SEO and Paid Search are both very important marketing options for law firm marketing in 2024. Considering that over 90% of consumers use Google to conduct research when looking for an attorney, it’s where every law firm wants to have high visibility. But Google isn’t the only option you have when it comes to running paid ads. This includes Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and even TikTok in some cases. Answering the question of SEO vs Paid Search will be different for every firm. Naturally, it depends on your law firm’s firm’s marketing goals, your budget, revenue targets, the time frame in which you are looking to generate new cases and which types of cases you are going after. To start, let’s talk about the advantages and disadvantages of SEO and Paid Ads.
SEO for Law Firm Marketing
Advantages:
- Can provide the best value: SEO is usually more cost-effective in the long run because the cost per click is typically going to be far less expensive than paid search in the long run. Again, this depends on if you have a great law firm SEO company handling your search engine optimization. If you aren’t working with an agency capable of getting you first page results for a wide variety of search phrases, you are throwing money out the window.
- Improves your credibility and trust: Consumers have more trust in brands that rank high on search engines like Google, especially when that law firm has stellar reviews online. Consumers tend to trust companies that rank high in the organic results more than they do the businesses appearing in paid results.
- Quantifiable results: You can measure the performance of your SEO campaign by looking at Google analytics, reviewing Google Search Console, tracking the leads you get and the number of new cases you sign up. Our client dashboard will allow you to see which leads you get that come from organic vs paid, and what specific channels the leads are coming from. This is important so you can measure what is working best for you.
- Ability to target specific types of cases: Smart law firm SEO campaigns target traffic that is specific to the types of cases you are looking to generate. If you are just targeting “accidents”, that’s not good enough. We want to target very specific types of cases that you want so you can generate more revenue for your firm.
- Sustainability: Unlike PPC, your rankings won’t immediately drop if you stop SEO. Eventually, they will most likely drop if you stop SEO and your competitors are doing SEO, but you can still get plenty of traffic if the SEO company did a great job.
Disadvantages:
- Time: It takes time to see results from SEO efforts. The length of time it can take depend on the level of competition on Google for the types of keywords you are targeting. It may take a few months, or it make take over a year for very important keywords that are highly competitive.
- Competition is high: SEO for law firms is the most competitive vertical in all of SEO. For this reason, it’s crucial that you select a great SEO company that has the capability of getting you where you want. iLawyer has been able to get law firms ranking on the first page of Google even in the most competitive markets in the country. Ask us to share our results with you.
- Can be expensive: Good SEO in 2024 is not cheap. Especially in competitive geographic areas. Like most investments, you will most likely not see an immediate return. If you stick with it long enough however, your investment can pay off many times over.
- Google prioritizes ads in SERPs: Google Ads are the primary source of Google’s revenue, so they will continue to prioritize ads over organic results for most searches.
- Unknown algorithm updates: Sometimes an algorithm may hit and your site rankings may drop as a result. Google updates their organic ranking algorithm thousands of times per year. This is the reason why SEO usually requires work month in, month out. At iLawyerMarketing, we’ve built our own Google algorithm detection software to help us stay on top of all the algorithm updates that may impact your rankings.
Paid Search for Law Firm Marketing
Advantages:
- Immediate Visibility: Paid ads can lead to getting results very quickly, since you can have high visibility on Google, Facebook and other ad platforms.
- Highly Targeted: Depending on the ad platform, you can target specific demographics, geographic locations, interests, income levels, etc. With Google Ads, we can target the specific search phrases that we know will lead to more conversions and more new signed cases.
- Budget Control: You can control how much you spend on a daily or monthly basis.
- Measurable ROI: Paid search provides clear metrics to measure your return on investment. If you are reporting new signed cases to our team, we will be able to know exactly what the cost per signed case is.
Disadvantages:
- Cost: Depending on the competition for keywords, PPC can be expensive. Cost Per Click (CPC) in legal is the highest of any industry, with some specific keywords that can host hundreds of dollars just for one click. When it comes to Google Ads, you will need to have a healthy budget to compete. All the more reason why you need landing pages that convert at a high rate.
