Personal Injury Lawyer Marketing: High Costs and Cutthroat Competition
It is no secret that in terms of marketing, personal injury law firm marketing is one of the most competitive in the United States. This poses a major challenge for attorneys who aim to stand out in a crowded space and build trust among their audience.
After years of helping personal injury law firms scale their practices successfully and profitably, we have put together a comprehensive guide to provide attorneys with the holistic knowledge to acquire more cases while building their brands for long-term growth.
To learn more about how our personal injury marketing program works, contact OppGen today.
Who is This Guide For?
This guide serves as a blueprint for marketing for personal injury law firms of any size as well as solo practitioners who are trying to make a bigger impact in their local market.
Secondly, it will provide deep marketing knowledge for attorneys who are unsure about their current marketing and advertising strategies.
Marketing for Personal Injury: What Will This Guide Cover?
Our guide will break down the following topics into detail and bring forth an unbiased view of their effectiveness:
1. Paid Advertising vs. SEO & Organic Brand Building
2. Building a Multi-Channel Presence
3. Paid Digital Advertising: Google Ads
4. Paid Digital Advertising: Social Media Ads
5. SEO for Personal Injury Firms
6. Content Marketing for Personal Injury Attorneys
7. Social Media Marketing for Personal Injury Firms
8. PR Strategies for Personal Injury Law Firms
Personal Injury Marketing Strategies: Paid Advertising vs. SEO & Organic Brand Building
Before we dive into the basics of what is needed to create an online presence, it is extremely important to understand the differences between paid digital advertising and organic brand building for personal injury law firms.
Just to clarify, we believe that both are important in the makings of a successful digital marketing strategy. However, depending on levels of marketing investment or operational capabilities, not every law firm or solo practitioner is set up to maximize the benefit from both. Understanding the nuances of each can help prioritize goals and measure impact.
We will use Google’s search engine as an example of helping us understand the differences between the two. Here are mobile search results for the term personal injury attorney Chicago:
Each screenshot above represents results from up to 3 thumb scrolls on a mobile device. All listings before the map are paid; they include local services ads and search text ads. The map listings are in the closest proximity to the user’s location followed by organic website listings.
One may think that based on the amount of real estate provided to ads on this search engine results page than focusing on running ads on Google should be a priority. While there is some truth to that, not every law firm or solo practitioner can outright compete with a level of investment other firms are putting into their marketing.
We break down the comparison in this table:
If a law firm has experienced success from investing in paid ads on Google search, it makes sense to continue doing so. For a law firm that does not have a large number of resources to invest upfront, going the organic traffic route with unique, helpful content first and learning about what their audience finds useful is recommended.
In the law industry, time is considered money, so the big question that we want to evoke an early answer to is:
Do you want to be capital-intensive toward marketing your law firm or time-intensive?
A capital-intensive strategy would put a major focus on advertising efforts that require less attorney involvement and prioritize those over organic ones whereas a time-intensive strategy would require attorneys to help write effective content, record videos, and provide extremely helpful information on the internet to build credibility and trust.
We are not suggesting selecting only one strategy since both are important but based on circumstances and your current standing from a digital marketing standpoint, this becomes an important determinant moving forward.
Marketing for Personal Injury Lawyers is About Building a Multi-Channel Presence
For attorneys who are just starting to build a brand or launch their practice, the world of digital marketing can seem overwhelming. In this section, we help to break down the 4 main priority assets that can be building blocks to establish your practice online.
1. Your Personal Injury Firm’s Website
Having a website for your personal injury law firm is a gateway into digital marketing and advertising. It is a major requirement to leverage any form of online marketing such as pay-per-click ads, social media campaigns, and getting organic traffic to your website.
To begin, there are 3 major components that need to be executed:
1. Domain Name
Choosing a domain name is easy and can be bought from a variety of companies, most commonly through GoDaddy, Google Domains, etc.
