Essential Google Ads Tips for Lawyers

With a growing number of people using search engines to find legal services, advertising on Google is undoubtedly an effective way to attract new clients for your law firm. It can supplement your existing SEO strategy to drive more high-quality traffic and leads to your website. As with other digital marketing strategies, following the best practices is key to achieving positive results. For this reason, we at Kinetic Traffic have compiled a list of Google Ads tips for lawyers to help you achieve quality results when advertising on the world’s biggest search engine. 

Incorporate long-tail keywords into your ads

Broad-match keywords such as “lawyer” and “solicitor” are some of the legal service industry’s most popular and widely used search terms. However, they are too “generic” and expensive to provide substantial results for your campaign. 

Instead of broad-match keywords, you should focus on long-tail keywords, such as “personal injury lawyer in Northampton.” Although they have lower search volume, they are more specific. Furthermore, they target prospects who are further in the sales funnel. Using these keywords in your ads increases your chance of attracting potential clients interested in the specific legal services you offer. 

Take advantage of negative keywords

With pay-per-click or PPC advertising, you spend money whenever someone clicks on your ads. Therefore, you certainly don’t want your ads appearing for irrelevant searches. This is why negative keywords are crucial to a highly accurate Google Ads campaign. 

As the name implies, negative keywords are search terms for which you don’t want your ads to appear. Using them in your Google Ads campaign can help ensure that you will only attract qualified leads with a significant chance of becoming paying clients. 

To increase the accuracy of your Google Ads campaign, consider excluding keywords such as: 

• Cities or regions outside your service areas
• Search terms associated with careers, internships, and job listings
• Keywords modified with “free”, “cheap”, or “inexpensive”, which usually attract low-quality leads
• Terms pertaining to education, including “scholarships”, “college”, and “university”
• Other irrelevant keywords unlikely to result in qualified leads, such as “games” and “apps”

Create a solid bidding strategy

Here’s one of the most critical Google Ads tips you should remember. Knowing which keywords to target and how much to bid on them can make a significant difference between running a cost-effective and expensive Google Ads campaign. This is why having a robust keyword bidding strategy is essential to your ads’ success. 

There are four ways you can bid on your target keywords. They are: 

• Target CPA – Google will adjust the keyword bids using its algorithm to meet the cost per lead/acquisition you indicated.
• Target a position – Your bid is modified to ensure you’ll appear prominently on Google search results.
• Enhanced CPC – Using its algorithm, Google identifies the best way to help your keywords obtain clicks that are likely to convert.
• Maximised clicks – You bid on your target keywords to get the most clicks.

If you’re unfamiliar with Google Ads’ bidding process, seeking professional assistance is a must consider. With the help of experts, such as our team at Kinetic Traffic, you can determine the best bidding strategy that will help you meet your goals. 

Place keywords in strategic locations

Similar to SEO, you will need to incorporate keywords in the strategic parts of your ads. They are: 

• Headline
• Display URL
• Ad content/description
• Ad extensions 

Ideally, your target keywords should appear in every part of your ad, including your landing page. However, this isn’t always possible. Nevertheless, try to include your target keywords in at least three of the four areas indicated above. 

Google uses Quality Score to determine the relevance of your target keywords to your campaign. Increasing your ads’ Quality Score can make your campaign more powerful and cost-effective. 

Create specific ad groups for different keyword themes

With Google Ads, you can set up different ad groups depending on the theme of the keywords you want to target. This feature allows you to segment your keywords according to your prospects’ search intent, making your ads more effective and easier to manage. 

For instance, instead of putting your ads and keywords into a single group, you can create different ad groups based on the areas of law you specialise in. This will help you target prospects based on what they are looking for online. 

While this strategy requires extra time and effort, creating specific keywords based on keyword themes will help increase your campaign’s targeting accuracy. In return, this allows you to attract highly-qualified leads. 

Take advantage of ad extensions

Ad extensions make your ads more visible and usable, so make the most of them to increase your click-through rates. Best of all, they are free to use. 

The ad extensions that are most useful for lawyers include: 

• Sitelinks – allow you to have additional links to your ads
• Callouts – let you highlight specific features or offers
• Call or click-to-call extensions – enable you to add phone numbers to your ads
• Location extensions – make your office address appear in your ads

Optimise Your Google Ads Campaign Now

Google Ads provide an excellent marketing platform for lawyers, allowing them to advertise their services regardless of their budget effectively. However, setting up an account and publishing ads are certainly not enough to obtain the results you want. You have to optimise your ads to improve their performance and their ability to generate quality leads. Consider the tips discussed above to create a highly targeted and accurate Google Ads campaign. 

If you think your Google Ads campaign requires an expert’s touch, we at Kinetic Traffic are happy to help. As we specialise in law firm SEO and Google Ads, you can count on us to help you achieve your marketing goals. Please get in touch with our team, and we’ll create a Google Ads campaign tailored to your legal practice.