With every marketing strategy, there is something that we must be attentive to, and that is the return on your investment. Whether you are advertising on billboards, radio, mailers, email, or digital marketing services, at the end of day, if you are not seeing a ROI, it may be time to reevaluate your marketing strategy.
Marketing for lawyers is a cut-throat business. Law firms with a large marketing budget can overshadow smaller law firms in a heartbeat if they want to pay the price of pay per click advertising. Otherwise, it is fair game for any attorney who chooses to hire a digital marketing agency that provides the best seo for law firms to boost their rankings.
When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), all strategies will not yield the same results. We have been tracking one of our clients’ ROI for some time now, and the results are pleasing to say the least. This is not the case with every marketing agency. There is so much to stay on top of, and if you don’t have trusted people in your field that you can rely on, it is nearly impossible to keep up with all of the changes.
Attracting new clients via online searches is now the most popular marketing strategy for lawyers, whether you are in a large city or small suburb. The reality is that you can grow your practice within two years if you hire the right law firm seo company. What would 2 extra clients per month do for a small law firm? This is not only a reasonable expectation, it is a very low expectation. There is no magic number that we can provide as there are too many things to factor in. A few would be city population, type of attorney, and of course, how well you can close a lead.
SEO Vs. PPC
There is a vast difference between search engine optimization and pay per click advertising when it comes to attorneys. If you are a criminal defense attorney for example, you can expect to pay upwards of $60 per click for the keyword “criminal defense attorney” using the pay per click advertising method. Even if you are only receiving 2 clicks per day, you would need an advertising budget of $3,600 per month just to market your firm for this one keyword. This is where law firms get stuck. Keywords are the core of any digital marketing strategy. What if that keyword is only one of 10 keywords that you need to get your 2 extra clients per month? Is it really worth it? Do you want to pay $10k per month or more on pay per click advertising?
What if that keyword is not a keyword that will convert? Sad but true, many attorneys blow vast amounts of money on PPC targeting such keywords because they are not familiar with how to do keyword research.
PPC Conversion
Did you know that the paid ads on Google receive less traffic than the organic listings? Why do you think that is? For one, online searchers are looking for the best attorney, and in their minds, if you are on the first page of Google in the organic listings, you must be pretty good… right? I mean if Google says you are then it must be true. They are smart enough to know that the listings at the top of the page are placed there because those law firms paid to be #1.
There have been a number of studies on PPC vs. SEO conversions. Here is what it boils down to:
Nearly 71.33% of all searches result in a page 1 organic click. Of those 71.33% of searches, positions 1 through 5 get 67.6% of the clicks, positions 6 through 10 get 3.73%. Pages 2 and 3 only get 5.59% of the clicks.
So let’s do the math:
71.33% + 5.59% + 3.73%= 80.65%
That leaves only 19.35% of the traffic clicking on paid ads.
SEO Conversion
There is only one way to determine the conversion rates from search engine optimization, and that is to track it on your own (or your digital marketing agency). Akron SEO tracks the conversion rates for our clients, and the information we have gathered puts pay per click to shame.
Our studies have shown that on average, an attorney can expect a 20% conversion rate. Example: one of our clients obtained 26 new clients from 217 website visitors. This tells us that we don’t need thousands of visitors to get new clients unless we are not targeting the right keywords. If that is the case then traffic does not matter at all. This particular study was done from a client in a city with a population of less than 100,000 people.
That probably has you excited, but we’re not done yet. What if you could get your business listed in the Google Maps listings? These are the 3 businesses that show up in the organic listings when you do a local search. This could potentially double your traffic, and with the mobile feature of click to call, potential clients are almost begging you to answer the phone.
So what have we learned about an attorney’s ROI when it comes to digital marketing? Let’s compare it to a popular marketing strategy used by lawyers in larger cities. Have you ever seen an attorney advertising on a billboard. Do you think that 26 out of every 217 people who see this billboard become clients? You’re right, it doesn’t happen. The reason why is because they are not putting themselves in front of the people looking for them. With SEO, this is exactly what we do. We put your business in front of people who are actively searching for your service.
If there is one thing that the online world has done for us, it is the fact that our marketing strategy no longer has to rely on the phone book, billboards or park benches.
If you are ready to grow your law firm using our proven digital marketing strategies. visit https://www.akronseoexpert.com to learn how to get started.
