17
Sep, 2020
The cost of pay-per-click (PPC) ad campaigns vary from industry to industry, and unfortunately, legal advertising is the most expensive industry for PPC search advertising. Worse yet, personal injury law is perhaps the most expensive subcategory in PPC legal advertising.
For personal injury law firms that are on tighter budgets, this might mean search ads may not be the best option for digital marketing. But there are other, more affordable options.
One of the best affordable options for advertising your personal injury law firm is to go down the social media ad route. More specifically, utilizing Facebook Ads.
Before you can start a Facebook Ad campaign, you’ll have to create a business page for your law firm.
This blog will go into detail on how to set up a Facebook business page and how to create a successful Facebook advertising campaign. But if you don’t have time to delve into the details, we encourage you to contact us.
Having a Facebook business page can help you share valuable content, and best of all, it’s free. It’s also required if you’re running an ad campaign on Facebook.
Setting up a Facebook page for your PI law firm is a simple process. Start by logging into your personal Facebook account — and don’t panic; your personal Facebook profile’s information will not be visible on your business page.
Get started by going to https://www.facebook.com/pages/create. There, you will be presented with three empty boxes:
Your page name is simply the name of your business, so type in your law firm’s name. Facebook requires grammatically correct capitalization for business page names, so an all-caps name is not allowed (though acronyms are perfectly fine). It also should not include your law firm’s slogan, variation of the word “Facebook,” unnecessary punctuation, or symbols (i.e., ™, ©, ®).
Page names also can’t be generic words or generic geographic locations on their own. The example name in the above image would probably be rejected because “PI Law” is likely considered generic; however if it were changed to “Columbus PI Law,” it may be accepted because it is now more specific to a location. But “Columbus” on its own would also be rejected because generic location names are not allowed to have pages with managers.
The category describes the kind of business you have and can be selected from a drop-down list. Start typing “Legal” and you’ll see “Legal” and “Legal Service” appear on the list.
You can select up to three category options. For example, you can choose Personal Injury Lawyer, Legal, and Legal Service as your business categories for your personal injury law firm.
Unlike the last two text boxes, the description is not required; however, you should still fill it out with a brief description of what it is your business does. There is a limit of 255 characters for the description.
Then, click the “create page” button at the bottom of the screen. You cannot click on it until you’ve filled out the first two boxes. When it can be clicked on, it will change color from gray to blue.
You’ll want at least two images: a profile picture and a cover photo. Be sure to test the cover photo on different devices (desktop, mobile phone, iPad) to ensure it doesn’t crop weirdly.
The profile picture can be your personal injury law firm’s logo — something that’s representative of your law firm and its brand.
The dimensions for each type of photo are (in pixels):
For profile pictures and cover photos that include a logo or text, Facebook recommends using a PNG file.
Next up, you’ll want to add your contact information, including your law firm’s address, phone number, and email address. Feel free to include your business hours, too.
Make sure all of this information is correct; having incorrect contact information or the wrong address does not do your firm or prospective clients any favors.
Just because you created your Facebook business page does not mean everyone can see it. You’ll have to publish your page so the public can see it.
If you want to add or change anything later on after publishing your page, you can do so by managing your Page Settings.
In the meantime, you are ready to start your personal injury law firm’s Facebook advertising campaign.
In order to have a successful Facebook ad campaign, you need to set an objective — a goal with a particular outcome in mind. Facebook Ads has a list of different kinds of objectives, which will determine who will see the ads to some extent.
The following objectives are the most relevant to a personal injury law firm Facebook ad campaign:
Facebook Ads has some of the best audience targeting tools and is far more accurate than search ads. Search ads are great for finding prospects who are searching for your services, but they don’t exactly target specific audiences.
Facebook’s audience targeting tools includes the following targeting options:
Both search ads and Facebook ads target audiences based on location, which ensures your ads are going to be seen by people in your neighborhood.
While needing a personal injury lawyer isn’t a gender-specific trait, you may find that men or women respond better to one of your Facebook ads than others. You can then target that ad and have it pushed toward a more responsive audience.
