Google Ads for Lawyers: PPC That Brings Signed Cases

Quick answer: Google Ads for lawyers is paid search advertising: your firm bids on searches such as “car accident lawyer near me” and pays when someone clicks. Legal keywords are expensive, so results depend on tight keyword lists, negative keywords, location targeting, a dedicated landing page for each practice area, and call tracking. Check all ads against your bar’s advertising rules.

In this article, we’ll walk you through the basics of creating successful Google Ads for lawyers campaigns, from setting up your account to crafting effective ads. But first, let’s take a quick look at what Google Ads for lawyers are all about. For help, see our PPC consulting services.

What are Google Ads for Lawyers?

Google Ads is an online advertising platform that lets law firms promote their services to people searching on Google. Firms can target specific locations, keywords and audiences. Search ads appear at the top of results and are shown based on how relevant they are to the searcher’s query and your bid.

One of the best aspects of Google Ads is that they are highly targeted and trackable. This makes sure that your campaign is reaching people who actually want to see your ads and allows you to measure how effective your campaign has been at generating new leads over time.

How Do Google Ads Work?

Google Ads uses pay-per-click (PPC) bidding, so you pay when someone clicks your ad. For example, if someone searches for “family law attorney near me,” an advertiser bids on that keyword and pays only if the person clicks the ad. Ads can also appear on other websites and apps through Google’s Display Network.

Google Ads Campaign Structure

A Google Ads campaign is made up of different parts including:

• Budget and bidding: Your budget is what you are willing to spend each day, and your bid strategy decides how much you pay for clicks. A larger budget generally lets you reach more searches.
• Keywords: the words and phrases that can trigger your ads when people search. You group related keywords into ad groups, which share targeting settings, budgets and bids.
• Ads: what people see in search. Responsive search ads combine headlines and descriptions that you write, and can include assets such as phone numbers and sitelinks.

What Is Quality Score And Why Is It Important To Your Campaign’s Success

Quality Score is a 1 to 10 estimate of the quality of your ads, keywords and landing pages. It is a diagnostic tool rather than a ranking number, but a higher score usually means better ad relevance and lower costs, and it feeds into how your ad ranks in the auction.

Quality Score reflects three main factors:

• Ad relevance: how closely your ad matches what people search for, and how related the keywords in your ad group are.
• How relevant are the keywords in your ad group? If they’re not related, they might be hurting your score.
• Expected click-through rate and landing page experience: how likely people are to click your ad, and how useful and relevant your landing page is.

Now that you understand the basics of Google ads for lawyers, let’s take a closer look at how to set up your campaign.

Setting Up Your Legal Campaign

To get started with Google Ads for Lawyers, you’ll need to create an account. If you already have a Google Ads account, you can skip this step.

Once you’ve created your account, there are a few things you’ll need to do before getting started with your legal campaign:

1. Location, Language, And Audience

First, it’s important to decide on a location for your campaign. You can enter another location to increase your target area or remain in the area where your law firm is located. If your law firm has multiple locations, it’s best to create separate campaigns for each one of them.

Next, select the language(s) of the people who live in that area. You can also add other languages if the majority of people speak another language in this area.

Finally, select an audience based on their interests and behaviors as well as their demographics (e.g., age group).

2. Budgeting And Bidding

Start by setting the amount you want to spend each day on your ads. You can adjust bids by location, device and audience, and review conversion data to see what is working.

Choose a bidding strategy that matches your goal. Manual CPC gives you more control, while automated strategies such as Maximize Conversions can work once you have enough conversion data. Track the cost per acquisition (CPA) for each campaign.

3. Ad Extensions

Ad extensions, now called assets in Google Ads, add extra information to your ad, such as a phone number or address.

Assets can improve click-through rate by giving people more information about what to expect before they click.

The following are the most common types of ad extensions:

• Promotion Extension: Offers an incentive to visit your sites like a discount code or money-off coupon
• Call Extension: Connects users directly to a phone number where they can speak with a representative at your company
• Location Extension: Provides the physical address of your business for potential customers who want to visit in person
• Callout Extension: Provides additional information about your business such as hours of operation

4. Creating Your Ad Group

An ad group is a collection of ads that you can organize around a specific theme or topic. For example, if you have an office in San Francisco and another in Los Angeles, then you could create an ad group for each office so that you can target specific cities and regions.

