Whether you’re a solicitor specialising in family law or a corporate lawyer, Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising has become a highly effective method to connect with the right audience at the right time with the perfect message—the one that leads to a new appointment on your schedule.
However, while using PPC for lawyers appears as easy as creating a Google Ads account and selecting some key terms, there is more to it. These lesser-known strategies for law firm PPC success are critical to cost-effectively generating high-value leads vs. the ones you have to chase around for months trying to get a returned phone call when you buy from legal lead generation companies.
In this post, I simplify PPC for lawyers. We’ll start with the basics as I guide you through some more complex strategies and clarify how to efficiently leverage Google and Bing search ads in your digital marketing for solicitors.
What Is Law Firm PPC Management?
At its core, PPC for lawyers allows UK law firms to bid on keywords that potential clients are using to search for legal services. The ads appear at the top of search engine results, making sure your firm is seen before competitors. However, unlike traditional advertising for lawyers, with PPC, you only pay when someone clicks on your advert, ensuring that your budget is spent on people genuinely interested in your services.
Law Firm PPC Management can also include social media PPC advertising but to keep this article simple, I’ll focus on search PPC. That’s what you came here to learn about; am I right?
Why Law Firm PPC Management is Essential
- Instant visibility: Law Firm SEO is a long game, but PPC provides immediate results. As soon as your campaign is live, your firm can start appearing at the top of Google UK search results—often generating new leads from day one. For law firms needing quick results, advertising on Google UK offers unparalleled visibility compared to other forms of digital marketing.
- Targeted advertising for lawyers: One of the most significant benefits of PPC for law firms is the ability to precisely target potential clients. Whether you’re offering personal injury services in London or corporate legal advice in Birmingham, you can tailor your PPC campaigns to show ads to users in specific locations based on their search intent. This geographic and demographic precision ensures that you’re only paying for clicks from individuals likely to convert into clients.
- Measurable and actionable data: One of the standout advantages of Law Firm PPC Management is its measurability. You can track everything from the click-through rate to how many people contacted your firm after clicking on an ad. This means you have real-time insights into what’s working, allowing for quick optimisations that improve results and reduce wasted spend. You can also use these valuable data to bring clarity to your overall digital marketing for law firms.
Law Firm PPC Management isn’t just about getting more traffic—it’s about attracting qualified leads who are actively seeking legal services. With the right strategy, it can transform how your firm connects with clients, delivering fast, measurable results that support your overall digital marketing for solicitors strategy.
Key PPC Strategies for Law Firms
Effective Law Firm PPC Management requires more than just setting up a Google Ads account. To truly get the best results, you need a strategy that carefully targets your audience, maximises your ad spend, and delivers measurable outcomes. Here are some key PPC strategies that can help your law firm thrive in the digital marketplace:
Keyword Research and Strategy
The foundation of any successful PPC for lawyers campaign lies in the right keyword selection. Your goal is to focus on high-intent keywords—terms that people are searching for when they are actively looking to hire a solicitor. Conversely, your goal is not to appear in the most searches or loosely relevant searches—a sure way to drive your advertising costs up.
For instance, a family law firm in London might bid on keywords like “child custody lawyer London” or “divorce solicitor near me.”
You know precisely what people who search these terms are looking for. Relevance is critical in PPC campaigns.
The primary search engine advertising platforms (Google and Bing) use a scaled bidding system, and many people don’t know this. Those who produce more relevant ads can win the placement bidding wars for a discounted rate compared to accounts that produce less relevant ads. Achieving this ad quality can lead to significantly reduced costs and better overall results.
Some of the keyword strategies you’ll use to increase this relevance include:
- Long-tail keywords: These specific keyword phrases often have lower competition but attract highly targeted leads. Instead of competing for broad terms like “lawyer” or “solicitor,” which can be costly, long-tail keywords help you capture clients searching for specific services in your geographic area.
- Negative keywords: Ensure that you’re excluding irrelevant searches by using negative keywords. For example, if your law firm doesn’t handle pro bono cases, add “free” or “pro bono” as negative keywords to avoid paying for unqualified clicks and pushing ad relevance down.
Geo-Targeting
Most clients want to work with a solicitor in their local area, so geo-targeting should be central to your PPC strategy. Platforms like Google Ads allow you to tailor your campaigns to specific locations, ensuring that only people searching for legal services in your region see your ads.
- City-based targeting: If your firm operates in multiple cities, like Swansea, Birmingham, or Glasgow, you can create separate campaigns for each location. This allows you to create highly relevant ad copy and landing pages that speak directly to the needs of clients in those areas.
- Radius targeting: This is especially useful for firms with a physical office. You can target potential clients within a certain radius of your office, ensuring that your ads are reaching people who are most likely to visit in person.
Ad Copy and Creative
Your ad copy needs to clearly communicate your firm’s unique selling points and provide a strong reason for the user to take action—whether that’s scheduling a consultation or calling for more information.
Some key elements of exceptional ad copy include:
- Compelling CTAs: Use strong calls to action such as “Get a Free Consultation” or “Speak to a Solicitor Today.” Your CTA should create a sense of urgency and encourage potential clients to engage immediately.
- Ad extensions: Google Ads allows you to include ad extensions like phone numbers, office locations, and links to specific service pages. These extensions not only make your ad more informative but also give users more ways to contact your firm, increasing the likelihood of a conversion.
Optimising Landing Pages
Once someone clicks on your ad, the next step is crucial: converting that click into a lead. A well-optimised landing page can make or break your campaign.
