What Is PPC Marketing and How Does It Work For Your Firm?
If you are diving into digital marketing strategies for your firm, you might come across terms like PPC, SEO, and CPC. It can be overwhelming to digest all of these marketing terms when you are already working a full-time job as a lawyer. The best way to learn is by taking it one step at a time, and Scorpion has the legal marketing resources you need to succeed.
When it comes to PPC marketing, or “pay-per-click” marketing, the basic concept is exactly what it sounds like: your firm uses a service that charges you each time a targeted audience member visits your website. There are several platforms you can use to accomplish this, but the most common is Google Ads (formerly known as AdWords). Let’s go through what PPC marketing on Google Ads and other platforms looks like:
PPC Marketing on Google Ads
When finding a local business, you probably turn to Google first. On average, Google processes over 99,000 searches every single second. With such a strong potential to reach a target audience, it makes sense why Google Ads are the most popular way to run PPC marketing.
According to Google, businesses tend to generate an average of $2 in revenue for every $1 spent on Google Ads, which means the platform yields a successful ROI of 2:1. There are certain steps you can take to ensure that your PPC campaign is successful, such as:
Bidding on relevant keywords
Focusing on landing page quality
Improving your Quality Score
Capturing attention with engaging content
In order to bid on the most relevant keywords and create quality content, you will need to do some PPC keyword research. Keyword research involves identifying search queries or common keywords that your target audience uses during their search. When you start your research process, put yourself in the shoes of your clients. Think about what needs they might have that your firm could solve.
For example, let’s say you are a personal injury firm, and you often work with clients who were injured on the job. You might choose to appear to searchers under phrases like “workplace injury attorney in [your location]” “work-related injury attorney in [your location],” or “occupational injury attorney in [your location.]” This type of keyword is called a geo-targeting keyword, and it is especially useful for law firms because it can help you target clients in your community. Other types of keywords include:
Short-tail keywords
Short-tail keywords are exactly what they sound like. These keywords are three or fewer words that have a high search volume and are also highly competitive. An example of this would be “best attorneys near me.”
Long-tail keywords
Long-tail keywords are the opposite of short-tail keywords in the sense that they contain three or more words. The words tend to be specific and intentional. Examples include “how to find the best attorney” and “how to avoid being served.”
Short-term keywords
When you think about short-term keywords, think about temporary “low-hanging fruit.” They are called short-term keywords because they often involve topics that are trending in the news and don’t have a lot of long-term potential. Short-term keywords for law firms might include interesting topics about recent acts that were passed in your field of law and the latest legal updates and provisions related to your field.
Product defining keywords
For law firms, product-defining keywords are keywords that describe the services you offer. These are baseline terms that are dependent upon what your firm offers. This includes terms like “legal help with divorce,” “probate a decedent's estate” and “draft and review for legal documents.”
LSI keywords
LSI stands for “Latent Semantic Indexing.” In the SEO world, it refers to keywords and phrases that Google sees as “semantically” related to a topic. For a law firm, semantically related keywords include “paralegal services,” “non-economic damages,” “advancing claims,” “legal discovery process,” and “motions and pleadings list.”
Scorpion Software
Scorpion is trusted by thousands of law firms to create marketing strategies that target specific audiences to meet measurable goals. Thanks to our PPC platform, this includes firms that want to get their business in front of the eyes of specific searchers. Our PPC platform is designed to launch the best PPC campaigns for your firm and track your data in real-time.
We will show you your campaign’s metrics and allow you to track your calls and contact forms so you can see exactly where your new leads are coming from. What sets our software apart from others is that you will have access to the marketing experts at Scorpion, who will help you every step of the way. Our software is so innovative that it has even been recognized with the Google Platform Innovator of the Year Award.
To learn more about how your firm can benefit from Scorpion’s PPC software, contact our team.
