Aside from dealing with difficult clients and long hours, lawyers say that the most challenging aspect of their job is generating new clients (source).
If there’s anyone that understands the power of marketing and advertising, it’s lawyers. Without it, no one will know your law firm exists, especially if you’re just starting out.
Relying solely on word-of-mouth would require folks to know others who went through a similar ordeal — what are the odds of that?
With all the online resources available today, it’s easy for lawyers to attract a ton of traffic. The real issue is converting that traffic into clients with viable cases (aka NO tire kickers).
The problem isn’t the marketing, it’s the strategy. Most lawyers have issues with two things:
It seems the legal industry has a monopoly on bench ads — everywhere you look in metro areas, you’ll find a lawyer on the back of a bench or cruising by on the side of a bus.
The initial appeal of these mediums is understandable because these items are seen by thousands of people each day.
Despite their apparent appeal, here are two compelling reasons to reconsider bench ads:
Sure, it may help your law firm’s “brand” to be visible to so many, but very few (if any) of those people will ever seek your services.
Also, just being visible doesn’t mean people are actually seeing your ads.
Studies show that almost no one pays attention to these types of ads, because they are almost always buried in their phones when present, where digital ads can be far more targeted and effective.
Thinking social media is the answer for easy leads? Think again.
Social media is the virtual version of cities that might generate visibility for law firms.
However, social media platforms don’t make this easy.
You see, social networks like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn use algorithms that prioritize certain types of engaging posts published by profiles with high engagement rates.
If you don’t understand the algorithm and how to get your content seen on it, then your organic social media posts will go unseen. So unless you have a large following — which can take significant months or even years to achieve — you’re stuck with low reach and engagement.
Most lawyers simply don’t have the bandwidth to dedicate to the constant engagement needed to grow an audience on social media. So unless you’re a natural content creator and have an audience, then it’s not ideal to start with.
That’s a valid option — you can pay social networks to boost an organic post (aka sponsored posts) based on your targeting options. And you can use social media ads.
There’s nothing wrong with paid social, but it should be something you invest in after dominating Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs).
After all, when someone has a pressing legal issue, where’s the first place they turn?
Google…not social media initially. However, paid social can be valuable for retargeting or building brand awareness.
Ask any successful law firm – they will tell you Google plays a critical role in generating leads and clients.
Instagram, billboards, FB Ads are all casting a wide net, hoping someone who sees it is “in market” for legal services.
Google is the opposite.
There’s thousands of people in your city actively searching to hire you.
The law firms who get found generate hundreds of phone calls each month.
But…You already know how important Google is. You’ve likely invested in an agency, hoping for results, only to be over-promised and under-delivered.
It’s not their fault – they’re trying, but they’re pushing a boulder up a hill. “Traditional” SEO is dead – it simply does not work like it used to.
To understand why many law firms struggle with online marketing, let’s first define what we mean by ‘Traditional SEO.’
Traditional SEO means optimizing a website the same way it’s been done back in like 2010, focusing primarily on keyword stuffing and link building, with the goal of trying to rank your website in the organic listings in Google.
This is the frustrating reality for many law firms – aware of the need for search engine traffic, but unable to achieve consistent results from outdated SEO or isolated PPC campaigns.
To illustrate this complexity, let’s take a look at a typical Google search result page for ‘Miami divorce attorney’:
Traditional SEO Results, littered with websites like Avvo and Forbes. Results from user generating forums like Reddit.
This is why we say “traditional SEO” is dead. There’s a million things happening in Google that fracture the searchers attention, diluting the effectiveness of a single-channel approach.
All of these sections attract eyeballs and clicks – if you’re not attacking all of them, your campaigns will fail.
The key to generating more leads from search engines in 2025 is to be hyper-present in all elements of search …aka a “Blended Search” approach.
So, dominating the search results sounds like the ideal solution.
But how do we make that happen?
We use a data-driven, proven strategy to help law firms appear in all relevant areas of the SERPs.
But enough talk — here’s how we do it.
The first element of our ‘Blended’ strategy is Local Services Ads (LSAs), a powerful tool for immediate visibility.
Local Service Ads are the first thing you’ll see when you search for your target keywords.
LSAs appear for any localized search (e.g., ‘Miami,’ ‘near me’). LSAs are a newer ad placement from Google.
They were launched to help democratize advertising and make it more accessible to a wider range of businesses.
LSAs are particularly effective because they are pay per lead – meaning you only pay Google for a qualified phone call.
These are different than your traditional PPC ads, which often charge per click, LSAs run through their own platform and require their own separate setup and maintenance
This is the first placement we use to attract the eyeballs of your best prospects.
They include a photo of you and all the critical factors people consider when choosing an attorney: Address. Phone number. Hours of operation. Service area. Star rating and number of reviews.
