PPC vs. SEO for Family Law Firms: Where to Invest Your Marketing Budget

Most family and divorce attorneys understand the power of internet marketing. Most clients will rely on Google search results to choose their law firm, so having a robust online presence is essential to your firm’s success.

If you’ve invested a lot of time and money into your website, you’ll also have to spend some of your marketing budget to make sure that people can easily find your site. That’s where tools like pay-per-click and search engine optimization come into play.

It’s vital to understand the role these tools can play in increasing your law firm’s visibility and reputation and how they can fit within your budget. Both strategies are essential, but which one you focus on will depend significantly on your current situation.

Understanding PPC Advertising and SEO for Your Law Firm

If you’ve done any research into online marketing, you’ll have run into the concepts of SEO and PPC. Essentially, both fulfill the same function of increasing your website’s visibility on search results but differ in how they achieve their goal.

PPC relies on paying Google (or a social media site) to display your ad for a particular keyword. Whenever someone searches for that keyword, your landing page will show up at the top of the results. If someone then clicks on that ad, you pay Google a certain fee. The more people click your ad, the more you’ll have to pay.

SEO relies on a more organic approach and uses Google’s search algorithm to tailor your site to increase its organic search results ranking. Since search engines tend to update their algorithms frequently, you’ll have to adjust your strategy continually.

What Are the Benefits and Drawbacks of Pay-Per-Click (PPC)?

A PPC campaign is an excellent short-term method of creating awareness of your firm. Since you can specifically target certain keywords, a paid search is more likely to produce motivated leads that are easier to convert into clients.

However, PPC for law firms, in particular, is a costly proposition. The most popular search terms like “attorney” or “law firm” can cost over $100 per click, and this cost-per-click is likely to increase over time.
Many clients don’t particularly trust paid search ads and prefer to find a law firm through an organic search.

What are the Benefits and Drawbacks of Optimizing for Search Engines (SEO)?

SEO is a compelling long-term advertising strategy that promotes your website organically. It’s significantly more affordable than a Google Ads advertising campaign and tends to cultivate long-term clients instead of people looking for once-off law advice.

The main drawback of SEO is that it’s slow to get going. If your firm starts from scratch, developing a website and getting it on the first search page can take several months or even up to a year. You’ll need an alternative strategy to make sure that you don’t lose clients during this time.

Both PPC and SEO have their place in a good marketing strategy. If you’re not sure which one is better for you, why not give Clicks Geek a call at 917-310-1597? We can help optimize your marketing plan and ensure that you’re getting the best results possible.