Facebook ads
Facebook is another avenue your law firm can use to launch PPC ads, and the platform allows you to do this through its Facebook Ads Manager. This feature functions similarly to how Google Ads functions, but Facebook’s PPC ads are targeted solely to a Facebook audience. Facebook allows you to reach potential clients and engage with them in a more relatable way than you would get to otherwise. Including Facebook in your paid social media strategy will allow your firm to reach a much larger audience than it would otherwise. If you are ready to take the plunge into Facebook PPC advertising for your law firm, you will want to start with the following steps:
1. Select an objective
Facebook offers a few different marketing objectives based on the goals you are trying to target for your law firm. There are three different strategies Facebook allows you to choose from. The first is awareness, which you should choose if your objective is to increase brand awareness and reach. If you are beginning the stages of your social media campaigns, this is likely the best objective to choose.
The second stage is consideration, which you should choose if your objectives are lead generation, website traffic, and engagement for your firm. If you are further along in your social media campaign, you might want to choose an objective from the decision stage. For a law firm, this would mean that you are looking for conversions and appointments.
2. Select your audience
Facebook will allow you to create targeted ads to reach the right audience for your law firm. You can enter the specific countries, states and regions, cities, and postal codes that you believe your potential clients are most likely located in. You can also add interests to make your ads more specific. For example, if you are a personal injury law firm, you can add terms of interest like accident benefits, activities of daily living (ADL), case manager, contingency fees, and collateral benefits.
3. Select your placement
Next, Facebook will allow you to choose an ad placement. Your placements are the spaces where you can run your ad, including Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and Meta Audience Network. Multiple placements will widen the audience who can see your ad.
The best part about incorporating more ad placements? It does not increase the cost of your ad. If you are beginning your journey with Facebook PPC, you should consider choosing “Meta Advantage+ placements.” This will allow you to measure which placements are the most effective for your firm and to select those placements in the future.
4. Budget and schedule
The last step of running a Facebook PPC ad will be to choose how much you would like to spend on your ad. You can either pay per day or choose a certain budget for the duration of your campaign. You will also choose when you would like your ad to run and how long you would like it to run. As a general rule, you should let your ad run for three to five days before you determine how it performs or make changes.
AdRoll
AdRoll has more than 83,000 customers, and it can be an excellent choice for lawyers who want to use PPC ads for retargeting purposes. With retargeting, your ads will be shown to those who have visited specific pages of your website.
AdRoll works with display exchanges like AppNexus, Facebook, DoubleClick, Google, Yahoo, and Rubicon, as well as native exchanges like Taboola, Outbrain, and Nativo. AdRoll also has network partners like eBay, Microsoft Advertising Exchange, and AdThrive. Some marketers prefer to use AdRoll instead of Google Ads because it allows them to consolidate their PPC marketing efforts in one platform.
This is great for law firms because 97% of prospective clients view three to five law firm websites before contacting one. If they are reminded of your firm again before making their choice, they will be much more likely to choose you for their services.
Some other benefits of retargeting through AdRoll include higher engagement rates, lower costs, more loyal clients engaging with your content, and recapturing lost leads. When you set up your retargeting campaign, you can choose to target potential clients in the following ways:
Based on visiting a specific page on your website (i.e. contact form or blog)
Based on a specific person visiting any page on your website
Based on pages that they fail to visit to draw specific services to their attention
RevContent
Unlike AdRoll, which is primarily focused on retargeting, the primary focus of RevContent is native PPC advertising. If you have ever published a blog on your website and wished it could be posted on more sites than your own, RevContent might be a good solution for you. Its platform allows you to display your content on leading publishing sites. The only difference is that it will be displayed as an ad.
Similar to the other PPC platforms, you will bid on keywords that are relevant to your firm, and your content will be displayed alongside other content that relates to those keywords. You can also target a specific audience by choosing your desired site placements and desired zip codes. RevContent provides reporting tools that give you access to your engagement data, which will allow you to continuously improve your PPC strategy over time.
Pay-per-click advertising is so important for law firms, but it is often misunderstood and underutilized. Even though you might not see your return on investment with PPC ads overnight, with the right amount of time and strategies in place, your law firm can see an increase in brand awareness, website traffic, and lead generation.
To learn more about how to get started with PPC marketing for your law firm, contact the team at Scorpion.
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