We help your law firm maximize its presence in these results by:
Our process helps you generate highly qualified leads that are most likely to convert into big bucks for your firm, provided you respond to inquiries promptly.
Complementing LSAs, our ‘Blended’ strategy incorporates targeted Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Ads for broader reach and granular control.
PPC Ads offer much more flexibility in terms of targeting, allowing us to reach specific demographics, interests, and even past website visitors, whereas LSAs will only show up for localized queries.
PPC Ads also have a different model – you pay for every “click” your ads receive, while with LSAs you pay per qualified phone call.
Depending on the keywords you’re bidding on, the cost per click varies, ranging from a few dollars to a few hundred dollars.
While we always recommend both PPC and LSA, the biggest benefit to PPC Ads over LSAs is targeting, but depending on the type of personal injury law, PPC ads can sometimes result in a higher cost per qualified lead compared to LSAs.
PPC ads are invaluable for identifying what we call “winning keywords”—the exact search terms driving the most valuable cases—and also excluding bad keywords with negative keyword lists.
Continuous maintenance and testing of your AdWords account will produce higher quality leads at lower costs. Getting your PPC ads profitable is a process that takes time.
That process includes:
The cornerstone of our lead generation success?
The Google Maps Pack, driving over 50% of our clients’ qualified leads.
Unlike the first two tactics, this isn’t a paid strategy.
The goal is to organically appear in the top three results for relevant local queries.
This placement is so powerful for a number of reasons:
When optimizing your GBP, be sure to:
Your GBP isn’t something you do once and forget about.
Consistent GBP updates are crucial for maintaining and improving your local ranking over time.
Now I know we originally downplayed their importance, but the fact is ranking in the traditional SEO results will still positively impact your law firm’s leads.
However, the importance isn’t solely on your website anymore – this is why so many law firms struggle with SEO.
Your agency is following a strategy that used to work 5 years ago, but Google’s algorithm has changed significantly in recent years.
Inside of the traditional organic results, you will see:
Review aggregator websites like Super Lawyers, FindLaw and Avvo…
User generated content from forum sites like Reddit and Quora…
People also ask content pulling from informational articles on websites…
Each of these present another opportunity to capture attention and win leads, but you have to modernize your approach in order to do so.
You can’t just “create great content” on your blog and expect leads; you need a more holistic approach to traditional SEO.
Some the things we focus on here are…
To maximize your visibility in the broader search landscape, we focus on optimizing your profiles on key legal directories.
Fill out your profile completely, ensuring every section is detailed and keyword-rich, including consistently encouraging happy clients to leave reviews.
This will help your profile to rank on top of the search results inside those platforms, ultimately contributing to your law firm’s broader online presence that Google considers.
Blog posts, guides, and videos are key to increasing your chances of ranking on Google’s first page, especially in the ‘People Also Ask’ (PAA) box.
For example, our content strategy includes incorporating FAQ sections into blog posts, specifically addressing common questions that appear in the PAA box.
Content marketing is another “free” marketing strategy that can land you spots in the PAA box, snippets, and the coveted #1 spot in the search results by providing valuable, informative answers to user queries.
To achieve these positions, you can use various forms of content, including blog posts, guides, and videos, optimizing them with your winning keywords.
These keywords should appear in your title, one or two subheadings, and thoughtfully integrated throughout the post.
This covers ranking high on organic search — what about getting the snippet?
To further illustrate the featured snippet optimization process, consider this example:
Question: What percentage do most personal injury lawyers take?
Answer: The percentage that most personal injury lawyers take is…
This formatting helps Google confidently identify your content as a direct answer to the question, which will help their searchers. And that’s all Google cares about — making a great search experience for people.
By structuring your content in this way, you directly align with Google’s goal of providing helpful and immediate answers to searchers, significantly increasing your chances of earning a featured snippet.
Consistent, high-quality content marketing is another non-negotiable element of our modern SEO strategy.
In other words, you need to publish valuable, informative, and engaging content regularly to show Google your site is relevant and fresh.
When building client content machines, we meticulously select the topics and exclusively use legal professionals who deeply understand your industry to write your blog posts.
This ensures accuracy, builds unshakeable authority and trust, which is vital for turning visitors into leads.
Plus, it’s incredibly beneficial for gaining relevant backlinks from high-authority websites within the legal industry and beyond. These authoritative backlinks directly boost your domain authority, improve your Google ranking, and drive overall traffic to your site.
Cases to read. Motions to file. Consults to give. There’s a lot on your plate as a lawyer — why add another discipline that demands specialized knowledge?
Marketing isn’t something you can jump into and learn overnight.
It requires many years of experience learning the craft and building proven processes.
So avoid the learning curve and continue doing what you do best: winning cases.
Allow us to manage lead generation so you can avoid tire kickers and get more high-quality leads calling your office.
Your prospects are waiting, but they won’t forever — contact our growth team now to begin your journey to search engine dominance and consistent lead generation.”
