Gone are the days when legal service providers and law firms found it difficult to market their services to clients. The online and digital tools now available to them, especially Google, have made it easier to find clients. Clients are using Google and search engines to find law firms whenever they are in need of this service. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to land that next big client by using a new advertising format – local service ads. If you want to know how to get more personal injury clients, make sure to learn more about how this new advertising tool works.
What are Local Service Ads?
Local service ads are those types of ads that are displayed at the very top of Google when performing searches. They are placed above the PPC ads and organic search results. Simply put, they are the first thing that users see on Google when performing a search.
This huge opportunity is available to law firms and you can use it to target clients within your local area. For example, if you type in “personal injury lawyer Los Angeles”, you will typically be given two types of results. The first one is either Google My Business listings or PPC ads. The second one would be the organic search results.
For law firms operating in competitive areas, it becomes more difficult to get ranked on Google for competitive keywords. The first page is almost dominated by ads. However, local service ads are different from a traditional PPC ad. It is visible on all platforms you are using to search via Google – mobile, desktop, or tablet devices.
But here is the major difference with local service ads: they are pay per lead. They are not like PPC ads, which, as the name suggests, are based on a pay-per-click campaign method. You will be bidding on a per-lead basis with local service ads. Therefore, you will only be spending money on reliable and quantifiable leads (particularly phone call leads). There are several factors that impact how your listings appear in relation to a given search, which is something that you must learn if you want to know how to get more personal injury clients.
Tips for Setting Up Local Service Ads
Setting up local service ads puts you on an even playing field with the bigger firms. Google uses this new ad format to ensure that smaller firms can have the opportunity to obtain valuable leads too. It recognizes that a lot of smaller firms put emphasis on providing the best customer experience, and they want to reward that by placing them higher on relevant searches. Moreover, you will only be paying for phone calls made towards your business that last for more than 30 seconds.
With this in mind, it is important to learn how to get started setting up local service ads for your personal injury law firm.
First off, Google won’t require you to run a traditional PPC campaign in order to use local service ads. This is good news for smaller firms because the barrier of entry is low. Here is a detailed guide on how you can begin setting up local service ads:
- Go to the signup page in Google Local Service Ads.
- On the Eligibility page, you will be shown a list of the common practice areas for law firms. Select your main practice area to continue setting up your profile.
- To set up your profile, you must fill out the necessary information about your law firm. The information required will be more exhaustive than your traditional Google My Business listing.
- The next step in the setup process is the “Service Area” page where you will be asked to indicate the applicable zip codes for the cities you are serving.
- The remaining few steps will require information such as other service types and business hours.
- Before you can get the “Google Screened” badge, you must go through additional steps to verify your business. Once you see the “Google Screened” message, you are at the final step in the process.
How to Get More Personal Injury Clients
Once you have your Local Service Ads profile set up, you can now focus on how to get more personal injury clients. The information about your business will be used by Google to determine a “suggested budget” for your listing. This budget is closely linked to the estimated cost per lead and the number of leads you wish to target.
You can set up a temporary budget, if you don’t know how much you should spend on this campaign. You can always change this information later. The budget you allocate to this campaign will depend on factors such as your location, practice areas, number of leads you can handle, and more.
So, how do local service ads help you get more clients? It’s simple. Google uses proximity and online reputation as two of the major factors when determining which local service ads to list for a given search. For web users, there is confidence knowing that the law firms they have to choose from are reputable and screened based on their location.
This is a fantastic way for personal injury law firms to target users that won’t normally find them using traditional Google searches. This new ad format is initially available to law firms; expect that law firms will be jumping on this opportunity to get more leads (and eventually, clients) for their firm.
But just because your law firm is listed on Google, it doesn’t mean that you can sit back and wait. You need to actively seek glowing reviews – because Google loves great reviews, and they will reward you for it! When seeking out reviews from your clients, be professional and always observe the code of ethics in your practice.
It’s also a good idea to be as responsive to your leads as possible. Make sure you respond to your leads promptly. At a minimum, aim for a same-day response when you get new leads for your law firm. The longer you make a lead wait, the more its value declines.
