Law Firm Marketing: Boost Your Search Engine Visibility With Google AdWords

Google AdWords is one of the most effective ways to get your law firm instant exposure in the search engines. It’s also a great adjunct strategy to augment your organic search presence and fill in the gaps you haven’t been able to reach through Search Engine Optimization(SEO).

The Benefits

If approached correctly, Search Engine Marketing or SEM, as it is commonly referred to, can play an important role in getting you visible under commonly searched terms and you only pay when your ad is actually clicked on. Your ads appear exactly as they do in the following example, on top of and on the right side of the organic search results:

With AdWords, you bid on relevant keyword combinations individually. You control your bids and your budget so you never pay more than you can afford and the platform works on any budget. In fact, all you need to get started is a credit card and your firm’s business information.

Based upon your chosen keywords, budget, targeting and platform specifications, your ad(s) will appear on Google in a variety of locations. Suppose you’re a family law practitioner in Dallas who wants to bring in more new non-referral business from the web. Imagine the ability to display your ad in the results for some commonly searched terms like Dallas Family Law Attorney or Dallas Divorce Attorney.

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The Challenges

One challenge you can expect is competition for important keywords. Google AdWords is an auction market of sorts that allows competitors to usurp one another and obtain better ad position by bidding more. There are other factors like quality of the ads and the landing page experience that determine actual rank for each keyword, but the bottom line is, money talks.

Running an AdWords campaign targeting consumers takes a certain amount of experience and savvy. Like many things in business, the ideal campaign runs best on a diet of part art and part science. You’ll need to keep track of your account on a daily basis and make changes when needed in order to keep it running properly.

RELATED: SEO Copywriting: The Art of Optimizing For Humans and Search Engines

The Bottom Line

To make sure you’re heading in the right direction with a new campaign, you’ll need to look at your data frequently. This can be done by someone at the firm who has some experience in web analytics. Ideally, however, when you decide to navigate the benefits and challenges of paid search, you’ll work with an experienced consultant who’ll help get you set up properly.

Making sure you track both leads and new client acquisition will enable you to clearly calculate and assign ROI to your dedicated campaigns. Longevity wins out here. Tackle this project with the mindset that you’ll be making an effort to be visible under a variety of terms, for a sustained period of time, then get started, test, and measure.