Age-based targeting may be more effective for some areas of personal injury law than others. For example, personal injury law firms that have worked in senior home abuse cases may find this targeting option more useful than a workers’ compensation attorney.
Some jobs are more inherently dangerous or risky than others and are more likely to result in accidents and workers’ comp cases. Truckers may also be at greater risk for accidents than those holding other occupations. You can use Facebook’s ad targeting tools to your advantage and find people who work in these types of jobs.
Interest-based targeting may be one of the most useful tools for personal injury lawyers. Suppose your practice specializes in motorcycle accident cases. A prospect who enjoys motorcycling may follow motorcycle companies like Harley Davidson and Yamaha on their Facebook account.
Interest-based targeting will push your personal injury law firm’s relevant ads to this Facebook user.
Behavior-based targeting uses information like a prospect’s prior purchases and device usage to determine which ads to show them (i.e., if they use their smartphone during a certain time of the day, then they’ll see the mobile version of the ad during those times).
The lookalike audience targeting tool is one of our favorite options. You simply take the demographics and psychographics of your best clients, and Facebook will push ads to new people who have similar features to those clients.
For some people, asking whether content or design should come first is like asking if the chicken or the egg comes first. Some people say content (in the context of a Facebook ad, the text) and others say design (ad format and location).
Regardless of your answer, both content and design are important when designing ads for your Facebook campaign. But if you’re new to Facebook ads, we suggest starting with the design aspect because each kind of ad and location have different character limits.
In terms of locations, Facebook ads have a lot of options, which the Facebook Ads Manager platform refers to as placements. Facebook ads can be placed in the following locations on either mobile or desktop browsers:
And there are also mobile-only ad options, too:
Ad placements affect quite a few things other than the character limit, too; photos for certain ads will likely be resized on a different device. Some placements cost more and less than others. If you’re not sure which placement is best, Facebook does offer an automatic placement option that delivers ads to the right people on your allotted budget.
However, it’s worth considering working with a marketing agency that specializes in creating Facebook and other social media ads for lawyers and knows which placements are best, rather than sticking with automatic placements.
It may also be well worth your time and budget to work with an agency to design Facebook ads for your personal injury law firm. Facebook ads rely on some degree of creative work with images and video, depending on the ad format you select. Plus, experienced marketing agencies know the rules of advertising on Facebook and are less likely to have their ad rejected on the first submission.
Here’s a quick rundown of Facebook ad formats:
Single image ads use a single image. The expression “a picture is worth a thousand words” is pretty accurate here. Because you’re allowed to use one image, make sure it’s one that is powerful and high quality. To add an extra level of interactiveness, take a 360-degree picture.
Copy is also important here, too, but remember, it’s the image that will grab people’s attention.
Carousel ads are similar to single image ads except they are essentially a slideshow of up to 10 single, smaller images or videos in an ad. Each slide can have a different link and text below.
Carousel ads can be used to tell a story in each frame or share multiple client testimonials in one single advertisement. Another option is to use a single image and divide it into different slides.
Video ads on Facebook typically run up to 15 seconds long, but they can run much longer than that. But if you’re going to go with the 15-second video ad, you’ll have to grab viewers’ attention with a strong pitch. Quality is a must here, too, so be sure to have a good editing program on hand. Or, have them professionally filmed, edited, and produced.
Like single image ads, video ads also have the interactive 360-degree option.
If you don’t have the budget for a high-quality ad, that’s OK. Facebook also allows video ads that use static images rather than video footage.
Instant Experience ads are only used on mobile devices, in which it opens to a full-screen view, which allows prospects to browse images and products, watch a video, fill out a form, or a combination of these.
Facebook has pre-designed templates for Instant Experience ads, which makes it accessible to just about anyone.
The big thing with Instant Experience ads is to have a really powerful pitch to bring prospects into the ad. This means you need to give them a really good reason to click on the ad.