- Short-term: Once you stop paying, your visibility disappears instantly.
- Requires significant experience and expertise: Paid ad platforms are complex. Understanding which specific ads to run, which images to use, what headlines and ad copy to use, which ways to target, etc. requires someone that really knows that they are doing when it comes to law firm marketing. Although ultimately Google wants to automate everything, they are far from having law firm an automated solution that works right now. Successful PPC campaigns require constant monitoring and adjustments to maximize campaign efficiency.
Which is Best for Your Law Firm?
Hands down, the best approach is to do both organic SEO and paid ads. You never want to strictly rely on one single source for your leads, so diversifying your inbound lead sources is very important. This is why a multi-channel marketing plan is the smartest thing you can do.
The firms that are having the most success with their marketing right now are running both organic and paid ads. If you cannot afford to do both, and you are forced to choose one or the other, then you have to figure out what makes the most sense for your law firm. Things to consider include:
- How soon do you need new cases? If you need cases right away, PPC is the way to go. For building a long-term online presence and getting organic leads, SEO is more effective and can ultimately provide a much better CPL (Cost Per Lead) and CPSC (Cost Per Signed Case) than paid ads can.
- What kind of budget are you working with? In some markets for certain areas of law, you will need a good sized budget if you want to have success running ads. For example, if you are going after MVA cases in a competitive market, you are going to need t least a $10,000 budget to compete. If you really want to have success, you will need an even larger budge. There are lots of firms spending $50,000-$100,000+ per month on paid ads, but they spend that money because it’s working. If you don’t have a large marketing budget, SEO might offer more sustainable results. For SEO, we often see budgets of $5,000+ per month, depending on the types of cases being targeted and the market you are in.
- What types of cases are you trying to generate? The types of cases you are going after will often determine the types of marketing we recommend. If you are going after the same searches every other firm is going after, you will often need a more tailored strategy. Sometimes going after niches is the way to go since there is less competition.
- Can you invest in a multi-channel approach? In a perfect world, you have visibility on all major search engines and ad platforms. This might mean organic SEO for Google, as well as paid Google Ads, Bing Ads, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, and possibly streaming services. At the very least, you should be running retargeting ads on most of these platforms to try and get people back to your site so you can convert those visitors into paying clients.
We can provide you with a free marketing analysis and strategy session
It will help to speak to an experienced legal marketing consultant at our office, to help you decide what is most appropriate for your law firm. Each of our reps has significant legal marketing consulting experience, so you’d be talking to someone that truly understands how to help law firms become more profitable through marketing. If you are interested in learning how iLawyerMarketing is helping law firms all across the country through smarter marketing strategies, contact us today.
If you are like most other business owners, you are wanting to reduce the size of your tax payment to Uncle Sam. One of the smartest ways to reduce your tax liability is through digital marketing, especially since it’s an expense that lead to increased revenue for your law firm. An often-overlooked strategy is taking advantage of digital marketing expenses at the end of the year.
Marketing as a Deductible Expense for Law Firms
Most law firm owners know this, but not enough take advantage of it. The IRS allows businesses to reduce their taxable income by deducting expenses that are considered necessary and ordinary for running the business. Digital marketing falls under these deductible business expenses. This includes a variety of costs such as website development, online advertising campaigns, search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, and social media marketing. All the ideas below qualify as deductible expenses. So, here are 9 marketing ideas for you to consider as we approach the end of 2023:
1. Law firm videos to increase website conversion rates
In a recent study, 90% of consumers aged 30 and up said that having a video about the firm would help them in their decision process of hiring a law firm. Video is one of the best ways a law firm can increase the conversion rate on their website. Of course, a video that does not impress visitors can also hurt conversion rates, so not all videos improve conversion rates. At iLawyerMarketing, we regularly conduct consumer studies to learn how consumer think and what they respond best to. We utliize this insight and make sure we create law firm videos that will increase the consumers trust in your firm, which ultimately leads to more leads and signed cases. If you don’t have great video on your site, consider having video created for your firm, improve conversion rates and lower your tax bill all at the same time. Here’s a sample of our work below.
