A successful PPC landing page will engage your visitor

In PPC Landing Pages, Part 1 we defined pay-per-click advertising and discussed the importance of landing pages. In Part 2 we’ll cover the elements of an effective PPC landing page.

A well-designed landing page is important to the success of any law firm pay-per-click advertising campaign. These pages engage your visitors and prompt them to take immediate action, increasing your conversions.

What is a well-designed PPC landing page? It’s one that visitors can immediately identify as related to the ad they clicked. Web surfers have a very short attention span, so without that initial recognition, they are likely to leave without trying too hard to find what they are looking for.

Successful PPC landing pages tend to have:

• A headline that mirrors the ad: If your PPC ad promotes your services as a Napa family lawyer, the first thing your visitor should see, at the top left of the page, is the words “family law,” not something about, say, incorporating a business. Many law firms practice more than one area of law. Keep your landing pages focused on just the area highlighted in the PPC ad.
• Bullet points: Visitors who click on your PPC ad are busy and want to quickly figure out what you can do for them. Instead of long, tedious paragraphs, use short, snappy phrases presented as bullet points to draw the eye and get your point across efficiently.
• A prominent call to action: Place it “above the fold,” that is, make sure it is visible without having to scroll down the page. Present it as a big button or bold, oversized words that grab your visitors’ attention and tell them what to do next, whether it’s “Ask us now” or “Request your free consultation.” Avoid the generic “click here,” which is boring and unclear.
• Graphics: A page of plain text is dull, even with ample use of bullet points. Graphics can create a more pleasing presentation, just don’t overdo it. Keep images small and related to your service: happy people signing a contract, for example.
• Limited off-page navigation: Visitors click a PPC ad for a specific reason, so don’t encourage them to browse your site at this point. Other than the call to action, include links only to a privacy policy and either an About Us page or a Contact Us page, for people who need more information before committing. These links should be significantly smaller than the call to action, but still easy to find.

Remember to keep each ad campaign tightly focused to a single message. Since lawyers often provide multiple services, PPC for law firms might involve several ad campaigns, each spotlighting a different service.

Photo courtesy of Nyul

Law firms new to pay-per-click advertising often think an appealing ad and a link to a Web site’s homepage is all that’s necessary for a successful campaign. However, a law firm’s homepage needs to appeal to a wide range of visitors, from those looking for a specific service to those casually searching for information. A PPC ad campaign, on the other hand, targets a specific segment of your audience, and your PPC landing page should speak directly to them.

What is PPC Advertising?

PPC ads are the most popular way to advertise online today. Most PPC ads consist of two lines of text and a linked headline. Advertisers “bid” on keywords for which their ads will appear, and they pay only when someone clicks on the ad. A sample ad could be:

Chicago Truck Accident
Consult with experienced IL truck
accident lawyers with big case wins
www.prstruckinglaw.com

If the keyword phrase “Chicago truck accident lawyer” is chosen, the above ad will show at the top or along the right side of the search results page when that keyword phrase is searched on.

What is a Landing Page?

In broad terms, a landing page is the first page a visitor “lands” on when arriving at your site. A PPC landing page is the page to which you send people who click on your PPC ad. Landing pages should expand on the message in the ads, and every ad campaign should have its own landing page. If you create a group of ads for a campaign about trucking accidents, it’s ok to use the same landing page for them all, since the message will be similar for each.

Why Do You Need a Landing Page?
If you send clicks from your PPC ad to your homepage, visitors may not be sure what to do once they get there. Many firms offer legal services in more than one area of practice, so the typical law firm home page will cover more than one topic or specialty. Web surfers are impatient, and they want to find what they are looking for without extra effort. Therefore, if visitors land on a page without a clear call to action that does not mirror the words in the ad, they may get confused and leave.

A well-designed PPC landing page delivers that immediate satisfaction. Visitors to these pages are more likely to convert, because they can easily see what they came to find. Using the ad above as an example, a good landing page headline for that ad would be “Chicago Truck Accidents Lawyers.” All content on the page should be focused around truck accidents.

If you’re concerned that PPC campaigns for legal services are different from those for physical products, don’t be. PPC for lawyers is no different from PPC for the clothing boutique next door. A successful PPC advertising campaign will have an eye-catching ad and a landing page that captures visitors’ attention, guiding them to the next step.

Part 2 of PPC Landing Pages coming soon!

Before Google(GOOG) cracked down on Adsense abuse, mesothelioma-related pay-per-click (PPC) keywords were undoubtedly the most expensive and lucrative. Rumor has it that at its peak, these words cost as much as $200 per click. Wow! So, now that things have normalized (whatever normal is), is mesothelioma still king? While doing research for BRBS & HBN (mesothelioma lawyers in Philadelphia), I discovered that mesothelioma is still one of the most expensive PPC keywords. For example, “mesothelioma attorneys san diego” goes for $51.03 per click. [...]