Copy is required for just about every Facebook ad, and each ad has a few different areas where you’ll have to have text. Each ad format also has different specifications regarding character limits, so pay close attention when creating copy for an ad.
The most important part about writing ad copy is including something of value and a clear call to action, or CTA. CTA is so important that one of the text boxes on a Facebook ad is called a CTA button. CTA buttons can be customized, so you do not have to stay with what it originally was. It’s actually better to change it so it fits your goal.
Facebook Ads, like Google and Bing Ads, relies on you to set a budget, which is the total amount you’re willing to spend. You can decide if you want this amount to be determined on a daily basis or over the lifetime of the ad campaign. You can change your budget at any given time, and you’ll never go over the budget you set.
Depending on your objective, you’ll only have to pay whenever an action is taken that meets your objective. For example, if your objective is based on expanding your personal injury law firm’s overall reach, then you’ll be charged whenever someone sees an ad (this includes someone scrolling past it). Or if you’re trying to convert more clients through a lead generation strategy, then you’ll pay per click.
Also similar to paid search ads, you’ll also have to bid on your ad.
It’s a lot, we know. Luckily, OppGen can handle all of this for you — and more. Click here to learn more.
You won’t actually have to go or be present for an ad auction. Facebook’s ad auction is used to determine the best ad to show to a user at a certain point in time. This means your ad will be competing with other advertisers who are targeting people in the same audience your personal injury law firm is.
The ad with the highest total value will win. There are 3 factors that determine an ad’s total value:
That said, not all ad auction winners will win based on how much money an advertiser bids; sometimes, having higher quality ads will beat out the highest bidder.
Once your Facebook ad has gone through this process and has been approved, you can go ahead and publish a Facebook ad for your personal injury law firm. But the journey of publishing an ad doesn’t end there.
Facebook gives you the ability to track your ad’s performance in terms of engagement, impressions, and more. If your ad isn’t performing as well as you’d hoped, you can edit it.
For more ideas on how to create successful Facebook ads for personal injury law firms like yours, contact us today, or fill out our free digital audit. Our digital audit can help give you a better idea of where your personal injury law firm needs to improve its digital presence and how we can help you do just that.
Personal injury attorneys need clients to keep their law firm in business. Making sure your law firm is easily found online and offline helps both your clients and your firm. 96% of people seeking legal advice use a search engine and 74% of those prospects end up contacting a law firm over the phone.
One of the best ways to help prospects find your law firm online and make that phone call is to invest in an SEO strategy that includes getting added to personal injury attorney directories. This can boost your personal injury law firm’s digital presence and visibility while also increasing credibility, and OppGen can help do just that. Contact us for more information.
SEO is an acronym that stands for Search Engine Optimization, a strategic, organic (unpaid) process of optimizing your website and its content in a way that makes search engines like Google or Bing rank it higher for certain keywords. A higher position is a better position, particularly if it’s on the first page, where it’s more likely a prospective client will click on your website.
Websites optimized for SEO run well and quickly on mobile devices, include in-depth content that helps site visitors and is linked back to by other websites (referred to as backlinks).
The process of getting more backlinks, known as link-building, takes a good portion of time, especially because it depends on other people to link back to your firm’s website.
One of the simplest link-building strategies is to ensure your law firm is included in personal injury attorney directories and local online directories. Not only does being in personal injury attorney directories increase your law firm’s visibility, but it also tells search engines that your website is credible because it’s listed in these directories.
As a result of that information, search engines will push your website up higher in the search results pages for relevant keyword searches.
To learn more about OppGen Marketing’s SEO program, contact us today.
Even if your law firm’s website doesn’t show up on page 1 of a relevant Google search, it may show up on a personal injury attorney directory, where people are already looking for an attorney and are probably close to selecting the attorney who will represent their case.
Having a profile on these types of directories also increases prospects’ trust in your personal injury law firm, making them more likely to select you over a competitor who is not listed on relevant legal directories.
The following personal injury attorney directories are used all over the United States but narrow down results based on state and sometimes county and metro area locations.
