Google Ads for Lawyers: What You Need to Know

Standing out against the competition in a crowded legal market online requires more than a solid reputation and strong word-of-mouth referrals. Google Ads is one of the most effective tools for law firms looking to attract new clients and grow their practice. Every day, millions of users turn to Google to search for various services, including legal help. Leveraging Google Ads ensures your firm is visible when potential clients actively seek help. Whether your goal is to generate leads, increase consultations, or build brand awareness, understanding how to navigate the world of Google Ads can make all the difference.

In this blog, we’ll discuss the basics of Google Ads, explore the most beneficial types of ads for lawyers, and provide actionable steps to help you set up and optimize your campaigns. From search ads that connect you with clients when they need legal help to local service ads targeting specific geographic areas, Google Ads offers endless opportunities for law firms to grow their client base and drive success.

What Are Google Ads?

Google Ads is an online advertising platform where businesses, including law firms, can pay to display brief advertisements, service offerings, or videos to web users. These ads appear on Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs), YouTube, and across the Google Display Network, which is comprised of millions of websites, apps, and videos. What makes Google Ads especially powerful is the ability to target people based on what they are actively searching for, allowing law firms to connect with potential clients in real-time.

For law firms, Google Ads offers a critical advantage: reaching individuals already searching for legal services. Whether a potential client is looking for a personal injury lawyer, a criminal defense attorney, or help with a family law matter, they are likely turning to Google to find their answers. Google Ads ensures your law firm appears at the top of these search results, providing you with prime visibility and a direct connection to prospects who need legal assistance.

By targeting relevant keywords, law firms can ensure their ads appear in front of users who are most likely to convert. Rather than using broad strategies and generic keywords hoping to catch potential clients, your firm can use Google Ads to focus on a highly qualified audience searching for your services.

Using Google Ads for lawyers and law firms is not just about visibility; it’s about being there when potential clients need you most.

Types of Google Ads Lawyers Can Use

Law firms can use several types of Google ads to reach potential clients, each offering unique benefits depending on their marketing goals. Whether the goal is to increase visibility, build brand awareness, or connect with local clients, understanding the different ad formats can help you choose the right strategy for your firm.

Search Ads

Search Ads are among the most common and effective forms of Google Ads for lawyers and law firms. These text-based ads appear at the top of SERPs when users enter relevant keywords, such as “personal injury lawyer near me” or “divorce attorney in St. Louis.” Because they are triggered by user intent, Search Ads allow your law firm to appear precisely when potential clients actively seek legal services, making them highly valuable for generating qualified leads.

The main benefit of Search Ads is their prominent placement at the top of Google’s results, above organic listings. This visibility can be crucial in a competitive industry like law, where clients are often in immediate need and may choose the first relevant result they see. Additionally, Search Ads offer robust targeting options, allowing you to focus your ad spend on specific demographics, geographic areas, and even times of day when your audience is most likely to search for legal help.

Display Ads

Display Ads are visually engaging banner ads that appear across a vast network of websites, apps, and videos through Google’s Display Network. Unlike text-based Search Ads, which rely on keyword searches, Display Ads are image-based and designed to capture attention while users browse the web. These ads don’t necessarily target individuals actively searching for legal services but help law firms build brand awareness by placing ads in front of potential clients visiting relevant sites.

For law firms, Display Ads are particularly useful for increasing visibility and keeping your firm top of mind. They allow you to target users based on their interests, demographics, and past online behavior, making it easier to reach individuals needing legal services in the future. Display Ads are customizable with compelling visuals and call-to-actions, helping your firm stand out in a crowded digital landscape.

The main benefit of Display Ads is their ability to boost brand recognition. Even if a potential client isn’t actively seeking legal assistance, consistently seeing your firm’s ads on trusted websites can establish familiarity and make them more likely to reach out when they need legal help.

Local Service Ads

Local Service Ads (LSAs) are explicitly designed to help businesses, including law firms, connect with clients in their local area. These ads appear at the top of Google’s search results when users search for services like “criminal defense lawyer near me” or “family attorney in St. Louis.” Unlike traditional Google Ads, LSAs focus on local relevance, displaying your firm’s contact information, hours of operation, and even customer reviews, making it easier for potential clients to reach out directly.

