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PPC and SEO are often handled separately and considered as two separate methods of generating leads for law firms.
However, by combining the two tactics, law firms can achieve far better results and search engine result page outcomes.
How can SEO and PPC strategies work together to help achieve your law firm’s goals?
Many law firms consider PPC and SEO marketing strategies to be entirely separate entities. Sometimes, they view them as alternatives to one another and invest in only one (more often SEO).
Our experience in legal marketing has shown that a lot of the time, this is a mistake.
If you want your law firm website to reach its full potential in the SERPs, you need to integrate PPC and SEO into one another.
What is SEO for law firms and what is Pay-Per-Click ‘PPC’?
In short, SEO for law firms is a method for increasing a law firm’s website’s traffic through enhanced visibility and site authority. Read our guide to Law Firm SEO to learn the details.
PPC, on the other hand, uses paid adverts to generate traffic and claims. It does this through targeted ads on various platforms (search engines, social media, media outlets and others). Read our ultimate guide to PPC for law firms to learn the details.
While SEO and PPC differ, both methods aim to achieve similar goals.
Moreover, they can support each other by feeding vital information for helping to improve the performance of the other.
In order to explain the relationship between SEO and PPC, we will analyse the two digital marketing methods. We will look at what makes them different and how they are alike, and summarise how SEO and PPC support each other for the benefit of law firms.
The differences between SEO for law firms and legal PPC
First, let’s look at Search Engine Optimisation ‘SEO’ – the process of improving the quality and amount of website traffic to a website from search engines (Google, Bing, etc). There are numerous techniques for improving rankings, including content creation, technical optimisation, link building and other.
PPC, on the contrary, is a model of digital/online advertising where you pay (an allotted amount) each time someone clicks on your advert. Normally, you can set budgets to limit your spending.
Paid PPC ads (usually) show at the top of search engine listings – above the organic rankings influenced by SEO implementations so searchers see them first. If you want to generate traffic from your law firm ads, you must pay for the clicks (hence the name pay per click).
The same is not true of organic listings that obtain clicks as a result of earning visibility by utilising SEO techniques (though you will most likely need to pay an SEO expert to optimise your content).
The results generated from PPC campaigns are immediate. We have seen leads being generated within minutes of legal marketing campaigns going live. However, once the promotion ends, a website’s metrics are likely to return to pre-campaign levels (sometimes better but that depends on many factors).
On the contrary, SEO strategies often take a long time to start working and law firms may not see a return on their investment for many months or even years. But, once a firm’s SEO strategy starts producing results, those changes tend to stick for longer.
What are the similarities between SEO and PPC?
While SEO and PPC for law firms differ, they also share some commonalities.
Firstly, both techniques aim to drive traffic to a website and generate conversions for law firms which means their end goal is the same. The only difference is that one does this through paid means/ads, while the other through climbing the search engine rankings organically.
Secondly, SEO and PPC strategies both rely heavily on keywords. While PPC experts will conduct keyword research to identify which keywords are worth bidding on and which ones they should avoid (negative keywords), SEO specialists will analyse relevant terms and phrases to understand how to optimise titles, content, technical elements and other important on-site aspects.
Let’s now explore how using the two together is the formula for every law firm’s success…
How do PPC and SEO help each other and how can they help your law firm?
PPC and SEO for law firms are often aiming to achieve the same results. Furthermore, both strategies are actually supportive of each other.
Maximising “real estate” in search results
When a PPC expert runs a paid ad campaign for your law firm, your firm’s landing page will appear at the top of the search results, being the first search result they will see.
When this is coupled with SEO implementations and Google My Business listing, your law firm can potentially consume a larger proportion of the SERPs, showing ads at the top, your business listing further down, and organic listing just below that.
So, if a searcher for whatever reason skips over the ad section and goes directly to the organic results, they will still see your law firm.
This subsequently allows your firm’s website to gain triple the exposure you would get if you only employed one of the strategies.
Your chances that the user will click-through to your website are therefore tripled.
Furthermore, given that your law firm is well-represented in the search engine, this can enhance your credibility and therefore your prospective client’s confidence that your law firm is reputable and provides good quality legal services.
By combining the two techniques, you can more effectively guide your prospective clients to your website and encourage engagement.
