There are tons of people in NYC, and that means tons of competition when it comes to advertising, especially for law firms in the Big Apple. The local market being so ridiculously competitive makes it incredibly difficult to run successful pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns, since the PPC costs are astronomical, and everyone is competing for the same traffic. Fortunately, if you work for an NYC law firm, there are ways you can optimize PPC campaigns to get the most return on investment out of them. This article will discuss some of the best PPC strategies for NYC law firms to optimize their campaigns and reach urban clients without going bankrupt.
Understand the NYC Legal Market’s Competitive Landscape
Huge numbers of law firms are based in NYC, so the PPC ad costs are much, much higher than most other cities. Legal service keywords in a market like NYC can cost over $100 per click, depending on the practice area. Sectors like personal injury, criminal defense, and family law are in particularly high demand. As a result, your firm needs to target and optimize its approach to PPC campaigns to get the most bang for its huge amount of bucks.
Your law firm PPC strategies in NYC should be focused on high-intent keywords while paying careful attention to the budget. You should be mixing keywords that perform well with campaigns tailored to niche areas of legal expertise. When you target a niche like this, you’ll save on some of the cost because there’s less competition, while still generating quality leads. Instead of going for broad, generic keywords like “lawyers in NYC,” focus on something more specific like “immigration lawyer in Queens” or “NYC divorce attorney.” Getting more specific with the keywords like this will lower the PPC costs while still netting a good amount of conversion rates.
Utilize Geotargeting for Precision
New York City is incredibly vast and diverse, so geotargeting is a great way to focus your PPC for legal services in New York. There’s such a huge range of boroughs and neighborhoods, so your firm needs to target the specific areas they serve instead of NYC as a whole. Focusing on just the boroughs, or even specific zip codes you serve like this is one of the best PPC tactics for lawyers in NYC. You’ll get a lot of local traffic, and save the ad spend that would be wasted on people outside your service areas.
Choose Keywords Wisely
If you’re running PPC campaigns for NYC law firms, you should be limiting irrelevant clicks by focusing on the ideal keyword match types. Use exact and phrase match keywords to keep your ads displaying only to people looking for the most relevant services. When you use exact match keywords, your ads will only be shown to people searching for those exact terms. Phrase match gives you some more flexibility, it’ll show ads to people searching for close variations of your keywords.
Using these match types reduces the clicks coming from people looking for legal services you don’t provide, so it’s a great way to optimize PPC for legal services in New York. On the other hand, broad match keywords can result in a lot of wasted ad spend, since they’ll trigger on searches that aren’t aligned as closely with your firm.
Another effective way to optimize your PPC campaigns is to incorporate negative keywords. These are simply keywords that you don’t want your ads to show for. This will stop your ads from showing for these keywords, so you’ll save money. For example, if your firm handles personal injury cases, you might want to exclude terms related to estate law or employment law from your PPC campaigns.
Leverage Responsive Search Ads for Better Ad Performance
Google offers Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) that let you test multiple headline and description variations automatically. This is great for competitive markets like NYC, where ad performance can change based on time of day, client demographics, and specific boroughs. RSAs will test different combinations of your headlines and descriptions and optimize the ad’s content in real time, so they’re a great tool to improve performance and maximize ROI on legal PPC ads in NYC.
You can get the best results from RSAs with a mix of long-tail and short-tail keywords. For instance, a long-tail keyword like “affordable criminal defense lawyer in Brooklyn” targets a specific audience segment, whereas shorter keywords like “Brooklyn lawyer” will get to a broader audience.
Use Smart Bidding for Automated Optimization
You can save ad spend on your PPC strategies for NYC law firms with smart bidding techniques that use Google’s machine learning to optimize bids in real-time. Strategies like Target CPA (cost per acquisition) and Maximize Conversions can automate your bidding process while keeping the lead generation cost-efficient.
If you’re running smaller campaigns or focusing on niche legal services, use Target CPA to set your bids automatically, so it’ll get you as many conversions as possible at the price you set. Larger campaigns can benefit from Maximize Conversions, since it will generate as many leads as possible within a given budget. Either way, smart bidding, when it’s mixed with well-defined keywords and geotargeting helps maximize ROI on legal PPC ads in NYC.
Track Conversions and Use Data-Driven Optimization
Many people overlook conversion tracking as an aspect of PPC campaigns for NYC law firms. Just generating clicks isn’t enough; your firm needs to be tracking what happens after the ad gets clicked on. Are they calling the office, filling out a form, or scheduling a consultation? Several tools can help you track this information, like CallRail to track phone call conversions, or Google Ads to track form submissions and other types of lead conversions.
Your firm can use this information to analyze which keywords, ads, and landing pages are driving the most valuable leads. This data can also be used to optimize the PPC campaign, so the budget is only being directed to the most effective strategies.
The Best PPC Tactics for Lawyers in NYC
You need a strategic approach to run successful PPC campaigns for NYC law firms, especially when it comes to targeting and budgeting. Geotargeting, exact and phrase match keywords, responsive ads, and smart bidding techniques are all effective ways law firms can optimize PPC for legal services in New York while maximizing their return on investment.
Because NYC is such a competitive market, law firms need to stay hands-on with their campaigns. Your firm can do this by continuously monitoring performance, tracking conversions, and adjusting bidding strategies. Using these best PPC tactics for lawyers in NYC will make a huge difference in campaign performance and lead generation without breaking the bank or your PPC budget.