For lawyers, the primary benefit of Local Service Ads is their ability to target specific geographic areas, ensuring that your firm’s ads are shown to people in your service area. This can be especially useful for legal professionals who rely on local clients, as LSAs allow you to capture leads from individuals looking for immediate help within your practice area. LSAs are also a cost-effective way to attract qualified leads. Using a pay-per-lead model, you only pay when someone contacts your firm through the ad.

Video Ads

Video Ads are a dynamic form of Google advertising that allows law firms to engage potential clients through visual storytelling. These ads typically appear on YouTube and across Google’s Display Network, showing short video clips before, during, or after other video content. Video Ads can be highly effective for law firms looking to build trust and establish authority by showcasing their expertise, highlighting client success stories, or explaining complex legal topics in a more engaging format.

Video ads provide a unique opportunity to stand out from legal competition and create a lasting impression. The highly engaging nature of video content can evoke emotion and offer a more personal connection, powerfully capturing the attention of prospective clients. Whether it’s a 15-second introduction to your firm or a more in-depth explanation of your services, Video Ads allow you to convey your message clearly and memorably.

Setting Up Google Ads: A Step-By-Step Guide

Step 1: Define Your Goals

The first step in setting up successful ad campaigns is clearly defining your goals. Before launching any ads, it’s crucial to determine what you want to achieve. For law firms, these goals might include generating more leads, increasing consultations, attracting specific case inquiries, or boosting overall brand awareness. Having a clear objective can create a more focused and effective campaign that aligns with your firm’s broader marketing strategy.

Understanding your goals is vital to optimizing your Google Ads performance. Knowing your target outcome will help you choose the right ad formats, keywords, and audience targeting, whether you want to drive immediate phone calls, form submissions, or website visits. Additionally, setting measurable goals allows you to track success and make data-driven adjustments throughout your campaign, ensuring your law firm gets the most out of its advertising investment.

Step 2: Identify Your Target Audience

Once you’ve defined your goals, the next crucial step in setting up a law firm Google Ads campaign is identifying your target audience. This means understanding who your ideal clients are and how to segment them based on location, demographics, and intent. By clearly defining your audience, you can ensure that the people most likely to need your services see your ads, increasing the chances of converting leads into clients.

Segmentation is critical to reaching the right audience. You can target potential clients based on geographic location, ensuring your ads are shown to individuals within your service area. Additionally, demographics such as age, gender, and income level help narrow your focus to those most likely to engage with your firm. Intent is another powerful factor—by targeting keywords and behaviors that indicate someone is actively searching for legal help, you can connect with people who are ready to take action.

Step 3: Choose the Right Keywords

Choosing the right keywords is vital in creating an effective Google Ads campaign. When seeking legal services, keywords are the terms and phrases that potential clients enter into search engines. For law firms, selecting legal-specific keywords ensures your ads are shown to individuals actively seeking assistance in your practice areas.

The importance of using relevant keywords cannot be overstated. Keywords like “personal injury lawyer near me” or “family law attorney in St. Louis” connect you with potential clients and increase the likelihood of attracting highly qualified leads. These terms indicate strong intent, meaning users are likely further along in their decision-making process and ready to reach out for help.

When performing keyword research and choosing specific keywords, consider short and long-tail keyword options. Short-tail keywords are generic search terms consisting of no more than one or two words, like “lawyers” or “divorce lawyer.” Long-tail keywords are typically phrases of four to eight words that narrow down a search to the most applicable results, such as “top-rated lawyers in St. Louis” or “personal injury attorney specializing in car accidents.”

Broad, short-tail keywords can attract a wider audience, while long-tail keywords often yield higher conversion rates because they target users with more defined needs. Tools like Google’s Keyword Planner can help you identify high-impact keywords relevant to your legal services and assess their search volume and competition, helping you determine if they should be added to your Google Ads marketing strategy.

