If you are looking to increase your clients at your law firm, Google AdWords is a great option. My law firm clients have highly successful campaigns due to their optimized account setup and continuous account monitoring to ensure that they are getting top performance.

In just the first month one of my clients saw 21 new leads come in for just $300. Since then we increased the ad spend, and now we are seeing 40-50 leads a month for less than $15 per lead. So, what brings about this level of success with AdWords?

Below are the six steps that you can follow to help:

GREAT ACCOUNT STRUCTURE

Structure is important. Time and time again lawyers want to try out AdWords and decide to set up their own account with no knowledge of how the system works. They put in many hours of research to figure out what campaign, ad group, ads, keywords, and ad extensions mean (lowering their own return on investment). In the end, the account structure isn’t set up for success, their AdWords account doesn’t perform and they chalk it up to a bad experience.

Use location reach and ad groups. The best way to set up an account is by location reach, and then ad groups by product line. For example, if you are a family law firm in Salem, Oregon, your first campaign will be ‘Family Law – Salem Only’ (because the location settings will just target Salem) and your ad groups will be ‘Divorce, Child Custody, etc.’

Setting up your campaign in an organized, intelligent manner such as this makes it easier for Google to know what you are trying to accomplish and reward you through better performing accounts.

CALL ONLY ADS

While you should be sending AdWords traffic to your website, during the day you should also be pushing for phone calls. These are the best leads and most often turn into paying clients (it is a more purposeful call to action).

A call-only campaign is just like your other campaigns, but it only shows on devices that can make a phone call. If you structure your accounts right, 50 percent of your leads should come from call-only ads.

Make sure you don’t run call-only ads when your office is closed otherwise you might waste a ton of money on people calling when there is no one to pick up!

AN AMAZING LANDING PAGE

Another mistake people make when setting up campaigns on their own is sending clicks to their homepage. Don’t do it!

Instead you want to create individual landing pages for each of your ad groups. This way when a potential client clicks on an ad for ‘Divorce Lawyers’ they are taken to the page with copy specifically about divorce lawyers and how you can help them navigate their divorce.

If the client has to do digging to find what you were advertising, they will back right out of your website and look elsewhere.

Make sure you have an appealing headline and a lead capture form on your landing page. Giving the client a clear and easy way to contact you (and from your perspective, an easy way to get lead IDs) will elevate your campaigns success.

CURRENT LOCATION SETTINGS

Too many attorney AdWords campaigns are sabotaged by not setting up the location correctly, instead using broad match keywords.

Since you probably don’t want to run ads in other states, you want to go into your campaign settings and change the location settings to only show ads in your local area. If you forget this, Google will show your ad to the entire country by default, wasting tons of money on clicks that you can’t use.

COMPELLING AD COPY

Good copywriting is key to the success of your ad. Knowing what words will turn a prospective client into a paying client is a skill that takes time to hone, and will likely be trial and error during the start of your campaign.

Some good tips are to highlight your ‘Free Consultation’ (if you have one), and make sure to use open-end engaging phrases that speak to your clients’ needs.

NEGATIVE KEYWORDS

Utilizing AdWords negative keyword filter system will help you save tons of money on your campaign, and up your return on investment. You want to make sure that Google isn’t showing your ads to people who don’t need your services – you’d basically be throwing money away on those ads.

For example, if some of your keywords are ‘divorce lawyer’ your ad might appear under the search for ‘divorce lawyer salary,’ which is a wasteful ad use. If you add the keyword ‘salary’ to your negative keyword list, then your ad won’t show for any searches that include the word salary.

This is a great way to refine your ad campaign and save a good chunk of money in the process.

Using these six ideas to create your next Google AdWords campaign and you will see your leads and calls skyrocket, earning your company a hefty return on investment. If you want some help with your AdWords campaign, get in touch with us below.