Enjuris is a law firm directory that specializes in personal injury law. It goes beyond the scope of being just a directory; Enjuris offers legal advice and explains issues in a way most people can understand.
Because Enjuris is specific to personal injury law, it has a lot of information about the subcategories of personal injury law, such as car accidents, workplace injuries, and even nursing home abuse.
Providing educational information to prospective clients can help them determine whether or not they have a case that can win a lawsuit or result in a settlement.
In order to be added to Enjuris’s personal injury attorney directory, your firm must adhere to its requirements:
Enjuris editors have the sole and final discretion regarding your law firm website’s listing, placement, and content, and there is no guarantee your law firm will be approved and accepted into the directory.
The fact that Enjuris requires a membership payment may be a deterrent for some personal injury law firms, but that narrows down the number of competitors who appear on Enjuris’s personal injury attorney directory.
Lawyer Legion’s personal injury attorney directory page goes into a great amount of detail about personal injury law that can educate prospective clients and potentially weed out cases that may be better served under a different area of law.
Lawyer Legion provides basic information about personal injury claims, including the elements of a personal injury claim and what must be proved in order for there to be a case; specific types of personal injury cases (i.e., medical malpractice, motor vehicle accidents, mass torts, etc.).
Lawyer Legion can help prospective clients find PI law firms that specialize in highly specialized areas of personal injury such as brain or spinal cord injury, which may make it one of the best directory options for more specialized personal injury law firms.
Lawyer Legion’s directory listing application process is done in 3 simple steps:
Once your information has been verified by Lawyer Legion, your listing will be made public.
Unlike Enjuris, Lawyer Legion’s directory listing is free.
Justia combines some of the best qualities of Enjuris and Lawyer Legion in terms of personal injury attorney directory and educational content, respectively. Even though Justia doesn’t specialize in personal injury law like Enjuris does, Justia does have an extensive list of Frequently Asked Questions/FAQs and a list of related topics and practice areas. It also does a great job going in more depth about the types of compensation a client can expect if they win a personal injury case.
Having a Justia directory listing can do more for your personal injury law firm than just having a listing. Its platform lets you interact with prospective clients and list your experience, fees, education, practice areas, and more, all in one place. Think of it as a LinkedIn for lawyers.
To be listed in Justia’s directory (which also creates a profile for the Legal Information Institute/LII, another legal directory), all you have to do is create a profile. Justia is free to use.
Martindale-Hubbell, usually referred to as Martindale for short, is similar to Justia in that it’s also a networking website for lawyers on top of being a legal directory. It has a list of law school alumni and a massive database of articles from fellow attorneys.
Martindale even has a section for its newest law firms and attorneys, so that can definitely help your law firm stand out for those seeking personal injury services for as long as your profile is considered to be new.
Due to its focus on connecting lawyers around the globe, Martindale is an excellent site to have a profile in the event a lawyer needs to refer a client to another expert. Plus, having a profile on Martindale also gets you professional profiles on Lawyers.com and Nolo.com, two websites known for their in-depth information that helps prospects research their legal options.
Martindale’s peer review ratings and client ratings have been around since 1896 (with the company itself opening in 1868, over 150 years ago), which makes the company’s ratings a trustworthy staple for both lawyers and their clients.
For best results, Martindale-Hubbell offers a subscription-based profile that helps prospects find lawyers based on their firm’s name and their specific practice areas on both Lawyers.com and Marindale.com. These profiles also list law firm contact information, whereas nonsubscriber profiles do not.
Given the reach and visibility, you’ll find from Lawyers and Nolo, it’s probably worth the subscription price, which will vary based on certain factors. The best way to find out how much a subscription would be for your personal injury law firm would be to get a quote.
Avvo, which is actually part of the Martindale brand, gives its users two main levels of options for directory profiles:
In our opinion, the basic Avvo profile should work just fine because it covers the basics a directory should cover, plus a few extra features.
