Google Ads for lawyers, by the matters you take

A US firm should limit Google Ads for lawyers to the states where the lawyers are licensed and willing to take the matter. Buying a national query because a tool shows volume sends consults you must decline. The ad and the page should name that state in the same words intake uses on the phone.

Personal injury, some criminal defense terms, and a handful of family law queries sit among the pricier clicks in local search. Estate planning and business counsel are often less frantic and still not cheap. The price is what other advertisers will pay for the query. It does not tell you whether your firm should buy it. A firm that does not actually try those cases should not bid on them because a tool called the volume high.

We build from the matters you take this quarter, the geography you are licensed and willing to travel, and the intake capacity you have. A keyword with a high suggested bid and no one to answer the phone is a donation. A narrower query, such as a specific charge or a specific estate document you prepare, can be a better account than the head term everyone else is fighting over.

We will not quote a cost per signed client from another firm and imply it will be yours. Firms count a "case" differently. Some count a consult. Some count a retainer. Some count a fee that arrives a year later. Until we agree on that definition, a single cost number is theater.

A blended campaign called "lawyer" mixes people who need a divorce consult with people who need a will and people who need a defense attorney tonight. The ad cannot speak to all of them, the landing page cannot either, and the budget flows to whichever query is easiest to spend. Split campaigns by practice area you actually accept. Pause the ones the firm is full on. Leave the ones intake can still book.

Inside a practice area, the ad groups still need a spine. Family law might separate divorce, custody, and support if those are different consults for you. Injury work might separate motor vehicle from premises if the firm treats them as different intakes. If the firm would hand both to the same lawyer with the same script, they can share an ad group. The test is operational, not a keyword taxonomy for its own sake.

An example, labelled as an example: a four lawyer firm might run estate planning on weekdays with a consult calendar, and run a criminal campaign only during hours an on call lawyer will take the phone. The injury campaign might use a tighter geo than the estate campaign because the firm will not travel for a small property case and will travel for a planning client. That is an illustration of structure. It is not a result.

State rules on lawyer advertising, specialization claims, testimonials, past results, and solicitation are not the same everywhere, and they are not our license to interpret. This page is not legal advice. We will draft ads from language the firm approves. If the firm does not have approved language, the first step is a review by whoever is responsible for ethics compliance, not a sharper adjective from an ads person.

Claims that need extra care in many jurisdictions include "expert", "specialist", dollar outcomes, and "we will win". Some states allow specific phrases only with a disclaimer or a certification. We will not guess which sentence is safe in your state. We will also not put a past result in an ad because it looks convincing. If it cannot go on the site under your rules, it cannot go in the ad.

The same restraint applies to sitelinks and call only ads. A short headline is where firms accidentally say more than the rule allows, because the character limit rewards compression. Compression is not a defense. The responsible lawyer reads the ads before they run, including the versions written for mobile.

A cheap click that is a student, a vendor, a pro se researcher, or a person outside the practice area is not a bargain. It is a call your intake has to decline. Call quality is the number that should sit next to cost per click: was this a matter the firm handles, in the geography you serve, with a person who can hire you. We would rather pay more for that call than celebrate a low average that is mostly noise.

Intake needs a script that matches the campaign. The person who answers should know which practice area the click named, what the firm does not take, and how a consult is booked. A criminal call answered with a generic "law office, please hold" and then a pitch for estate planning is a failed click even if the click was inexpensive. After hours rules matter here too. If nobody can take a jail call, the ad should not imply that someone can.

Recording and consent rules vary by state. If calls are recorded, the greeting has to say what your counsel says it must say. We do not design a tracking setup that ignores that. Call tracking is still worth having, because without it the firm cannot tell a family law click from an injury click once they land on the same front desk.

• Campaigns paused when intake cannot take that matter
• A definition of a qualified call the firm agrees to before reporting
• Negatives for jobs, pro se forms, law school, and "free lawyer" if you do not offer it
• No outcome claims unless the firm's own review has cleared the sentence
• A human on the review of ads, not a model left alone with the bar rules

Each practice area that spends money should land on a page about that matter. The page names who the firm helps, who it does not, how a consult works, and what it is not (it is not a representation and it is not advice delivered by the form). A homepage with a skyline and the word "justice" makes an expensive click do extra work. The person already told you the matter by the query they typed.

Forms should ask for the facts intake actually uses: practice area, names if you need them for a later conflict check, a deadline if there is one, and a phone number. They should not ask for a novel, and they should not ask the person to describe guilt or a diagnosis in a text box that a marketing tool will store. Conflict checks remain a person's job. An ad form does not clear conflicts.

Ad spend is paid to Google. The management fee is separate. For law firm accounts, typical management fees are often discussed as a percent of spend or as a monthly minimum, because the weekly work of search terms, ad review, and call quality does not scale down just because a month was quiet. That is market language. It is not a CodeHunterz rate card, and it is not a quote. We do not guarantee consults, signed matters, or any return on the spend.