You can also use ad groups to organize your ads around themes like “divorce”, “criminal defense,” or “immigration”. This will help you more effectively reach the right audience and make sure that they are seeing the most relevant ads.

5. Creating Your Ad

Choose a campaign type, such as Search for people actively looking for a lawyer, and give the campaign a name. If you don’t have any campaigns yet, choose “Create a new campaign.”

Most law firms start with responsive search ads. You write several headlines and descriptions, and Google tests combinations. Search ads appear at the top of results and show your firm’s name, a link to your site and a short description of what you offer.

Display ads are more visual and can use images, video or custom designs to grab attention. See our display advertising service.

Make sure your headline and description include any services, testimonials, locations, or anything that is relevant to your firm. The goal here is to make sure potential clients are interested enough in what you have to offer that they click through. Check your ads against your bar’s advertising rules, including rules on testimonials and results claims.

Overall, setting up a legal campaign on Google Ads can be an effective way to reach potential clients and grow your law practice. By carefully targeting your ads, writing compelling ad copy, and tracking your campaign’s performance, you can maximize the return on your advertising investment.

Common Ways Law Firms Waste Google Ads Budget

• Broad keywords without negatives: ads show for searches such as “free legal advice” or “law school”, which rarely become cases.
• Sending every click to the home page: a page for each practice area converts better.
• Not tracking calls: without call tracking you cannot tell which keywords bring signed cases.
• Ignoring location settings: ads outside your service area waste spend.
• No plan for answering calls: missed calls are lost cases, so check ad schedules against when your office can answer.

Read our guide to wasted spend in law firm Google Ads for more.

Keyword Research for a Legal Ads Campaign

Keyword research is a critical part of the process of creating an effective legal advertising campaign. 

First, to improve quality and reduce costs, start with a tight set of keywords. Choose between long, low-volume keywords that match specific legal questions and short, high-volume keywords such as “lawyer” or “law firm”, which are more competitive and expensive. Our keyword research service can help.

Then, make sure you understand the concept of keyword match types before creating your ad. You’ll want to make sure that the terms you choose are relevant to your business. Otherwise, your ad might not show up when people search for what they actually need.

How To Conduct Keyword Research

1. Use a Keyword Research Tool: There are many free and paid tools available online that allow you to enter a seed keyword and generate a list of related keywords. These tools also provide data on the search volume, competition, and CPC of each keyword.
2. Analyze Your Competitors: Look at the keywords that your competitors are targeting in their website content and advertising campaigns. This can give you an idea of what keywords are relevant to your industry and how to differentiate your marketing strategy.
3. Use Google’s Autocomplete and Related Search: Start typing a keyword into Google’s search bar and see what suggestions pop up. These suggestions are based on the most popular search queries related to the keyword you entered.

Once you’ve got your keywords locked down, identify negative keywords. These are words or phrases that you don’t want people searching for because they don’t apply to your firm or industry (e.g., divorce lawyer if you only handle custody cases).

Tips for Creating Effective Legal Ads

1. Define Your Key Goals: What do you want to achieve with your legal ads? Do you want to generate leads, drive traffic to your website, or educate potential clients about your services? Clearly defining your goals will help you create ads that are targeted and effective.
2. Find Your Target Audience: Who are you trying to reach with your legal ads? Are you targeting individuals or businesses? What are their needs and challenges?
3. A/B Test Your Ads: A/B testing involves creating two versions of an ad and testing them to see which one performs better. This can help you optimize your ads for better results.
4. Use Specific Keywords: Choose specific, relevant keywords for your legal ads. This will help ensure that your ads are shown to the right audience and increase the chances of a successful conversion.
5. Design Landing Pages: This is a page that a user lands on after clicking on your ad. Make sure your landing page is well-designed and relevant to the ad. This will help increase the chances of a successful conversion.

Remember to always follow the guidelines set forth by Google Ads and the legal industry when creating and running your legal ads.

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Google Ads for lawyers can help you grow your practice, but getting started with PPC is more complicated than it looks, and it can be time-consuming and expensive for a small firm.

You don’t have to go it alone. See our PPC consulting and display advertising services, and our guides to local SEO for lawyers and law firm website content. Related: law firm intake guide and law firm Google Business Profile.