PPC helps you uncover more valuable organic SEO keywords
In order for a law firm to appear in search engines for relevant queries, they must target the right keywords. If they don’t target the right keywords, they can end up wasting a lot of your money.
For law firms that have been optimising their websites for quite some time (and have been doing it correctly), they already have keyword data that can aid their PPC campaigns to produce better outcomes.
But, for those that are new to SEO, gauging how effective their efforts are can be quite a challenge given that the results of SEO campaigns take time to show.
But since PPC can generate immediate results, PPC experts can collect keywords that have proven to be profitable for law firms and pass that information along to SEO specialists to optimise pages for enhanced visibility and traffic.
Then, using keyword information from Pay Per Click campaigns can help SEO specialists to understand the types of terms that searchers are typing into search engines to show a company’s pages.
In summary, instead of waiting on SEO data to begin rolling in, marketers can use PPC data to make adjustments to SEO campaigns.
Once the SEO results begin to show, that information can be fed back to PPC advertisers to help improve the effectiveness of their campaigns.
Using PPC and SEO to combat negative PR
If your law firm is battling negative PR, Search Engine Optimisation and Pay Per Click can help.
Firms often have to battle negative reviews from dissatisfied customers and the internet makes it easy for information to spread which can result in stories being construed.
A combination of SEO and PPC strategies can help. How? They can increase your visibility and allow you to guide the conversation or steer it in a different direction.
Remember in 2010, millions of barrels of oil spilt into the Gulf of Mexico. The story obviously blew up all over the media as lives were lost and the environment was severely impacted. BP as a result took a huge hit.
So when this happened, BP implemented PPC and SEO strategies to direct people to their clean-up efforts. How did that work?
Whenever people searched related keywords, such as “BP oil spill”, instead of negative articles, they would see BP’s positive, green landing pages.
On the landing pages, BP detailed their clean up strategies, efforts and progress. The aim of this PR strategy was to divert the focus from the incident to what BP were doing to rectify the situation.
SEO and PPC are a great way to combat negative PR your law firm may face.
And even if you are not currently battling any negative PR, you can use the strategies to spread positive messages about your firm, your charitable work and so on.
It is an effective way to get extra exposure and drive valuable traffic to your law firm’s web page.
Access to valuable information about your law firm clients for your SEO campaigns
PPC can help you collect data about your audience which you can then use to refine your SEO strategy.
PPC adverts are not just limited to Google’s or Bing’s search results. Social media platforms (Facebook, LinkedIn) have paid ads you can run on their platform. These can not only help you increase your visibility, but also collect very valuable data.
Social media ads have much more precise targeting than standard PPC ads.
On social media platforms, you can target people based on their demographic information, socioeconomic status, interests, marital status, careers and much more. People share enormous amounts of information about themselves on their social media profiles.
In essence, Pay Per Click ads can help you collect data about people interested in your legal services and help you visualise your ideal customer. This in turn allows you to refine your strategy and learn more about your audience in general.
You can then apply that knowledge to your firm’s website. It is an effective way for you to optimise your SEO strategy to build a tailored website your audience will find interesting.
Legal SEO opens up opportunities for remarketing
Paid search can be used to further support moving along your client’s journey.
SEO might essentially open the door to traffic. Paid search can continue engaging the visitor in other places on the internet / social media.
Have you ever noticed that an ad has been ‘following you’ around on social media or news sites? That is remarketing.
Remarketing is a great strategy as it allows you to regain visitors by showing them paid ads in different places (news sites, articles, etc.).
Remarketing adverts (usually display adverts) let you create custom messages which prompt prospective clients to revisit your website and complete a purchase. All thanks to SEO and PPC working together!
An integrated approach can deliver the best results for your law firm
PPC and SEO combined can deliver great results for your law firm and help you reach your full potential in the SERPs.
By measuring and tracking information collected from your website and ad campaigns, your PPC and SEO experts can work together to elevate the performance and, more importantly, the profitability of each methodology.
SEO and PPC have a lot in common, mostly that they each work in driving business goals.
Since both tactics are intrinsically linked, it is imperative that law firms learn how to feed information back and forth between their SEO and PPC teams. This is the true secret to dominating the competition in the SERPs!
Have questions about using SEO and PPC?
Intellistart is here to help. If you have any questions after reading this blog post feel free to contact us or reach out to Ewelina or Joel directly on LinkedIn
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