2. Website Content
This is by far one of the most important parts of your website build. We highly recommend ensuring that your website content meets the criteria of being:
- Unique
- Personalized to your audience and easy to understand
- Highly informative
- Credible
The content for your prospective clients is the basis of differentiating your practice from everyone else online.
More times than not, we see attorneys use cookie-cutter content that is taken from other websites or competitors. Google’s algorithm is smart enough to pick up on the similarities and may not deem it as special enough to give it any preference when ranking for relevant search terms.
We have had personal injury attorneys spend days writing their own content because they have the ability to best describe what they do and how they can help people get justice. Many attorneys use marketing companies to build content, and although it can get the job done, it may not always be as high quality compared to when it’s coming directly from the source.
Even if you choose to hire a company to build content, putting your own spin on it while looking at it from your client’s perspective is extremely important. When we previously asked the question to pick between being capital-intensive versus time-intensive, this is an example of when that comes into play.
You could spend hours writing your own content and making videos, which could meet the criteria we have mentioned in this section. That would be time-intensive. Or you could hire a marketing company to do so and pay for it, which would be capital-intensive.
Either way, it is crucial that your content is able to make your website visitors clearly understand what you do and how your personal injury law firm can help them.
3. Ease of Use
Apart from having the right information on your website, ensuring that the website is easy to use is critical. A few high-level factors that fall into this category are:
- Website speed
- Mobile experience
- Website functionality and usability
- Design layout
Although these concepts may seem a bit technical on the surface, they can be understood early on when picking a design theme by yourself or when working with a marketing team to prioritize.
2. Google My Business: As a Personal Injury Attorney, Reputation is Everything
Personal injury attorneys are typically focused on serving within a specific area. It is safe to assume that they have a physical location or address associated with their place of work. To be locally relevant, it is extremely important to create a Google My Business listing and add detailed information about your practice.
This includes:
- Description of your law practice
- Complete address
- Types of cases your law firm can service
- Your service area
- Media assets, such as photos and videos
- Links to other web properties, such as your website
- Phone number where people can directly reach you
- Useful or relevant posts in regard to your services
One of the most important components of a Google My Business profile is reviews. If there are any clients whom you have serviced, we highly encourage getting into a habit of having them leave you a review on Google.
This will not only help with generating more visibility but also provide context for prospects who are evaluating your services against other personal injury attorneys in the local market.
3. Legal Directories
Apart from visitors who come directly to a website or find personal injury practices through a Google search, many do tend to research legal directories. Some common legal directories include:
These directories have both free and paid listing models that attorneys can utilize to build profiles.
These profiles include specific information about legal practices such as their specialization, list of attorneys, contact information, website URL, and client reviews.
We believe that these directories are an effective way to build an online presence and generate a certain volume of referral traffic from users who are looking for personal injury attorneys in your area.
4. Social Media Profiles
Unlike legal directories where your profile is stagnant, social media tools allow for a more engaging way to build an online presence to market your personal injury law firm. They are free to use and can be quite impactful in reaching large organic audiences if you are providing valuable information.
Since a victim of a personal injury case can be of any demographic, we believe that being present on the topmost utilized platforms is important. We recommend creating profiles on:
Creating a profile on these platforms is easy, but the key to being recognized on them is to provide as much value as possible through education and engagement. Here are some ideas to get you started:
- Post frequently regarding popular topics within the personal injury law segment
- Share client successes to build credibility
- Provide expert opinion on common personal injury cases
- Give step-by-step guidance on what to do if an unfortunate injury occurs
Contextualizing each piece of content for each platform will allow for better engagement and lead to a larger audience over time.
In addition to bringing more awareness to your personal injury law firm, social media profiles provide additional backlinks to your website which also give positive signals to Google’s search ranking algorithm.
Paid Digital Advertising to Acquire Personal Injury Cases
We believe that running paid digital ads is one of the fastest ways to acquire cases for personal injury law firms. Given the large investment associated with competing in this space, one has to try their best to not end up with an unprofitable campaign.