Step 4: Write Engaging Ad Copy

Writing engaging ad copy is essential for capturing the attention of potential clients and encouraging them to take action. To stand out against the competition, your ads must be concise, compelling, and direct, addressing the legal needs of your target audience. Here are some tips to help you craft effective ad copy:

• Be Clear and Direct: Clearly convey your services and the benefits clients can expect. Use straightforward language that speaks directly to potential clients’ concerns, such as “Get a Free Consultation with an Experienced Divorce Attorney.”
• Highlight Unique Selling Points: Differentiate your law firm by showcasing what distinguishes you from the competition. Whether it’s your years of experience, success rate, or personalized service, make sure this information stands out in your ad.
• Include a Strong Call to Action: Encourage users to take the next step by including a compelling call to action, such as “Contact Us Today” or “Schedule Your Free Consultation.” A solid call to action creates a sense of urgency and guides potential clients on what to do next.
• Use Emotional Appeals: Legal matters often evoke strong emotions. Use your copy to resonate with potential clients’ feelings. Phrases like “We’re here to help you through this difficult time” can create a connection and highlight your empathetic approach to legal representation.
• Test Different Variations: Don’t hesitate to A/B test different versions of your ad copy to see what resonates best with your audience. Small changes in wording can significantly impact your ad’s performance.

Engaging ad copy captures attention and communicates the value of your services, making it crucial to your Google Ads strategy.  

Step 5: Set Your Budget

Establishing the right budget is essential for managing your Google Ads campaign, especially in the legal industry. Google Ads operates on a pay-per-click (PPC) model, meaning you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. Therefore, effectively managing your PPC budget helps maximize your return on investment (ROI) while attracting high-quality leads.

Here are key factors to consider when setting your budget:

• Cost-Per-Click (CPC): Because they’re highly competitive, legal-related keywords tend to have higher CPC rates. Understanding how much you’re willing to pay for each click and balancing this with potential revenue is crucial. Google’s Keyword Planner can help you estimate the average CPC for relevant legal terms.
• Daily and Monthly Spend Limits: Setting daily or monthly caps on your ad spend helps ensure you stay within your financial limits. It’s also important to revisit these limits as you optimize your campaigns for performance.
• Campaign Goals: Your budget should reflect your desired outcomes. Align your spending with the campaign’s objectives, whether your goal is to drive leads for consultations, increase brand awareness, or promote specific legal services. Larger goals, like acquiring a high volume of leads, may require a more significant investment.
• Ad Bidding Strategy: Google Ads offers different bidding options to control how your budget is spent. Choose a strategy that aligns with your campaign goals and allows you to manage your budget efficiently.
• Monitor and Adjust: As your campaign runs, monitor performance metrics and be ready to adjust your budget. If certain ads or keywords drive valuable leads, consider allocating more budget to them while reducing spending on underperforming ads.

Google Ads Success: Best Practices for Legal Industry Professionals

Law firms looking to run a successful Google Ads campaign need to apply tailored strategies that uniquely address the legal industry’s needs. With the right approach, Google Ads can deliver highly visible, targeted, and trackable results that significantly impact client acquisition.

The following are some best practices for creating successful Google Ads campaigns for law firms:

Focus on Local Search Optimization

Local relevance is a critical component of a successful Google Ads campaign. Potential clients often search for attorneys in their immediate area, making location-based targeting essential to reaching the right audience. By optimizing your ads for local search, you can ensure that your law firm appears prominently when someone searches for legal services near them.

Use Negative Keywords

Negative keywords are crucial to any Google Ads strategy, especially for law firms. While the right keywords ensure your ads appear for relevant searches, using negative keywords helps prevent your ads from being displayed for irrelevant or unwanted search queries. This saves your law firm money by avoiding clicks from users unlikely to convert into clients.

What Are Negative Keywords?

Negative keywords are search terms that you specifically exclude from triggering your ads. Adding these keywords to your campaign can refine who sees your ads and avoid wasting your ad budget on clicks from irrelevant or unrelated searches. For instance, if you’re a personal injury lawyer, you may want to exclude terms like “free legal advice” or “legal internships,” which attract users who aren’t looking to hire an attorney.

Law firms often face the challenge of competing with other online legal content. Without negative keywords, your ads could appear in searches for legal topics or services you don’t provide, leading to unqualified clicks. For example:

• If your firm specializes in family law but not estate planning, you can use “wills” or “trusts” as negative keywords to avoid appearing in searches related to those areas.
• Excluding phrases like “pro bono” or “free” ensures you attract clients ready to pay for services rather than individuals seeking free consultations or legal aid.