2. Run Video Ads on Social to increase brand awareness and leads for your law firm
Running awareness ads on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube (and depending on your target audience, possibly TikTok and LinkedIn) is another marketing idea. If you are looking to create more brand awareness, video is a great way to do this. With the use of demographic targeting on these platforms, and depending on what types of cases you are looking to generate, this may make a lot of sense for your practice. Since video production is a tax deduction, this is a smart investment for most law firms.
3. Run OTT (Over The Top) Ads to increase awareness and lead volume
Have ever considered running OTT ads? OTT refers to streaming services that provide content over the internet, bypassing traditional cable or satellite television platforms. When you see advertisements on platforms like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, or other streaming services, these are OTT ads. These ads can be highly targeted based on the viewer’s interests, viewing habits, and demographics, making them an effective tool for marketers. For law firms, this is another branding play that can increase awareness for your law firm in the geographic market you want.
4. Have a linkable asset created for your website to help improve rankings
Linkable assets are share-worthy pieces of content on your site that can help your website improve overall rankings by generating more links for your website. Depending on the type of asset you have created, they at times can also help you attract attention from local media outlets. We’ve had many linkable assets and clients featured on local news sites (and even TV).
These aren’t your standard pieces of content on a law firm website, but are usually data driven content that can be very helpful in the link building process. Some of most successful law firm clients have our team create multiple linkable assets every year. Considering they can also help lower the amount you owe on your tax return, having a linkable asset created for your firm makes a lot of sense.
5. Run ads on Facebook & Instagram to create more awareness for your law firm
Since advertising costs are tax-deductible, you might consider running ads on Facebook and Instagram. Retargeting ads, awareness ads, or both may make sense for your law firm. There are hundreds of millions of Americans that use Facebook and/or Instagram every single day. Combine that with the ability to demographically target users makes it an option that most law firms should consider.
6. Run a Google Ads campaign to increase leads and new signed cases
Most law firms are familiar with Google ads, but most law firms who have tried running ads on Google in the past have not had a great experience. Click costs and LSA leads costs are constantly on the rise, which make it a big challenge. The reality of running Google Ads is that just like SEO, it takes time to optimize the campaign. However, if managed correctly and with the right sized budget, Google Ads can be a powerful way to help you sign up more new cases. It takes a great landing page that will maximize conversions, manually managed ad campaigns by highly experienced law firm paid search experts, offline conversion reporting (which our proprietary sofware does) and the appropriate budget. Over the years, we’ve had plenty of clients pre-pay ad costs to help lower their tax payments at the end of the year.
7. Have a specialty website developed to help you target specific cases
Are there specific types of cases that you would love to generate for your law firm? Bicycle accidents? Truck accidents? Child custody cases? Wrongful termination? Creating a specialty website dedicated to the types of cases you want has proven to be a very powerful way to generate leads and cases.
8. Add additional content to your website to increase traffic and leads
Adding more content to your site, as long as it’s not low quality or simply auto-generated, is always a good idea. This helps to increase the number of keywords you could be found for, can help improve your topical authority and can help improve trust and rankings with the search engines. If you are adding 2,000 words of content to your site each month, you may want to increase to 4,000 or 8,000 words, or even more depending on what your needs are. This content can be used to create new pages, add new blog posts, refresh existing content or increase the length of your current content to convert standard length pages into long form pages. Most importantly, creating consistent content should help you increase your lead volume.
9. Expand Your SEO to target a bigger geographic area
Last, but certainly not least, is expanding your SEO efforts. You may currently only be targeting your local city or county, but it may make sense to target additional cities, counties or even the entire state. The more local geo areas you appear on the first page of Google results, the more leads and cases you will be able to generate for your law firm.
Any questions?