FindLaw lives up to its name because its main goal is to connect prospective clients with lawyers. It is part of a network of legal directories that includes Super Lawyers, Law Info, and a Spanish directory, Abogado.
As a result of its main goal, FindLaw’s personal injury attorney directory page does not include informational resources, though it does have outbound links to relevant resources for both consumers and attorneys.
However, FindLaw does offer good advice on how to select a lawyer based on a client’s comfort level, the lawyer’s credentials, the expense, and law firm location.
FindLaw’s directory listings start at $158 a month, but given that the website has 11 million users and hosts 2 million monthly visitors seeking legal assistance, that price may be worth it. Especially when you take into account that it’s part of a massive legal directory network.
Super Lawyers is part of the FindLaw legal directory network that helps prospects find the top-rated attorneys and law firms in over 70 different practice areas.
Getting a Super Lawyers profile is more intensive and far more competitive than the other options, which is exactly why you should always strive to do the best you can with your clients and peers.
Super Lawyers are selected each year using a patented process involving a combination of different types of nominations (surveys, peer nomination, third-party feedback, Super Lawyers research team recognition); independent research, and peer evaluation based on what the research found in 12 different areas:
Only 5% of attorneys are selected as Super Lawyers, making it a very prestigious title and listing to go along with it, which only gives you and your personal injury law firm a massive boost in credibility to future clients.
These directories may not be as specific to personal injury law (or law in general) as the others mentioned are, but they’re still very important to local SEO.
Local SEO uses your personal injury law firm’s location, website, and contact information that makes it more likely to appear in local searches. Search engines use searchers’ physical locations when they search for certain businesses or services, and the nearest relevant businesses often show up higher on the results pages.
When multiple websites and directories include your law firm’s location, website, and contact information, it reinforces to search engines that you are close by, and will rank higher as a result.
Besides, it is always a good idea to be easy to find on a local level: 72% of people looking for a lawyer think it’s important to have a local attorney.
Creating a Google My Business account can put your personal injury law firm on the map — Google Maps, to be precise. Google My Business also lets you update your law firm’s location and hours, should they ever change, and even share business-related updates.
Google My Business makes it easy for people to leave reviews and testimonials. Search engines take five- and four-star ratings into account, too, when ranking relevant websites, which encourages businesses to provide the best service possible.
Bing Places for Business is basically the Microsoft search engine’s equivalent to Google My Business. The process for getting your listing approved is similar to Google My Business, too, as it requires your law firm’s name, address, contact information at the very least. You can add photos of your business and include the hours of operation, too. From there, you’ll have to verify your listing.
Even though Bing may not be used as much as Google is, there are still benefits to using it. Bing can reach prospective clients in places Google can’t, and the people who use Bing tend to be older and have more funds than Google users.
Like Google My Business, Yelp makes leaving reviews and responding to reviews a simple process. Plus, it adds one more place for your business to be found and can help improve your position in relevant searches.
The Yellow Pages have gone digital, making it easier than ever to be included in the local business directory. Just like Google My Business, Bing Places for Business, and Yelp, Yellow Pages’ listings are free.
Being added to personal injury attorney directories and local directories boosts your visibility, increases your credibility, and instills trust in prospective clients.
Visibility, credibility, and trust, when combined, create a recipe for successfully finding more clients and cases.
At OppGen, we have perfected this recipe for personal injury law firms who have seen more leads and gotten more cases as a result.
If your personal injury law firm is seeking more cases and/or needs a digital marketing strategy, contact us today for more information and advice.
If you want your law firm to continue to grow and succeed, it needs to succeed in marketing itself digitally. This means your law firm needs to look as professional online as it does in person. Any disconnect between your law firm’s branding, design, and messaging at any level will deter prospective clients, so it’s important that your digital presence is just as professional and consistent as it is in your law firm’s physical office space.
To ensure that your law firm’s digital marketing strategy is helping it succeed, consider the following tips — or contacting OppGen for a free consultation.