Carefully managing negative keywords can improve the relevance of your ad traffic, leading to a higher ROI and better conversion rates. Regularly reviewing and updating your list of negative keywords based on your ad performance data will help your campaign stay efficient, ensuring you’re reaching potential clients actively searching for your specific legal services.

Leverage Ad Extensions

Ad extensions are powerful tools within Google Ads that allow law firms to enhance their standard ads with additional information, making them more relevant and enticing to potential clients. Using capabilities like call extensions, location extensions, and structured snippets allows your firm to provide more details, improve visibility, and drive more engagement, all without additional cost.

Call Extensions

Call extensions add a clickable phone number to your ad, making it easy for potential clients to contact your firm directly. By enabling call extensions, you streamline the process for clients to reach out, which can lead to increased lead generation. Call extensions benefit law firms in a few ways:

• Direct Communication: Call extensions facilitate quick client inquiries, which is crucial when people are urgently seeking legal services.
• Mobile Optimization: Users can tap the phone number and call instantly on mobile devices, offering a seamless experience that encourages engagement.

Location Extensions

Location extensions help you display your firm’s address alongside your ad, showing potential clients exactly where your office is located. This feature is essential for law firms targeting clients in specific geographic areas. The extension can also include a clickable link to Google Maps, making it easy for users to find directions.

Structured Snippets

Structured snippets allow you to showcase specific aspects of your legal services, such as practice areas like “personal injury,” “family law,” or “criminal defense.” These snippets provide potential clients with quick insights into what your firm offers, helping them decide if your expertise matches their legal needs. Structured snippets are beneficial to law firms for:

• Enhanced Relevance: Highlighting practice areas helps capture users’ attention when searching for specific legal services, improving the chance of qualified clicks.
• Better Targeting: Structured snippets can make your ad stand out by providing more context, increasing the likelihood of attracting clients seeking your expertise.

Regularly Test and Optimize Ads

A key to long-term success with Google Ads is continuously refining your approach through testing and optimization. A/B testing different ad elements for law firms and making data-driven adjustments can significantly improve performance and drive better results over time.

A/B testing, also known as split testing, involves running two versions of an ad with one varying element, such as the headline, CTA, or even the landing page. By comparing how each version performs, you can determine which variations resonate more with your target audience and yield better results.

For example, a law firm might test headlines like “Get a Free Legal Consultation today” versus “Experienced Personal Injury Lawyers Ready to Help.” The firm can fine-tune its messaging to align more closely with client needs and behavior by analyzing which ad generates more clicks or conversions. Testing allows you to pinpoint what works best in attracting potential clients and reduce wasted ad spending on less effective elements to focus on what drives results.

Optimizing Based on Performance

After running A/B tests, it is essential to analyze performance data and implement changes. Google Ads provides various metrics, such as CTR, CPC, and conversion rate, that help measure the success of your campaigns. Regularly reviewing these metrics and adjusting based on what’s working (or not) ensures that your ads remain competitive.

For instance, if ads featuring certain keywords generate more inquiries, you can increase the budget for those keywords or adjust the ad copy to emphasize them. Conversely, if certain ad variations consistently underperform, you can pause them to focus on the winning versions.

Here are some optimization strategies for law firms:

• Headline Versions: Test different wording or offers to see what drives more client engagement.
• Ad Copy: Experiment with concise versus more detailed ad text to see which approach appeals to your audience.
• Keywords: Regularly refine your keyword list to focus on high-intent, legal-specific search terms that yield better results.

Maximize Your Law Firm’s Potential With an Effective Google Ads Strategy From TG

Google Ads are a powerful tool for law firms looking to expand their client base by connecting with individuals actively searching for legal services. Whether through search, display, local service, or video ads, the ability to target potential clients with precision can significantly boost visibility, drive inquiries, and ultimately increase conversions.

Law firms can create highly effective campaigns that stand out in a competitive marketplace by focusing on key practices like local search optimization, leveraging ad extensions, using negative keywords, and continuously testing and optimizing ads. However, managing a successful Google Ads campaign requires careful planning, consistent optimization, and a strategic approach to ad spend.

If you’re ready to take your Google Ads campaigns to the next level, Timmermann Group is here to help. As a top-rated law firm marketing agency, our PPC experts have successfully increased client inquiries for firms like yours. Don’t let your competitors dominate the Google Ads space–Contact TG today to schedule your free strategy session and start seeing results.