March, 2017 | Printing Company | Contractor SEO Specialists in San Diego, California

If you’ve been thinking about marketing your law firm online then you’ve probably heard of two very popular terms PPC (Pay Per Click) and SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Which is better, PPC or SEO? The list below highlights four core factors that will help you decide.

No. 1: Trust Building

PPC guarantees you a spot on the first page of search results- when you use the right keywords. This is what every business wants to accomplish with their online marketing strategy, right? Of course! It’s why so many firms choose PPC. However, PPC is pure advertising, it doesn’t engage your potential client and it certainly doesn’t win over their trust. SEO on the other hand helps your firm gain the trust of potential clients. When clients conduct a search online and your website happens to rank on that first page, this solidifies trust in that persons eyes, it’s also going to be the reason they’re more likely to do business with you.

No.2: Reputation Building

As a company part of your marketing strategy should be to build your reputation with other businesses as well as with clients. Online it’s no different. Potential clients want to know that your business is reputable, that you’re someone people trust. Ranking on that first page through SEO is a stamp of approval, it means your firm is a thought leader, that it cares about relationship building, and most importantly- that Google agrees with that notion. PPC doesn’t do any of the above, instead it may have an adverse effect on your businesses reputation if it’s not executed correctly.

No. 3 Cost

Your marketing budget will determine which of the two you choose.PPC requires ongoing management and quite a large budget, as you’ll pay for the clicks and for Google to essentially manage your campaign. SEO isn’t that much cheaper, although you may have heard claims it’s up to 45% cheaper than PPC. The cost of SEO really depends on who you choose to develop, manage and execute your SEO strategy. The initial fees are similar to that of PPC however when it comes to management and execution the cost decreases. Here is a video that explains the differences as well as the cost.

No. 4: Click Through Rate

This final point is probably the most important. As with any marketing strategy you end goal is to get more people in the door. You would be surprised to know that on both Google and Yahoo organic listings have a click through rate of more than 75%. That means PPC only gets a quarter of the clicks when compared to SEO. The first two reasons highlighted in this post are what makes organic listings so popular on search engines.

Overall SEO is Better

Your online marketing strategy should present your firm in the best light. Before you decide which one you’d prefer, you need to know your marketing goals.

SEO when executed correctly reaps far greater returns than PPC, however it isn’t as controlled as PPC. PPC guarantees you space on that first page but it’s not necessarily profitable. In our opinion SEO is definitely the better solution as you can see from the four factors listed above.

Legal Web Marketing Priorities

When you initially start working with a digital marketing agency to generate leads for your law practice, there are some tasks that take priority that really need to be done before any links are built or ads are placed. The legal web marketing priorities the agency will take into consideration are tracking, site security, site speed and of course the client services you offer. Here is why these things must come first.

Tracking:

In aggressive zones, some law offices burn through countless dollars every month on some type of web marketing. A significant number of these same attorneys don’t track anything! How do you know what is working if you don’t track your progress? Some will freely track things like movement in rankings and where your traffic is coming from. Here are some better things to track:

Cost of Acquisition of Client By Source

Fee Generated Per Client By Source

There are a huge amount of tools you can use to track this stuff, here are a couple of them:

Google Analytics

Google Search Console (Webmaster Tools)

Stat (GetStat)

CallRail

Salesforce

If you are not able to track the performance of your web marketing, then don’t spend money on it.

Speed

If your site won’t load in under a few seconds, you’re losing traffic pointlessly. In case you don’t know whether your pages are loading fast enough, you can use the following tools to check your site speed:

GTmetrix

WebPageTest

PageSpeed Insights

Pingdom

If your site is running too slow your webmaster should be able to remedy the situation, while site speed may not seem like it would be such a big deal it really is. Google values the user experience when it comes to ranking your site and in 2017 there is no reason it should take that long to load.

Security

Security, particularly for a law practice is a major ordeal on the web. Initially, in the event that you handle any client data through your site, you have a commitment to secure it. People come to attorneys expecting confidentiality and this definitely extends to the web and email correspondence. The damage to your practice a data breach could do is incalculable. Having a security certificate on your site will not only reassure your clients but it is also a ranking factor for Google.

Client Service

One of the things people look at especially when it comes to attorneys is reviews. Reviews are all over the web and they are there to stay, negative or positive. People come to an attorney expecting respect, your ability to listen and keep them informed. Even if you are the best attorney in town you still need to guard your reputation zealously. Make sure both you and your staff are particularly sensitive to client needs, reputation can make or break your practice.

There are plenty more things that your legal marketing team will tackle during the course of your relationship, but this is where it all starts.