As a personal injury attorney or law firm, educating yourself about digital advertising is important to avoid losing money, regardless of whether you are running the ads yourself or have hired a marketing agency to do so.
We have broken this section up into 2 parts:
Google Ads: Advertising to Potential Clients on Google Search
Being involved in a personal injury accident is an event that’s typically never planned. Due to the nature of how an injury can occur and who it impacts, one may only need to look for legal counsel after an incident. It’s not a subject that’s at the forefront of people’s minds as they go about their day.
Moving forward with this notion of people only hire personal injury attorneys when they need to is the reason why Google search is one of the most dominant advertising channels to generate cases. When an unfortunate incident that qualifies as a personal injury case affects someone, you want to make sure that your law firm gets visibility on Google searches.
Learning About Ad Formats on Google Search
Here are the main advertising formats on Google search ranked by how they show from the top of the page to the bottom:
Local Services Ads
Local services ads are one of the latest formats introduced by Google on the search engine results page. Although this format of ads is not available for each and every business type, they are readily available for personal injury attorneys.
They appear on the top of the page on both desktop and mobile devices. Based on our testing of LSAs, they are extremely effective in driving qualified phone calls at an efficient cost compared to other advertising formats.
To qualify for Local Services Ads, you are required to go through Google’s screening process as well as a background check. Click here to learn more about how they work. If you would like to learn more about the qualification process, please reference this page.
Here are some of the benefits of starting your personal injury practice’s advertising with Local Services Ads:
- Budget-friendly as it does not require a significantly large investment
- Only pay for qualified phone calls while disputing unqualified prospects
- The user experience does not require a fancy website
Local Services Ads use your law firm’s Google My Business page to derive the content that is shown in the ads. We highly recommend optimizing your GMB page with accurate information and client reviews before getting started with LSAs.
If you would like to learn more about local services ads for personal injury attorneys, please reference this article.
Text Ads
Text ads are the most common type of ads on Google search. They are distinguished by the ad label before the display URL. To be successful with text ads, it is imperative that your Google Ads campaigns are set up strategically to ensure that they are picking up qualified traffic in the right geography.
Out of all the formats of ads available on Google search, we have found text ads to be the most expensive with some targeted clicks going as high as $400 for personal injury lawyer–related keywords in certain local markets within the United States.
Here are simple steps to get you started with Google’s text ads:
- Create a Google Ads account.
- Do competitive research by typing relevant keywords in your local market. Study ads and post-click experiences to understand the landscape.
- Create a list of keywords that your prospects will most likely be searching for.
- Write compelling ad copy that can help your personal injury law firm stand out from the competition.
Although it may seem easy to execute a text ad campaign independently, we highly recommend getting an expert opinion from a Google representative or a marketing partner before investing a large sum of money towards these campaigns.
How to Improve Performance From Google’s Text Ads
If Google’s text ads have already been live for your personal injury law firm, we recommend starting with a few basic optimizations to ensure a higher level of relevance and case acquisition efficiency:
- Sift through search term data to ensure that only relevant search queries are clicking your ads.
- Add unqualified search terms as negatives.
- Take a thorough look through your advertising copy and see how it can be improved by contextualization, building credibility, and providing clear call to actions.
- Test multiple bidding strategies such as Target CPA or Maximize Conversions to see which one can result in a higher conversion rate and ultimately a lower cost per conversion.
- Personalize where your ads are driving traffic to your website, so the experience is more consistent with the user’s intent within the search query. For example, if a user searches car accident attorney, they should ideally be taken to a page that provides information regarding car accidents.
If your firm has already been running text ads and you are wondering how to improve case sign-up rates and make lead generation efforts more efficient, please do not hesitate to reach out to us for a no-cost audit from our team.
Local Map Ads
Proximity is an important factor for users who are looking to find legal representation from a personal injury law firm locally. This is where Google’s map ad listings can be helpful in driving traffic to your firm’s Google My Business profile.
