’d like to look at the distinguishing features between business card websites and resource websites. Then, we’ll look at what you should expect from each in terms of SEO success.
There is nothing wrong with investing a small amount of money in a nice business card website for your law firm. It’s a good thing to have for when people turn the to web for more information about you and your practice.
But…
So here’s the thing: It’s really, really hard to get other online content publishers to link to a business card website, and you need links for your site to rank well in search engines.
So when you try to “SEO” a business card website you have to be creative spammy in order to build links.
Then, even if you are able to spam your business card website to the top of search results, you’ll eventually get penalized by Google, and your money goes:
Say you do divorce law. On your business card website homepage, you have content that reads something like:
My name is Attorney Bob, and I do divorce law in the city you live in. If you need to get a divorce in the city you live in, call me, Attorney Bob. My phone number is 555-555-5555. What’s that? You also need help securing custody of your child? I, attorney Bob, can help with that too. Call me. Attorney Bob. CALL ME!
Ok, so your copy is likely much better than that, but the point is, you are only telling people that you can help them get a divorce. You’re not helping in any way other than giving them your phone number…just like what a business card does.
Here is what Lee Rosen’s law firm website homepage looks like:
That is what a resource looks like.
Putting aside the fact that this type of content will surely outperform your business card website content in terms of getting potential customers to contact you, it is worth linking to because it provides real value.
Spam tactics are not necessary because web content publishers will be like “hey, I’m writing about divorce law issues and this site is a good reference and so I will snappily link to it” (in that last sentence ‘snappily’ is a typo; I meant to type ‘happily’, but now I really like the word ‘snappily’ and so it’s staying in).
There is nothing wrong with making a moderate investment in a business card website. But, if you then pay someone tons of money to “SEO” that site, you’re making a mistake. Creating a resource website is more expensive and time consuming, but is the only type of site that is also worthy of “SEOing”.
You might have more My Cousin Vinny in you than you realize… at least when it comes to your law firm office.
Who can forget the classic image of Joe Pesci bursting into his motel bedroom with a bankers box and a stack of file folders between his hands?
It’s his makeshift law office, shoehorned in a motel room where his stay has lasted nearly as long as his six-week career. And now he’s handling a murder trial on his own. Classic comedy.
If we’re being honest, whether you’re considerably more seasoned than Mr. Vinny Gambini or every bit as tenderfoot, your office might look… uncomfortably similar.
Even veteran and successful attorneys clutter their offices with crumbling bankers boxes, faded manila folders, and creaky filing cabinets.
It’s not a good look. Not for you, not for your clients, and not for your firm.
The truth is that your law firm office has a direct impact on:
Today, we’re going to look at the subtle ways your work environment can affect you as a legal practitioner, prescribe some simple steps for sprucing the space up, and we’ll even share some real-life examples of law firms that turned their practices into paradises.
Not to sound paranoid, but people are always judging you. They don’t mean to, and they aren’t being nasty about it, but on some basic human level, we’re all constantly making judgments about the people we encounter and our experiences with them.
As an attorney, your prospective clients start judging you at first contact:
Everything they see matters. How professional are you? How successful are you? Are you a power player or are you in over your head?
Your office’s appearance can answer those questions before they’re even asked. And here’s the thing you have to remember: people don’t stop judging you when they leave your lobby.
Too often, law firms expend all their Martha Stewart energy in the waiting room, while the attorneys’ individual offices are left to gather dust until they look like the haunted remains of a long-shuttered library.
When a new or prospective client sets foot inside your law firm office, everything about the space should project competence, confidence, professionalism, and success. They’re looking to hire a winner. Your office should look like a winner works there.
Believe it or not, you can internalize your own surroundings to the point that they influence how you see yourself.
So it isn’t just your clients’ judgments you have to be mindful of. Your own self-judgments matter too, even if they’re subconscious.
It’s the old “dress for success” theory: he who wears the clothes of a successful person is more likely to become a successful person. It’s psychological, sure, but there’s something to be said for the placebo effect of aesthetics.
Dress your office for success too. Make it neat, tidy, orderly, and inspiring. Add artful touches. Consider natural light, plants, or even a fountain with running water – anything to inspire you toward productivity.
