It Takes Strategy to Navigate the PPC Maze
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising can be an attorney’s best friend – or worst enemy. One of the biggest deciding factors is strategy. How you develop your PPC campaign can determine whether it brings you clients or drains your budget.
If you’re stuck trying to write a PPC strategy, I recommend starting by answering the five W’s:
- WHO are you trying to reach? A twenty-two year old mother? A middle-aged man driving a big rig for a living? Different generations and genders use different terminology when searching for legal aid. Bid on keywords that best reflect your target demographic.
Expert Tip: Direct your browser to a demographics-prediction tool to discover basic demographic information about web surfers.
- WHAT is their story? Has the young mother been blindsided while dropping her child off at school? Was our truck driver’s father administered incorrect medication at a nursing facility and then passed away as a result? Determine the common situations your clients seek your help with and write advertising that speaks to their experience.
Expert Tip: Aggregate the notes from all your past cases onto one digital document. Copy and paste all the data into a word cloud generator – like the one at www.wordle.net/create. The resulting image will show you words that commonly appear in your case notes. While some may be irrelevant, others may alert you to patterns in your clients’ stories.
- WHERE are your ideal clients? Search engines allow you to specify the geographic region you advertise in. Limit or expand your exposure based on where your potential clients are.
Expert Tip: www.city-data.com maintains demographic information on cities nationwide. You can use this data to decide which cities to show your advertising. For example, you might find city X has a high rate of vehicle accidents. You may also know that city X contains a major freeway that citizens from city Y use to commute to city Z for work. You would then focus your advertising around cities X, Y, and / or Z.
- WHEN are they most likely to contact you? Search engines like Google permit you to select the times of day your ads display. The best time to advertise is when people are ready to make a decision. If you don’t have this data on hand, I recommend running your PPC ads at all hours for one or more months and then reviewing the data to find high the day times you receive the most contacts.
Expert Tip: If you advertise with Google AdWords and have your account linked to Google’s free analytic software, this data is already available to you! To find out how to access it, go to YouTube.com and do a search for “Adwords Reports Overview.”
- WHY will they choose you? There are eleven slots per page on Google where your ad might appear. Why will they click on yours?
Expert Tip: Actually – there is none. Each practice has its own blend of talents, personalities, and expertise to offer. Find yours!
Answering these five W’s – who, what, when, where, and why – can help you develop a strategic plan to maximize your PPC advertising dollars to increase your volume of qualified leads. Strategy is the difference between reaching the other side of the PPC maze and wasting thousands wandering around, looking for success.
Category: Legal Briefs