We’d be happy to answer any questions you have. Feel free to call us our fill out a contact form below if you would like to discuss any of these ideas further.
As part of our regular research into how consumers hire lawyers, we wanted to conduct a new study that looked at ways that law firm’s could increase the number of leads for their practice. The study involved over 1,300 participants from all across the U.S. One of the questions we wanted to dig into was what things would cause consumers to leave a law firm website.
Since Conversion Rate Optimization is very important to the success of any law firm’s marketing, understanding what helps or hurts conversion rate is extremely important to us when we design and build websites for a law firm. Our goal is always to try and increase the number of leads and signed cases you get out of your marketing. The truth is, if your site is causing potential new clients to leave your site, you are losing out on revenue for your law firm. This is why the sites created by iLawyerMarketing are better than most other law firm websites. Because while our sites may look great, they also are built with conversion rate optimization best practices that we have learned over the years of doing law firm marketing and conducting studies like this one.
So, why do consumers leave law firm websites? Here are the top reasons people gave in this new study.
#1 – Not Enough Information About the Firm
According to study participants, 76% said they would a law firm website if it didn’t have enough information about the firm. There are a few ways this can be problematic for law firms and some may not be obvious. It may be truly be a situation where there is not enough information about the firm on the site (or landing page). It may be that there is not enough information that will convince a visitor that your law firm is a good choice. It may be that the information is not easily found by visitors. Since many website visitors just scan through text on web pages, the information might be on your site, but visitors may miss that content if it’s not designed to stand out. These days, of course not all information is written in text. It can also be info provided in videos. In a previous study, 89% of people said that having video about the firm would help them in their decision making process of hiring a lawyer.
#2 – Slow Loading Websites
This isn’t a surprise to most in the marketing world, as we know this is a big reason that visitors leave a site. In our study, we found that 69% of people said they would leave a law firm’s website if it was slow loading. The issue for most is on mobile. When someone is not connected to WiFi, sites will naturally load slower, so it’s important for your law firm website to load quickly, especially when someone loads up your site on their cell phone. Not only does that impact conversions, a slow loading site can also negatively impact Google rankings.
#3 – Outdated law firm website
Do people actually care about the way a law firm’s website looks? Absolutely. Your website is a direct reflection of your law firm for the consumer. In fact, 64% of study participants listed this as a reason they would leave a law firm’s site. An outdated website can send a message to a firm that you are not a “modern” and aren’t a technically savvy law firm. It can also send a message to the consumer that you aren’t a successful practice, because (according to consumers) if you were a very successful law firm, then you would have the money to spend on having a great website. Is that reality? Of course that’s not always the case, but it is how consumers perceive lawyers and their websites. Considering how fast technology is moving these days, it’s easy for design to become dated. Don’t let an outdated design cost you cases!
#4 – Text that is too small
Nobody likes coming across a website that uses text that is difficult to read. Some people put up with it and others just leave a website when they come across this issue. 54% of participants listed this as a reason that would cause them to leave a law firm’s website. We observe this as being a problem more often on mobile than on desktop, but there are lots of law firm websites we see with this issue. How does your website look on mobile? Is it hard to read? Don’t just think of how it looks to you, but keep in mind the age range of your target consumers. If you are targeting an older audience, this is even more important to make sure your content is easy to read.
#5 – No Client Testimonials
Most law firms know the importance of having client testimonials. If you don’t have any on your site, you need to add these as soon as possible. If you only have a few, work on adding additional testimonials, you can always benefit from having more. Especially if they are video testimonials, which consumers find to be the most credible and carry the most weight with them. If you don’t have video client testimonials, work on getting some to help improve your conversion rates.
What are other top reasons people gave for leaving a website?
- 46% said not enough examples of successful past results on the website
- 24% said they would leave if there was no live chat option (live human chat, not chatbots)
- 16% said no videos about the firm would cause them to leave
A great website (with great SEO) that takes all these things into consideration will have improved marketing return on investment and will help you generate more revenue for your law firm.