The golden rule of law firm interior design is to create a space that makes you want to be productive and effective.
Imagine you’re checking into a four-star resort for a weeklong vacation and the manager offers you a tour of the available room types. There’s a five-room suite with an ocean view, a cozy cottage with a bubbling creek, and a plain white-walled closet with a twin bed and no windows.
You probably wouldn’t take a second look behind Door #3. But that’s the choice most attorneys make when it comes to their work space.
Look, lawyers log a lot of hours. It’s not unreasonable to think that your law firm office is one of the top three rooms where you’ll spend the majority of your waking hours for many years to come.
Don’t you deserve to spend it in a space that gratifies you?
Studies consistently show that your work environment can affect your mood, self-esteem, productivity, and overall happiness levels — even when you aren’t at work!
Make your law firm office a place you enjoy spending time in… a home away from home!
1. From “Law-brary” to “Lounge-brary.” Law books are a must, but who says comfort and card catalogs are mutually exclusive? The ABA recommends arranging plush sofas and chairs next to bookshelves so as to offset that imposing library look.
2. Break Out the Color Wheel. If you play it safe with your wardrobe (black suits all day, every day!), you might do the same inside. But complementary colors can go a long way in soothing the soul. It’s the little things! So if you haven’t looked at a color wheel in a while, now’s the time.
This one comes from the ABA too:
3. Embrace Your Inner Artist. Never underestimate the power of an accent piece. The folks over at Legaler highlighted this California firm for their bold art installations and overall “luxury hotel” aesthetic.
4. No One Writes a Compelling Complaint Like Gaston. Prefer to think outside the box? When everyone else zigs (read: goes modern and chic), why not zag (read: turn your firm into a mountain lodge)? For inspiration, look no further than this Savannah mansion-turned-law firm, complete with an unexpectedly gorgeous office for one of the partners.
How’d you like to work there every day? The people at Legaler were impressed, and so are we!
5. “Office? What Do You Mean by… Office?” Break down the walls and open up communication! This London law firm, profiled over on Legal Cheek, opted for a bright, borderless working space.
6. Talk About Passing the Bar… This one’s technically a common area upgrade, but we couldn’t resist telling you about a U.K. firm that converted its waiting room into a high-tech espresso & sushi bar. How many of your competitors can offer that?
Learn more about it at Legal Cheek.
7. Work on Cases and Your Fitness. 1-800-LAW-FIRM (not so much a traditional firm as a national network of experts and advisors) installed running tracks throughout their office, where they have “walking meetings.” (Aaron Sorkin would be proud!) There’s an exercise room too. That might be excessive by most firm’s standards, but there’s something to be said for good health and a positive life-work balance. Maybe there’s a place for a treadmill next to your desk?
Fun fact: 1-800-LAW-FIRM took top honors in Above the Law’s “Best Law Firm Office in America” contest.
8. You’re a Superhero. Own it. Attorneys do important work. You fight for justice. So does Batman. So why wouldn’t he be all over your office? That was the rationale at Fish & Richardson in Dallas, apparently, and you know what? We love it. (Above the Law’s readers did too.)
The eight gorgeous law firm photos we just shared are enough to make your jaw drop, but they can also make your wallet ache. Those firms likely worked with expert interior design agencies, some of which specialize in law office design.
If that simply isn’t within your fiscal reach, you can still take small steps to add life to your law firm. Here are some the trends building buzz in the industry right now:
If a lovely law office can life your spirits and impress your clientele, shouldn’t your law firm’s website look nice too?
Of course, great attorney web design is about a lot more than appearance. Websites need to attract traffic, make the case for choosing your firm, comply with the state bar’s ethics rules, and — most importantly — get you bigger and better cases.
That’s what we do at Juris Digital. We design highly effective, fast-loading, and gorgeous-looking attorney websites, all geared to one goal: growing your practice. And if we don’t succeed, we won’t ask you to keep using us, because we never lock clients into long-term contracts.
Contact the legal marketing experts at Juris Digital today.
Mobile marketing needs to be a top priority for law firms that want to sign more clients from online traffic sources. Mobile is becoming more important every day and if it’s not a top focus for your firm you are missing out potential conversions. This is because we now live in a society where we’re attached to our phones 24.7.