Here is an example of 2 paid map listings for the search term personal injury attorney Chicago.
These placements are part of a Google text ad campaign that we mentioned previously. When a location extension is added to a search text ad campaign, your Google My Business profile has the ability to show up on the map for relevant keywords.
Prospects who click through to your GMB profile from maps have the ability to call your practice, visit your website, or get directions to your physical location. In our years of managing paid ads campaigns for personal injury attorneys, we have noticed that map ads can be an effective complementary addition to standard search campaigns.
Advertising on Social Media
As people continue to utilize social media as a source of information and spend more time consuming content, it becomes an attractive marketing channel for personal injury attorneys.
Creating Awareness by Educating
In comparison to Google search, social media advertising isn’t necessarily a place where audiences have a high level of intent for seeking out legal counsel in relation to personal injury cases.
Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok allow for effective tools to educate large groups of people at scale. That is their primary function first and a case generation channel second.
Each social media platform represents a unique core demographic. Content for every platform has to be contextualized for resonance. However, we have found that the best overarching strategy for every social channel is to:
Provide a large amount of value upfront to your audiences before asking them for anything.
The value that a law firm can provide to audiences in this scenario comes in the form of education. Here are some examples:
- Educating people on what to do if they get injured due to the negligence of someone else.
- Informing the community on what process to follow if they get injured in a car wreck.
- Providing details on nuances that make personal injury cases valid or invalid.
- Spreading public service messages regarding high-frequency accident routes on local commutes.
Regardless of the channel you choose to post on, always keeping your community’s well-being in mind is ideal for building an effective ad strategy. People see right through personal injury law firms that are genuinely trying to help them make better decisions in comparison to others that are blatantly asking for their business.
If you would like to learn how to run effective Facebook ads for your personal injury law firm, we have a detailed article you can reference.
SEO for Personal Injury Law Firms
Simply put, search engine optimization (SEO) is an ongoing process to help a website rank higher for the most relevant search terms. There are many factors that Google’s search algorithm takes into account when ranking websites organically.
In this section, we will be going over them at a high level.
There are 4 main components we recommend focusing on when thinking of search engine optimization for your personal injury law firm:
1. Technical SEO
One of Google’s main priorities is to provide the best user experience possible. They do this by taking into consideration factors such as how quickly and conveniently can users find what they are looking for. When thinking of technical search engine optimizations on your website, consider the following:
- Security — How safe is your website?
- Speed — How quickly does your website load?
- Indexability — Can Google thoroughly index every section of your website?
- Ease of use — Can users find what they are looking for conveniently?
This may seem complicated on the surface, but it doesn’t have to be. We use tools, such as Page Speed Insights and a mobile-friendly test, to understand the opportunities to improve a website. Feel free to run your existing website through those tools and see where improvements can be made.
Having a technically sound website can be the basis of executing a successful search engine optimization strategy for your personal injury law firm.
2. Local SEO
When a user’s search has any form of local intent, Google takes into consideration proximity indicators to provide the best search results. For example, if the search query typed into Google contains a geographical parameter such as a city or phrase like personal injury law firm near me, the results may be different compared to when the search query is less defined.
Since personal injury law firms serve clients in their areas of service, it is important to prioritize local ranking factors in their search engine optimization process. These factors may include:
- Google My Business listing with an emphasis on reviews
- On-page content and credibility that is personalized to the local market
- Regional websites or content that may link back to your domain
3. On-Page SEO
When trying to rank for relevant keywords, it is fundamental to have content on your personal injury website that provides useful information about your services. This could include content on pages such as:
- Home page — an overall summary of your law firm
- Services — types of personal injury cases your law firm handles
- Frequently asked questions for common types of case
- Detailed “About” section containing attorney profiles, awards, and achievements
- Helpful content for guiding a personal injury victim through the process of receiving justice in their case
- Simplifying legal jargon so a common person can understand the implications of their case clearly
- Title tags and meta descriptions for every page on the website
- Interlinking of pages on the website so helpful information can be found easily
- References to credible sources of information if needed
4. Off-Page SEO
Apart from the content you create to represent your law firm, Google takes into consideration how other websites across the web are representing you.