Contact us today if you interested in generating more leads and cases for your law firm in 2024!
You want more leads and more signed cases, right? As experts in law firm marketing, we have always focused our services on helping law firms generate more business by providing next level SEO services, running smarter PPC campaigns, providing great legal content and building beautiful websites that are focused on maximizing visitor conversion rates. As every law firm owner knows, there’s a lot more to signing up new cases than just great marketing. You still have to be able to convert those leads you get into actual paying clients, and intake is key component of that process. Improving your intake process will ultimately mean more signed cases and more revenue for your law firm, so it’s something your firm should take very seriously.
On average , the typical consumer will consider 3 to 5 law firms before they decide on which one to hire. In most cases, the law firms that have the best legal intake process are the ones that end up winning the competition for that consumer. So, what can you do to improve your law firm’s intake process?
Tips for Improving Your Intake
1. Have live answering available 24/7
For most firms, it makes no sense to have employees answering calls after hours. That’s why many firms today use a 3rd partry answering service to handle their after hours or overflow calls. In a recent study we ran, nearly 40% of people said if they were sent to voicemail, they would hang up and call a different law firm if they were trying to contact a law firm for a consultation. That means that case is most likely going to end up in the hands of a competitor. Don’t make that mistake, it’s not worth missing out on a case just because you don’t have a 24/7 answering serice.
We recently partnered with Alert Communications, the best legal answering service in the industry, to be able to provide this service to all our clients at a discounted rate..
2. Have empathetic people answering your phones
The importance of having great people answering your firm’s phone calls cant be understated. This can make or break a firm’s ability to sign up new clients. Over the years, we’ve listened to many intake phone calls for quality assurance purposes and sometimes the rudeness or lack of empathy shown by some intake people has been disturbing. We get it, it’s easy to become desensetized when a person has been doing legal intake for a long time but this is incredibly important to being able to sign up new clients. Make sure you have great people in this position.
3. Get back to people quickly
The faster you get back to people, the more likely you are to be able to sign that potential client. That’s because most people that are looking for lawyers are contacting multiple law firms. Getting back to people quickly means that the person is less likely to have already singed with another firm. In our recent study, 45% of study participants said they would want a call back within 1 hour. If you are too busy to get back to people right away, consider a 3rd party provider that can help you with this process.
4. Hire Bilingual Intake People
Did you know that in the U.S., 13% of the population speaks Spanish at home? A whopping 54 million people in the U.S. speak Spanish, and depending on where your firm is located and if you are targeting Spanish speakers, this might be very important. Not to mention it can be a differentiatior for some people looking to hire an attorney. If you dont have Spanish speaking intake people in house, again that’s where a 3rd party legal intake specialist can help. Our partner company Alert Communications can help here.
5. Listen to random call recordings to monitor quality
If you are recording your phone calls, you should occasionally listen to the calls for quality assurance purposes. You may learn a lot about your intake people by reviewing how they are handling calls.
6. Create a Scorecard for Your Intake People
You should be evaluating your intake people by a set of measurable standards. That might be total number of consultation appointments booked, total number of new cases signed from their intake, how quick they respond, or other metrics important to you and your firm. Give them goals and something they can shoot for and consider creating an incentive program for them.
7. Offer Live Chat on Your Site
According to our latest study, 24% of people would to use prefer live chat to ask questions for the firm. This number has increased over the years, as more and more people get used to using chat as an option on websites. However, don’t confuse this with chat bots. Consumers do not like chatting with chat bots if they can chat with a live human.
iLawyerMarketing now offers live chat to all our clients, as this now comes standard in all our website packages. This is another benefit of our partnership with Alert Communications, as we can also offer this at a discounted rate to our clients.
8. Use a client relationship management (CRM) system
Investing in a reliable client relationship management (CRM) system can significantly improve your law firm’s intake process. A CRM system can help you track and manage leads, monitor client interactions, and automate follow-ups. With a CRM system, you can efficiently capture and analyze data to identify trends, measure conversion rates, and identify areas for improvement in your intake process.
