Capitalize on Digital Media to Increase Your Law Firm’s Exposure

This is Part 2 of a 4-part series. Click here to read Part 1, which discusses websites.

Now that you’ve built a robust and beautiful website, how do you get prospective clients to visit it? We discussed organic search ranking in Part 1 of the series, but there are marketing steps you can take to increase traffic while building your rank: paid advertising. That’s what we’ll focus on today.

Google AdWords

There are two types of results when utilizing a search engine – organic results and advertisements related to the word or phrase that was searched. These advertisements on Google searches are known as Google AdWords. Google makes it easy to set up, and you can set daily limits on spending so you know the max you will spend in a campaign. Google provides a best practices guide, as well as other helpful documents to make sure you get the most out of your advertising.

The problem with AdWords is that bids for clicks can get pricy, especially if you have a lot of competitors in your market space. So, with a limited budget, how can you get the most bang for your buck?

First, don’t ignore the pricier words – set a budget to get at least a few clicks per day or week on those key words directly related to your firm’s practice areas.

Second, target lower priced keywords related to your blog or article section. When someone has a question related to your knowledge base, your AdWords campaign will display your article with the answer they need. Though they may not need your services right then, you’ve made a touch with them and they will likely remember you should they need services in the future.

Third, establish yourself as an in-state expert for out-of-state prospects. Using AdWords local search function, you can set a campaign for prospects from other locales searching for services in your area. For example, if you live in Memphis and know that a lot of companies from Little Rock do business in your city, you’d set up an ad promoting your services for anyone in Little Rock who searches for Memphis legal services. Focusing your ads just on your local market limits your reach.

Social Media Ads

There are many aspects to social media, and I’ll cover the others in Part 3. Here we’ll just discuss the paid ads available on most social media sites.

What’s great about social media advertising is the data most sites collect about their users and allow you to use in targeting ads. You don’t have to worry that you are paying for users not in your market seeing your ad. You can select age groups, users with specific interests, and on some platforms, like Twitter, you can even target the followers of certain accounts. This also makes it easier to run multiple campaigns at once, as you can focus the content of your ads based on the audience you are targeting.

The key with social media advertising is to provide a solution to the audience’s problem. Don’t just promote an ad for your site or your services. Make it clear in your ad why you’re the best solution for whatever problem they have. Clearly state the problem and your solution. Have a call to action, like making an appointment for a free consultation.

Native Advertising

Native Advertising are ads that blend in with the outlet it is placed in. For example, on a blog, it will look like a blog post and usually only have a small indication that it is sponsored content. Though journalists tend to get up in arms about native advertising, a study from Digital Content Next found that consumers had far less of a problem with it, and only 29% of companies reported ever receiving a complaint about their native ads.

When done correctly, Native ads can increase your reach and engagement. Look for blogs and websites that target the same market as you and ask for their media kits. Almost all include some form of native advertising options these days – whether it is sponsored content, or a sponsored post. If you are paying to have a post included, make sure it isn’t just an advertisement for your firm – include information that is useful to your demographic. For more on Native Advertising, check out these examples from Hubspot.

Banner Ads

Banner ads are clickable images that lead prospects to your site. As more and more people install ad blockers in their browsers, these are less and less reliable a source of traffic. (See this HubSpot article on the stats of banner ads vs the type of paid advertising discussed above). So why do I mention them? They can have some effectiveness if used on the right sites; however, the site you are considering should be researched, the ad carefully designed, and a strong tracking system in place to track ROI.

It’s an unpleasant fact, but a fact nonetheless, that there is no such thing as a free lunch. You cannot rely on your organic SEO efforts alone. You don’t need to break the bank, but making room in your marketing budget for paid advertising online is an essential part of driving traffic to your site.

Part 3 of the series will focus on Social Media best practices – not just for inbound marketing, but for prospect/client interactions.