Off-page search engine optimization for personal injury law firm websites takes into account other web properties that link back to pages on your website. This helps Google’s algorithm understand how credible your website is since other websites would be linking back to yours for important and relevant information.
Here are some of the ways to get started with off-page optimizations:
- Creating and managing active social media profiles that link back to your website.
- Becoming a thought leader in your field by writing guest blog posts on well-reputed publications. These could link back to your website and Google’s algorithm will pick that up while indexing your website.
- Getting featured on other blogs or articles across the web for your work in the personal injury law segment.
- Gaining recognition in the personal injury field with awards for exceptional services or winning headline-worthy cases.
Generating backlinks organically by building genuine relationships across online communities is one of the best ways to build credibility with Google. Paying for link placements on websites with low domain authority is not a recommended strategy as those backlinks are not authentic.
We understand that search engine optimization is an ongoing process that can take months and years to fully develop. Starting with a user-friendly website structure and truly helpful content is one of the easiest ways to make progress for keyword rankings. If you’ve been executing an SEO strategy that is not helping you rank in Google, please do not hesitate to reference Google’s best practices or reach out to us for a complimentary audit.
Content Marketing for Personal Injury Attorneys
Advertising in the personal injury space is competitive but worth it.
Content marketing is another unique and wildly effective marketing strategy for personal injury firms.
- Increased organic visibility for your firm––get your content ranking on Google
- Ability to educate prospects on their unique situation and legal options
- Generate leads with content tailored to specific questions a personal injury victim may have
- Build trust and credibility with potential clients through helpful blogs, articles, videos, infographics, and more
- Boost online presence and referral traffic from other websites that link back to yours
Content marketing complements SEO, social, and paid advertising to generate compounded marketing results while managing (or lowering) total costs over time.
Content marketing is among the most effective strategies for personal injury law firms to attract new clients and engage with your local audience. Here are a few ways you can use content to boost your digital marketing results.
1. Share Knowledge on Your Website
People looking for a personal injury lawyer often seek out general advice and answers to their frequently asked questions about their potential personal injury claim or case.
Use FAQs you get from your clients and leads to create a variety of multimedia content you can share on your website — blogs, articles, videos, and infographics.
Using FAQs to create content is a natural way to incorporate commonly searched keywords your prospective local clients are using to search for a personal injury attorney on Google.
This can help you:
- Get your website content and blog ranking
- Get more local market visibility on search engines
- Build trust with your audience
- Drive more qualified search traffic and leads to your firm’s website
Try to create and publish a new blog once per week, or at least two times per month.
2. Focus on Local Content
Creating locally focused content is a great way to boost your local search engine presence, and stand out from firms in your area. Write blogs about local events or discreetly promote cases and case successes you’ve handled in your area.
Since injury laws differ from state to state, create content that explicitly addresses the differences, challenges, and opportunities in your state.
3. Use Video Marketing
Video is the most engaging, memorable, rampantly consumed, and virally shared online media.
For personal injury firms, videos offer an unprecedented way:
To give potential clients a virtual handshake
- Introduce yourself and the firm
- Showcase your expertise
- Build trust with your viewers
- Generate more, quality leads
Creating videos that explain complex legal concepts in simple terms is a great way to reach more people in your area, and engage with them in a meaningful, memorable way.
Videos are powerful content assets you create once, that can create a lifetime of value, traffic, leads, and potential clients for your PI Firm.
An easy way to get started with video content is to get some inexpensive lighting and a smartphone tripod from Amazon. Shoot a video once per week, using your blog post as an outline for topics to discuss.
Did you know that including a video on your homepage, practice area page, or a landing page can boost conversion rates by up to 80%? – TechSmith
Add that video to the top of the corresponding blog post, on your website. This is a great way to educate your audience, build trust with potential clients, and motivate them to call your firm.