9. Evaluate and refine your intake process
Continuous evaluation and refinement of your law firm’s intake process is crucial for ongoing improvement. Regularly gather feedback from clients about their intake experience to identify pain points and areas for enhancement. Analyze metrics such as conversion rates, response times, and client satisfaction scores to measure the effectiveness of your intake process. Based on these insights, make necessary adjustments to streamline the process and deliver an exceptional client experience.
In an ever-evolving digital marketing environment, one element remains consistent – Google’s domination of search engine market share. This also holds true when it comes to how consumers research and look for lawyers online, with 90% of consumers saying they would use Google. As marketers, we want to know where people are clicking when it comes to Google search results. Are people clicking on LSAs more than traditional search ads? What percentage of people click on local packs? How does the placement of ads and local pack impact organic clicks? To find out, we ran a click-test study of a Google search result page with a total of 1,001 participants.
Each person in our study was shown an image of Google search results. They were asked to click on the one search result that they were most likely to click first if they were looking for a car accident lawyer. They were also asked to explain why they clicked where they did.
Note: It’s important to keep in mind that this was a “first-click” study, meaning the user only clicked one time on the image. The main study purpose was to identify what parts of the search results captured the user’s attention the most. In a “real world” scenario, users click on many different results when using Google to find law firms online. However, understanding what makes people click where they do is a crucial part of optimizing any digital marketing campaign.
SERP Click Distribution
While clicks were all over the place, as shown in the click map image below, the LSAs received the most clicks, followed by the local pack and then organic search results. We’ll dig into each of these items below.
LSAs
In our study, the LSAs clearly got the most activity. Considering LSAs are positioned at the very top of the page for most local searches for law firms, I don’t think this will shock most marketers. If you combine the 3 LSAs plus the “more results” link below those ads, 42% of participants clicked LSA-related links. One ad, in particular, was the most clicked of any element on the page, at a whopping 28%. Interestingly, the very first LSA ad only received 3% of the clicks and the LSA in the middle received 6%. We expected that first LSA to receive a much higher percentage of first-clicks, but these results show that it’s not simply about your location on the page. Reviews of course are a huge influencer in CTR, as well as the text that accompanies the ad. As for the ad that received 28% of the clicks, here are some of the specific reasons why participants clicked where they did:
- “It has the most positive ratings.”
- “It had the highest star rating with the most rating contributions. An added plus was it also had the most years in service.”
- “It had a 5-star rating with the most reviews. I initially noticed Seattle Car Accident Law Firm first, but there were fewer reviews, so I clicked on the link with more reviews.”
- “High number of good reviews, high number of years in business.”
- “I liked that this lawyer was Google-screened, had 32 years of experience, and a high number of positive reviews.”
You can see the pattern here. It’s all about the star ratings, review count, and years of experience.
Local Packs
The Local Packs received 29% of the first-clicks in our study. The local pack listed #1 received 14% of the clicks, #2 received 12% and #3 only received 1% of clicks, which was surprising. The remainder of the clicks went to the filter by rating drop-down that appears above the first map pack listing. Here are some of the reasons that users gave for why they clicked on where they did in the local packs.
- “I typically skip directly past sponsored results, and I would be drawn toward search results that have a lot of reviews and have been around for a while.”
- “I want to see real user reviews for each business. The ‘Google screened” seems fake and probably they paid Google to be there.”
- “High rating and years in practice”
- “This is an established law firm with over 20 years of experience. I would start my search with this law firm.”
- “They had very good reviews and were in business the longest so probably have a lot of good cases under their belts and know the area well.”
Just like the LSAs, ratings, and reviews were the most common reasons participants gave for why they clicked where they did.
