When people need to contact a lawyer or hire legal services of any kind, they usually head to Google to find a service that fulfills their needs. Even research shows that 57% of people like to look for an attorney on their own.
When they come looking for a lawyer, do you want your website to be at the top of their search results?
Well, implementing lawyer pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is an excellent way to reach those potential clients. PPC lets you target a very specific type of audience, i.e., people who are ONLY looking for the kind of services you offer. This can go a long way in sharpening the impact of your marketing efforts and bringing in new business.
In fact, 74 percent of brands state that PPC is a huge business driver for them. That’s because, when done right, PPC ad campaigns yield a high return on investment. Additionally, as the name implies, you only pay for the clicks your ad gets and not for thousands of people who only see your ad.
But keep in mind that it takes time and testing to get your PPC campaign right. So, expect a learning phase before you start seeing the results.
Let’s figure out how to budget for a PPC campaign and the overall costs involved. Here are some of the leading factors that determine how much PPC will cost for your law firm:
Keyword Bidding
The cost of PPC advertising is determined by the bid you place on a specific keyword or phrase. Though you can bid whatever amount you want, ensure it is competitive as otherwise, it won’t show up on the top spots of the SERPs.
This is because the location and number of the advertising space you get are different on each search engine. For example, Google has just seven areas reserved for each page, with three on the page’s bottom and four at the top.
Competitive pricing differs by the industry as well. However, when it comes to legal advertising, PPC advertising costs seem to be the highest. And when focusing on more specific keywords, such as personal injury lawyer, you might have to pay an estimated 12 times more.
Local PPC
If you reside in a specific locality, you must modify your PPC efforts for the particular region instead of focusing on a broader global audience. Local PPC campaigns are an excellent idea for those firms who want to generate leads in their area. Moreover, the pricing of keywords can vary substantially depending on the location.
Keyword Variations
A PPC ad is displayed on search results pages when people search for a specific keyword related to your ad. Thus, there will be fewer searches for a keyword that is more targeted; for example, ‘car accident lawyer Houston’ will be searched a lot less than ‘Houston lawyers’.
So, to get enough exposure (or impressions), make sure your campaign has several variations for similar keywords to account for the diver behavior of your target audiences. This will increase the chances of your keyword being searched.
For example, if you bid for the keyword ‘Houston car accident lawyer,’ also bid for ‘Houston car accident attorney.’ There will likely be quite a noticeable difference in the pricing for each.
Suggested Bids
Your chosen PPC ad platform recommends bids to help firms with planning their campaign. Additionally, these suggestions overview the maximum CPC needed to place your ad in a competitive position.
A competitive bid lands you on the first page of search engine results, which is responsible for 95% of all web traffic, so that’s good news. However, several other factors, such as Quality Score, impact your ad’s actual cost and placement.
Bidding is based on two components: maximum CPC and daily limit.
The maximum CPC is the most you will pay for each click on your ad. Since the auction-style bidding specifications are constantly changing, the actual CPC is generally lower than your maximum CPC. But, you need to ensure that the maximum CPC bid aligns with suggested bids so that your ad is shown at the top of the results.
The daily limit refers to the highest amount you are willing to spend in a day on PPC marketing. This figure should guide your monthly estimated costs for PPC.
Things To Know About Effective PPC Advertising
Let’s look at the basics of effective PPC.
So, suppose you are willing to spend no more than $3000 per month on PPC advertising. This means your daily limit is $100.
Now, you want to place your ad for the keyword phrase, ‘Houston personal injury lawyer.’ You will have to take an aggressive approach to get to the top of Google’s results page. Thus, you may decide that you are willing to pay a maximum of $100 for each click. You then finalize your ad, and it goes live.
Since your maximum CPC is high, each time someone searches for your keyword phrase, the ad will be displayed in one of the first three spots on Google’s first page. So, every time your ad comes up in a search on Google, it will get an ‘impression.’
Then, sooner or later, someone will click on your ad. And this user will be a ‘clickthrough’ to be directed to your landing page. Google will then update your AdWords account and state your CPC.
The way Google calculates your actual CPC is by counting it as a cent higher than your competitor’s. It does get a bit complicated to calculate when the Ad Rank is factored into the bidding process, but that is, essentially, the concept.
For example, if your actual CPC is at $85.01, you won’t be able to get a competitive bid with your remaining daily limit. So even if your PPC ad doesn’t come up on Google’s first page, it can on other pages. Several factors may cause that to happen. For example, when your daily limit has been completely exhausted, your ad won’t be displayed for that search phrase till the next day.
Lead Generation
You may wonder how PPC advertising translates into leads for your legal firm so you get new cases. In essence, all the effort you put into your SEO and PPC marketing is to get noticed, so you acquire new clients, right?
Well, here’s how that happens:
Well, PPC advertising allows you to place your ad so that users searching for the specific service you provide can come across it. When users see a PPC advertisement, they click on it and get taken to the landing page. You will generally have more impressions than clickthroughs, and the rates vary according to industry, but it’s good to get at least a 1% rate.
Your ad has to take users to a landing page, which can either be your homepage or a keyword or campaign-specific page (like for divorce lawyers, etc.). Nevertheless, you will be charged for every ‘clickthrough’ that leads prospective clients to your page. So you now have a lead, and it’s your job to convert that lead into a client, either through form submission or phone call. Once they do contact you, you have to convince them to work with you.
The ad did its job, and so did Google; the rest is up to your sales team.
So, let’s see what it takes to generate one client through PPC advertising. If you have a 1% rate of clickthroughs on your PPC ads, around 10% of site visitors will contact you to learn more about your services. You will likely get 20% of them to become your new clients.
So, you will need to get 5000 ad impressions, with 50 PPC responses needing to be paid for.
How Much Should Law Firms Pay On Average For PPC Advertising?
The keywords’ attorney’ and ‘lawyer’ happen to be the most expensive on Bing and cost more than $100 for each click for searches like ‘criminal DUI attorney’ or ‘personal injury lawyer’.
And Google Ads are significantly more expensive. Our legal specialist recommends that if you want your PPC ads to be competitive, set a minimum limit of $2500-$30,000 per month at least. More prominent law firms could spend as much as $50,000 to $100,000 monthly on PPC.
However, the figure entirely depends on the firm’s size and objectives. Keeping a daily limit of $1000 will allow you to receive approximately ten bids if the CPC is $100.
Moreover, per click costs can depend on the city, the competition, and the practice area. If you are in a smaller town where you don’t have much competition and a small practice area, you may get more bang for your buck.
Furthermore, firms must discern whether getting 10 or 20 clicks a day is worth the $1000, as not every clickthrough will become a paying customer. If you have a great conversion rate of, let’s assume, 5%, and your average CPC is $50, then you can get a conversion daily. Then, it is up to you to see if the new clients are worth less or more than that $1000 you invested.
Your PPC campaign can be considered successful if you get more than $ 1000’s worth from conversions. If not, then you may need to rethink your PPC plan.
Also, law firms should keep in mind that if they’re hiring a marketing company to take care of their PPC campaigns, they will also have to pay a management fee.
To Wrap It Up
In conclusion, there are definitely several factors that can impact the cost of a PPC campaign and the leads you get. For example, the website’s design, keywords are chosen, the ad itself, its performance and search engine placement, and more. However, if you research and plan extensively, you will conclude how much you will spend to get the leads you are looking for.
Are you looking for a law firm marketing agency that can take your PPC budget to the next level? Then, contact Gorilla Webtactics, who have the expertise, experience, and technology to ensure your PPC advertising campaigns are successful.