Pay per click (or “PPC“) advertising is familiar to most people as those tiny ads that show up along the top and right column of Google and Yahoo sponsored search results. As little as 2 years ago, money ruled the paid advertising marketplace – he who had the most $ got the number one spot. More recently, Google AdWords has added a Quality Score or “QS” to how paid ads are ranked. This makes sure the ad and landing page both talk about the keyword being bid upon. Money + Quality = better placement within the sponsored results. So, what are the top PPC management tips in this new age of “QS” if you’re going to maximize traffic and minimize cost?

1. Base your paid advertising keywords on your website’s copy – if you don’t talk about it on your site, don’t bid on it. Conversely, if you want to break into a new area of practice, add content to your site first.
2. Segment your ad groups based upon your site’s available landing pages. The search engines like to see that you’re delivering visitors to a page appropriate for their query.
3. Make sure you use your target geography and as many keywords as reasonably possible in your advertisement itself. State that you are Ft Lauderdale lawyers or an Ohio criminal lawyer
4. Create multiple ads per ad group. Hey, let the search engine test and choose the best copy.
5. Turn off Content Match. Too often, this is nothing but a moneypit.

These five things alone can significantly improve the performance of most legal, paid advertising campaigns. Of course, if the website you’ve built to receive these visitors is of poor quality or without clear contact methods, even a huge volume of traffic will result in little business for your firm. These recommendations assume your website is able to convert PPC traffic to leads.

See Also:

• AdWords help center
• Yahoo! Sponsored Search guidelines
• SpyFu.com – find out what the competition is doing

[tags]PPC Management[/tags]

Knowing the maze of regulations surrounding legal advertising (that vary state by state), I suppose I thought lawyers would never pursue spammy marketing tactics. In a general sense, I never thought lawyers would pursue broadcast email marketing, just because of the difficulty in targeting qualified candidates, extremely low conversion rate and the negative reflection of the firm I believe it imparts. I was entertained by a piece of perceived lawyer spam I received via email the other day.

Now I’m sure I’ve never indicated I was in need of legal services. I honestly wonder how many clicks and/or calls the law firm will receive from this – the conversion rate? As the Wikipedia entry on Spam says:

Although only a tiny percentage of their targets are motivated to purchase their products (or fall victim to their scams), the low cost may provide a sufficient conversion rate to keep the spamming alive.

It’s the broadcast nature of this kind of solicitation that breeds mistrust of the brand (your law firm’s good name). Is it worth 500000 negative impressions of your firm for, say, 5 leads? Granted, that’s assuming a low, spam-like, 0.001% conversion rate, but the overall message is that, in my opinion, broadcast email marketing that’s perceived to be spam by 99.9% of recipients isn’t the best way to market your law firm. What can lawyers learn from this?

Take away: don’t be tempted by offers to conduct broadcast email on behalf of your firm. Be skeptical of (nearly) all “pre-qualified” lists of email addresses. The most effective email marketing your firm can conduct will start with opt-in lists developed through your own website or client list. This protects your good name by making sure that you approach recipients that are receptive to your message and it pays off in ROI by delivering more leads than non-targeted lists.

The next question is “how does my firm effectively build an email marketing list that I can trust”? Start with a reference or two such as:

Selecting Specific Targets When Marketing Your Practice by LexisNexis for general advice (disclosure)
28 Ways to Build Permission-Based Email Lists by EmailLabs
Email Marketing Tips, Tricks and Secrets by About.com

Then move on to deciding what success will mean to you in this campaign. Meaning, do you want X number of new clients? Then your message should target potential clients. Do you want to spread the news of a recent verdict? Increase referral business? Then your message should target other law firms.

Above, I’ve used this example of lawyer spam to advise the average small law firm on the do’s and don’ts of email marketing. Am I the end-all expert on email marketing, list development and targeting? No. But I do hope I’ve at least stirred a gut reaction from you on the approach that was taken recently to deliver this un-targeted message. That aversion should lead you to explore the right way to pursue an legal marketing campaign via email.

[tags]lawyer spam, email marketing[/tags]

I probably forgot to turn off some opt-out when filling out an online form, so this may not truly be a 100% "unsolicited" email message but that’s why I’m “protecting the innocent” law firm by not revealing their name.

Quick post – Google AdSense publishers can now elect to feature YouTube videos in conjunction with Google advertising. It’s an interesting idea. I’m giving it a test run on my travel video page but I’m not sure of the value for professional organizations. I suppose with the right targeting… maybe a test is in the works.

[tags]adsense, youtube[/tags]