Organics
The top 5 organic listings received 22% of the first-clicks in our study, with the #1 position accounting for 50% of the total. Interestingly, the #3 organic position received 6% of clicks and the #2 organic spot only took in 1%. This goes to show you that consumers don’t always click on results in the order in which they appear. Many users scan the page and read the titles and descriptions to help them decide which listings to click on. This is why it’s important to pay attention to CTR optimization. I don’t think anyone would be surprised that the organics took in fewer clicks than the LSAs or local packs, considering how far down the page the organics were here. Considering that Google continues to emphasize paid listings and with all the changes occurring in Google SERPs, don’t expect this to get better for these bottom-of-the-funnel searches. Here are some of the reasons given for why users made this their 1st click:
- “Because the first regular Google results are usually the most trustworthy.”
- “It is the first link of the main results. I don’t usually trust the sponsored ones.”
- “Because the link was not labeled as sponsored.”
- “Looking for a curated list of the best lawyers from a trustworthy source”
- “It was the first non-sponsored website that showed up”.
The underlying theme here with participants who clicked on organic results was that they were not paid for and were, therefore, more trustworthy.
While the LSAs and local pack received much higher activity in our study, it’s important to keep in mind that paid ads or local packs don’t always appear in search results, so organic SEO remains incredibly important for law firms. Especially for long tail or other top of the funnel searches. We currently track around 20,000 law related keywords in our Google algorithm monitoring software and at this time, exactly 50% of the queries we track included LSAs. Smarter marketers are optimizing your site for bottom, middle and top of the funnel search terms.
For firms that have invested in SEO for a while and that have a great law firm SEO services company behind them, most know that SEO still provides the very best value when it comes to cost per lead or cost per signed case, especially considering the rising costs of paid search ads on Google.
Important Takeaways
- LSAs get the most first-clicks when they appear in the SERPs
- Users clicked most on the LSA listing with the most reviews, highest ratings, and most experience
- Local pack listings with the most reviews and the most years of experience received the most clicks
- The #1 organic result received the 4th most clicks of any item on the page.
- Google SERPs are constantly changing and you can expect more changes to be made.
- LSAs do not appear for most law related search terms so having high visibility in organic results remains important.
Current Changes in SERPs
We have been observing much more variation in the Google search results of late for searches in the legal industry. I don’t just mean ranking changes, but changes in what SERP features are displaying. For example, we have observed Google reducing the number of local packs that show up (and we aren’t the only ones, as Joy Hawkins mentions here) in searches, as mentioned by Barry Schwartz on Twitter recently.
We’ve seen many other different variations in the layouts of Google search results as well. Sometimes searches include LSAs but do not display text ads, as was the case in our study. We’ve seen paid ads appear in the local 3-pack. Other times, both LSAs and search ads appear in local searches. In other instances, the local packs appear near the bottom of the SERPs. You can click the thumbnails below to see larger versions.
SERPs – No LSAs | SERPs – Local pack at bottom |
The point being, you can’t rely on anything right now because there are so many changes occurring at this time. You can expect additional changes overall when Google introduces AI chat features to its core search engine. It will be interesting to see how these changes impact the legal vertical, but you can be sure we will be watching closely. As an FYI, currently, we track over 30,000 law-related keywords on Google search results every day (and have for many years).
Final Comments
Again, I’ll point out that this was a 1st click test, and in a real-world scenario, users will be clicking on many different results when using Google to research which law firms to hire. During our many consumer testing studies over the years, we’ve consistently observed people clicking on BOTH paid and organic listings in the same set of Google search results. We also know that’s true from Google Analytics data that we analyze on a regular basis. Additionally, it’s important to keep in mind that Google Ad costs will continue to rise. I don’t know about your law firm, but most firms we work with don’t have an unlimited paid budget. No matter what, you should never put all your eggs in one basket and rely on one thing only.
The smartest thing for law firms to do is to run both organic and paid ads if budget allows. If properly optimized, running both organic and paid campaigns will ultimately give you the best chance of signing up new clients on a consistent basis.
We will continue to run additional click test studies, as further testing is needed considering all the changes that are happening of late. If you want to be alerted when we publish new studies, make sure to sign up for our newsletter.