In House Counsel
In House Counsel
Most injury lawyers In House Counsel are divided when it comes to marketing their law firms with search engine optimization or pay per click. The reality is that many marketers use and understand both when it comes to driving conversions.
Most attorneys In House Counsel I speak to are divided on PPC and SEO. It’s almost as intense as republican versus democrat, but it really shouldn’t be this way.
Pay Per Click means you only pay when people click on words you’ve chosen to advertise on. The advantage is that you can get traffic tomorrow, not 6 months from now. The disadvantage is that if an amateur is in charge of your campaign they will quickly blow up your budget. The other disadvantage is that "lawyer" related keywords are quite expensive, so beginner mistakes on AdWords in the legal profession are much more damaging than a market where click costs average 75 cents.
Pay Per Click Versus Search Engine Optimization – Savvy Injury Lawyers Use Both
However the pros far outweigh the cons. As an attorney concerned with generating positive ROI, not image and branding, you need to demonstrate that you can do 2 things with your website.
First is getting targeted traffic quickly. Second is converting that traffic into consultations and ultimately new cases taken. Doing these 2 things has more to do with on page copy and directive than it does with graphics. Pay Per Click marketing on Google AdWords is the best way for getting these 2 items done. Pay Per Click is definitely not a hot topic like social media, but when it comes to making the phone ring PPC is much better investment of time and energy than social media and often Search Engine Optimization.
SEO makes sense when you’ve run your pay per click campaign for at least 3 months and you’ve found out what keywords result in legal consultations.
It’s one thing to do keyword research – this can be done with software like Google’s keyword generator, or it can be done with a pencil and paper. Keyword research is a good thing, and is the basis for any search marketing campaign. However the best keyword research comes from the result of running pay per click ads.
It all comes down what works in reality, not what you think works on paper or when doing keyword research. What you don’t want is to be out of pocket for several thousand dollars 4-6 months from now still waiting for your website to get on page one. Worse yet, only the top 5 listings on the search engine results pages get enough traffic to make it worthwhile.
It is true that only 20% of the people that do an internet search click on the paid ads, however it’s better to start getting traffic and measuring the results, than shelling out a lot of money.
With pay per click, results can be predictable In House Counsel. Based on pages I’ve created I know what the response or conversion rates are so I can guarantee that there will be results. SEO can be unpredictable, however it’s best not to have all your eggs in one basket. Do SEO but only when you’ve gotten meaningful data from pay per click.
Retailers do this all the time
If you Google "iPad" you will see Apple on top of the natural and paid search results. This is because they are making money with both. I’ve done similar things generating leads in the B2B technology space. The company had the number 1 ranking for a keyword but Human Rights List was also able to generate leads using pay per click.