According to a study from Rescuetime the average consumer spends over 3 hours a day on their mobile device. When potential clients are looking for an answer to a question they can simply pull up their phones and Google what they’re looking for.
If you don’t think that mobile is important in your particular practice area you’re definitely missing out on opportunities. Let’s take a look at a small example.
Below is the weekly traffic from a personal injury client of ours. You can see that I have highlighted over 53% of their total website traffic comes from mobile devices. These are potential clients seeking out the law firm from inbound marketing and after we were able to capitalize on mobile they saw a 224% increase in leads from mobile.
For law firms, most mobile marketing is geared towards website marketing geared towards mobile devices and text message marketing.
Text Message Marketing Options: This is best used for inbound marketing after potential clients have already found your brand. Giving them the ability to communicate quickly through their preferred contact method can dramatically increase conversions. You can also use text message marketing (also called SMS marketing) from a brand perspective to build your referral network. Sending out Happy Birthday wishes and asking for reviews are commonly used.
Website Marketing: Having a mobile-friendly website that is optimized for conversions.
Paid Social / Ads: Paid social and Google ads can be very effective on mobile. In part, this is due to geofencing where you can serve ads to potential clients in a specific geographic area. Personal Injury lawyers have used this technology to skirt around state bar regulations and advertise to injured victims in hospitals and others use it to target a very specific message to a specific audience.
Over the years there have also been a lot of cool new mobile marketing technologies which have more or less come and gone. One example of this was through low power Bluetooth beacons. These were used for some time to serve ads within apps when users are within 30 feet of a beacon. This was a little too creepy for me and it never really caught on for law firms.
Hopefully, now you’re convinced about the importance of mobile when it comes to marketing your firm. But the truth is that many law firms still get this very wrong.
In my opinion, the best mobile strategy you can focus on is an inbound traffic strategy with your firm’s website in the middle.
Having a mobile-friendly website isn’t enough for most law firms to rank for important keywords and generate more leads. You really need to set yourself apart and 9/10 firm websites I look at don’t pass these tests, even if they have a mobile-friendly website.
In addition to this, when you think about mobile marketing you have to realize it’s not just about your own website.
I define true mobile marketing as being optimized for every mobile online touchpoint for your brand and market. Essentially this means you need to be optimized for every type of potential customer journey a client might take to find your firm online.
The average law firm has multiple avenues a potential client might search for them using their device. Here a few examples:
It’s easy to get overwhelmed with all of these options.
If you’re wondering where to put your mobile focus with all of these options you’re asking the right question.
The channel that’s going to have the biggest ROI for your marketing will likely be your own website.
The main two reasons for this are that 1) people who don’t know about your firm can find you through a search (if done right) and 2) people who know your brand name are likely going to Google your firm name and find your website.
Here are the main areas of focus for most law firms and what you need to do to maximize these channels.
Having a mobile-friendly website is essential to the online marketing success of your firm. Here are a few things you should aim to have a strong mobile website:
Google My Business is a free service provided by Google that allows you to have a listing for your business in the search results. These will rank for important transactional keywords as well as your firm name. Google My Business listings are also connected to Google Maps which is another potential area where clients can find your business.
Below is an example of a Google My Business listing on a mobile device (iPhone 10s):
You can see the wealth of information provided through these listings as well as easy to contact options on mobile. In addition to focusing your optimization efforts to rank for important keywords, you need to pay attention to the details here. This includes things like:
With more time being spent every day on mobile devices it’s easy to see why mobile is the future of marketing.
If your firm meets the requirements I have outlined above for your website and Google My Business listing then you are ahead of 99% of law firm websites.
The worst thing you can do is just assume that your website is good because you have a “mobile-friendly” website. There are so many elements here that are important and the most overlooked issue is site speed. Having a slow site can affect your rankings in Google and it will have a big impact on conversions.
Unfortunately, I have found that companies like Findlaw, Avvo, Wix, and Squarespace are selling website products that are not doing their clients any favors.
If you need a free mobile analysis I would be happy to help. Just shoot me an email at cmeraz [at] JurisDigital.com.
Have you involved any mobile marketing initiatives I didn’t cover? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