4. Utilize Infographics
Infographics are a powerful tool for communicating complex information in an easily digestible format. Your firm can use infographics to explain complex aspects of the personal injury claims or case process, provide resources for personal injury victims, and more.
5. Share Your Content on Social Media
Sharing your content on social media is ideal for building your audience on other valuable platforms. Your target audience spends hours of their week browsing Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok.
Continue reading to learn more about how you can use social media to grow your business…
Social Media Marketing for Personal Injury Firms
Social media marketing is a powerful tool across all legal marketing.
What’s unique about social media is that firms can leverage it to grow visibility on social networks, while actively building relationships with potential clients.
If you’re investing in content marketing, why wouldn’t you share that content on social media?
Like other marketing channels, social media marketing supports and enhances other marketing efforts by:
- Growing your brand and visibility on platforms your target audience spends hours of their days
- Giving your content marketing assets more visibility on social media
- Driving more traffic to your website from Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, etc.
Social Media Marketing Ideas for Personal Injury
- Promote your content marketing assets on your social media channels––blogs, infographics, photos, videos, etc.
- Create and post original content that aligns with your firm’s mission, values, and specialties
- Use targeted hashtags to categorize posts and maximize traffic
- Engage with clients and prospects on social media by responding promptly to comments or messages
- Analyze analytics from each of your channels regularly in order to measure which content and posts are performing best
- Use a social media management software like HootSuite to streamline your social media management, and automate your social posting
PR Strategies for Personal Injury Law Firms
Building public relations within your community can be a tremendous help in securing a higher level of visibility for your law firm. In the numerous audits we have conducted for personal injury attorneys, we have noticed that there are major opportunities to establish a thoughtful public relations strategy.
Here are a few simple steps to get you started with a PR strategy:
Attorney Referrals for Personal Injury Cases
Due to the technicalities within legal cases, many times people aren’t able to determine what type of legal specialist they need help from for their case. This can lead to a prospect reaching out to an attorney who does not support the type of case they have.
Building mutually beneficial relationships with attorneys outside of your immediate specialty pays dividends when a situation like that occurs. This can be done by reaching out directly to law firms in your region and setting competitive terms to co-counsel or share a percentage of a settlement with them.
Marketing Ideas: Partner with Local News Outlets
Local news outlets are typically among some of the first on the scene when a newsworthy accident occurs. News channels want to ensure that their coverage of any such incident is accurate and expert opinions are provided to their viewers or readers.
If incidents that cause injuries, such as car wrecks or construction accidents, take place, a personal injury law firm can help provide expert analysis on what steps the victims can take next to ensure that they receive justice. This type of public relations strategy may give your personal injury law firm a great deal of visibility in your local market and it can cement your firm as a credible source of information in the region.
Reaching out to as many news outlets as possible and forging a relationship with them is highly beneficial. This can also lead to backlinks if your law firm’s comments are featured on their website.
Make an Impact Within the Community
While thinking of creating more awareness for your personal injury law firm, it is highly recommended to be present in helping your local community with their struggles. This creates a feeling of trust and goodwill that can go a long in them considering your law firm if they get into a situation where they could use legal representation. Here are a few ideas on how to get started:
- Help out at the local food bank
- Be part of cleaning drives
- Offer complimentary legal advice to people from underprivileged areas
- Contributing to or fundraising for a local charity
Although some of these public relations strategies may seem like unconventional marketing, they can make your personal injury law firm stand out from the competition.
What Should You Do Next?
We hope that this marketing guide was helpful. If you have been practicing personal injury law for a few years and are trying to generate more cases, you can use this guide to help establish a bigger footprint in your market.
If you are starting out as a personal injury attorney and are seeking a partner to help build a marketing roadmap, we can provide a strategy session at no cost to you.
If there are any questions about the content we have covered in this guide, please do not hesitate to reach out to us.