- Focused landing pages: Your landing page should be directly related to the ad that brought the user there. For instance, if someone clicks on an ad for personal injury law services, they should land on a page specifically about personal injury law, not a general homepage. The messaging on your landing page should create a seamless transition from clicking a search ad to taking a desired action on the landing page—scheduling, requesting information, etc., depending on your campaign goal. You will only ask your visitor to take one specific action on the landing page via a well-crafted CTA. Your landing page’s success hinges on whether visitors take that one action.
- Clear contact information: Make it easy for potential clients to get in touch with your firm. Include visible phone numbers, contact forms, and, where relevant, a live chat feature to engage visitors immediately.
Advanced PPC Tactics to Maximise ROI
It’s one thing to start seeing a steady flow of high-value leads and another to know you’re achieving these results cost-efficiently and effectively. Particularly if your goal is to grow your firm, you’ll want to ensure you’re using the more effective strategy for your law firm. For this reason, once you’ve mastered the basics above, it’s important to move on to more advanced PPC tactics.
This is where the real power of PPC becomes clear, and the value of law firm PPC management is revealed. I’ve created a law firm case study to demonstrate how law firms can increase Google Ad Conversions by 200%.
These strategies will help you optimise your campaigns and increase your ROI:
Bidding Strategy
Choosing the right bidding strategy can make a big difference in your campaign’s performance. With Google Ads, you have several bidding options to choose from, depending on your goals, and I won’t get into everyone here. However, here are two you could consider:
- Manual CPC bidding: This option gives you full control over how much you bid on each keyword. While it requires more hands-on management, it can help you carefully control your costs. This is my preferred bidding strategy if starting a brand new campaign.
- Automated bidding: Google’s Smart Bidding uses machine learning to automatically adjust your bids to maximise conversions. This can save time and ensure that your ads are displayed to the most relevant audience, particularly for high-traffic keywords. Only switch to an automated bidding strategy if your campaigns are achieving 30 conversions or more each month.
A/B Testing
No two ads perform exactly the same. That’s why A/B testing is essential for optimising your ad copy and landing pages. By running two versions of an ad with slight variations—such as different headlines or CTAs—you can determine which one drives more clicks and conversions.
- Test your CTAs: Does “Book a Consultation” work better than “Contact Us Now”? Try both and see which one leads to more inquiries.
- Visuals and design: If you’re using display ads, test different images or colours to see what resonates more with your audience.
- Apply what you learn: Each time you see a statistically significant improvement between tested ads, take note. You can use what you learn here to improve performance in other digital marketing arenas, such as SEO, social media, and CRM email marketing. To truly get the most out of A/B testing and PPC, let these data bring clarity to the whole of your online marketing
Retargeting
Not every potential client will convert the first time they visit your site. Retargeting allows you to show ads to users who have previously visited your website but didn’t take action. These ads may seem redundant.
“Why am I paying for visitor twice?”
However, the truth is that they cost less than other ad formats with significantly higher conversion rates, making them a critical advanced tactic to increase PPC ROI.
“Why are these ads so effective?”
4 out of 5 Internet users notice retargeting ads compared to a much lower percentage for regular PPC. They can increase conversions by 161%—or more. These ads also cost 8X less than regular PPC ads per click, however, you need those other search ads to drive initial traffic you can then retarget.
For these reasons, 1 in 5 marketers dedicate a portion of the advertising budget exclusively to retargeting ads.
- Target past visitors: If a representative for a large corporation visited your corporate law page through an ad, link, or search result but didn’t schedule a consultation, you can retarget them with an ad offering a free consultation or a client case study to draw them back in.
- Segmented retargeting: Create different retargeting campaigns based on the pages users visited. Someone interested in family law services will need a different message than someone looking for business fraud advice.
Are you finding this article useful?
Our newsletter will keep you up to date with the latest marketing tools, tips, and techniques in the legal industry.
How to Measure the Success of Your PPC Campaign
Tracking and measuring the performance of your PPC for lawyers campaign is essential to ensure you’re getting the best return on your investment. Here’s how you can effectively assess your campaign’s success:
Key Metrics to Track
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): This tells you how often people who see your ad are clicking on it. A high CTR indicates that your ad is relevant and engaging.
- Conversion Rate: This measures the percentage of people who clicked on your ad and then completed a desired action, such as filling out a contact form or scheduling a consultation.
- Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): This metric helps you understand how much you’re spending to acquire each new client. By monitoring CPA, you can adjust your bids and targeting to improve cost-efficiency.
Using Analytics Tools
Google Ads and Google Analytics offer powerful tools to track the performance of your PPC campaigns. From tracking which keywords drive the most conversions to understanding user behaviour on your landing pages, these tools provide valuable insights to optimise your strategy.
- Real-time data: Use Google Ads to monitor real-time campaign performance and make adjustments based on live data.
- Cross-platform tracking: Google Analytics can help you understand how your PPC efforts tie into other channels, such as SEO, social media, or email marketing.
- AI-powered analytics: AI can simplify the analytics process to generate useful business insights you can use now to improve your campaigns. Personalise and optimise campaigns with AI with less time and effort.
Start Your Law Firm's PPC Journey Today
Law Firm PPC Management is a proven way to drive qualified leads, increase visibility, and grow your client base in today’s competitive legal market. By leveraging these strategies, your law firm can achieve faster results and higher ROI, positioning you as a leader in your field.
Need help getting started?
Let’s turn clicks into clients. Schedule your free 30-minute consultation today.