If your website is slow and doesn’t work smoothly on mobile devices, search engines will recognize that and push you down on the search engine results pages (SERPs) for keywords related to your law firm. Not only that, but slow, non-mobile-friendly websites hurt your overall accessibility with prospects, as do sites that are difficult to navigate.
Your website should have a simple design with a navigation bar featuring the following items:
Depending on what your law firm specializes in, the practice areas page may have a drop-down list. These items keep your site organized and easy to navigate. If it’s easy for prospects to navigate, it’s going to be even easier for search engines to crawl when reviewing your law firm’s website and determining its SERPs rank.
A large part of lawyers’ job is to give legal advice — and good legal advice at that. Rather than charge a prospective client for asking for advice, consider writing a blog for prospects about your areas of practice. This can be a wide variety of things, like how to prepare for a small claims court case (even though most lawyers are not involved in small claims court cases); what to do in an accident; how to determine if you’ve been discriminated against in the workplace; and so on.
If your blog’s legal advice helps someone, chances are they will remember that and recommend your firm as a resource. Or if they ever experience future legal trouble, they may reach out to you for legal representation. Word of mouth marketing goes a long way.
Writing isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but thankfully there are other ways to create content for your website. You can create videos, upload them to YouTube, and embed them on your website.
Same goes for podcasts (though you’re more likely to upload it to Apple’s iTunes store or another podcast hosting platform, like Stitcher or Spotify, instead of YouTube). If you’re able to create blogs using multiple components of media (i.e., a blog post summarizing or transcribing a podcast), that’s even better. Making your content accessible to as many people as possible is always a good thing, and search engines will take notice of that.
Since search engines take into account a user’s physical location when they search for businesses and services, the nearest locations are the ones that will show up first on the search results page. That’s why it’s imperative to create a Google My Business account for your law firm and ensure your location (address) and contact information is accurate and up to date.
Don’t stop at just Google My Business, either; make sure that information is available on Yelp, Yellow Pages, and other relevant business and legal directories.
When writing blog posts, try to include your law firm’s location in the blog title and body, or mention it in your podcast or video’s title and description. Narrowing down your location can be very useful, particularly in cases where laws may differ from state to state. That will save both you and prospects time when deciding whether or not there is a case worth taking to court.
Once your Google My Business page and website begin to move up higher in the search results on Google, you’ll want to make sure you have reviews. More four- and five-star reviews can push you up in the rankings but they also instill trust in prospects who are deciding whether or not to contact your law firm for legal representation.
Same goes for testimonials, which should be updated on your website. Testimonials can be powerful marketing tools, as they tell a story of how you really helped a client out when they needed it.
So when you’ve won a case or helped a client settle a claim, be sure to ask them for a testimonial and/or review. You can also encourage former clients to write a testimonial with a contest, such as a raffle or drawing for every client who has written a testimonial or review for your law firm. The prize doesn’t have to be extravagant — it could be something as simple as a gift card to a local business.
Contact OppGen for more ideas on how to request reviews.
Social media is a great platform for reaching out to prospects and to current clients, especially when you take advertising options into consideration. But you shouldn’t create social media accounts for every single platform. While TikTok is all the rage with Generation Z and younger Millennials, it’s probably not the best place to market to clients who need legal representation.
On the other hand, if you’re a bankruptcy lawyer or business attorney, LinkedIn might be one of the best platforms to market your law firm’s services, especially because you can create ads and have them targeted to people in specific companies and certain positions.
As a general rule of thumb, Facebook and Instagram are safe choices for marketing most law firms, given their wide swaths of users from different backgrounds, as well as their highly targeted audience targeting tools.
Sometimes, it’s best to refer a prospective client to a law firm that specializes in a different practice area. Similarly, it may be best to reach out to a digital marketing agency that specializes in digital marketing for law firms.
OppGen has worked with law firms in different practice areas to ensure their digital presence best represents the work they do. We’ve created websites and landing pages that feature our proprietary tracking system that shows where a lead came from and how valuable the channel they came through is.
To discover where your law firm’s online marketing strategy can improve, fill out our free digital audit today, or contact us for more information.