Three PPC Myths That Could Cost You Business
You’ve probably heard of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. You’ve certainly seen it. A PPC ad appears at or near the beginning of a search engine results page (SERP). It resembles a standard SERP result – except that it also prominently includes the word “Ad.”
Perhaps your firm has even considered using it PPC as a marketing tool, then decided against it. You think it’s too much trouble, too much money, or you just don’t need it.
Only one problem with those arguments – they’re not really true.
A free online publication from FindLaw called “Promoting Your Firm with Pay-Per-Click: A Marketing Playbook for Attorneys” rebuts these myths. When conducted correctly, a PPC campaign can boost the number of potential clients that find your firm.
So why are the myths, well, myths? Here’s a close look at three main misconceptions:
1. My Website is Enough
If your firm is both tech-savvy and marketing-savvy, it has spent good money designing an attractive website loaded with keywords that will grab people’s attention when they search online for legal representation. And if you want to build your clientele, that’s what you should do.
But these days, a powerful website just isn’t powerful enough – not if you want to attract as much business as your firm is capable of taking on. Think of those keywords, for instance. There is no single set of search terms that will bring legal consumers knocking on your digital door. For one thing, it’s likely that your competitors are using many or most of the same terms. A PPC ad can provide you with the prime SERP position that even well-chosen keywords can’t always deliver.
2. PPC Costs too Much Money
It is advertising, so yes, it will require a line item in the firm’s budget. With PPC, your firm creates an ad tied to a set of keywords and topics your prospective clients are likely to search for. If your PPC ad is clicked, the consumer is directed to a simple, dedicated landing page your firm has created. And you pay the search engine a small fee.
You pay only for the each ad click. How much you pay depends on what keywords you’re targeting and the competitiveness of your market. But compared to other forms of advertising, PPC is cheap. You pay only for the click and the search engine fee.
PPC also is flexible. You can create campaigns and landing pages for specific target markets, without needing to redesign your website.
3. PPC Takes too Long to Deliver Results
You might have heard this from other attorneys or from business clients. And it is true that PPC requires patience.
When you begin a PPC campaign, you might not see a big boost in potential business at first. But once your firm builds up a history, you can make adjustments to improve your performance – choosing more effective keywords, for instance.
Advertisers with established, high-performing ads typically receive a lower cost per click for the same or better ad position. So as your performance increases, your cost per click could decrease.
What’s Next
As more and more firms market themselves online, it has become harder to put some space between competitors. PPC can provide that space. It’s becoming a core component of an integrated marketing strategy that includes your SEO-maximized website, as well as other tools you might choose – blogs, social media, links to articles you’ve written.
But PPC only works if you do it strategically. FindLaw’s “Promoting Your Firm with Pay-Per-Click” playbook reveals ways for doing just that. You can download it here.
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