A managing partner with one more marketing dollar usually faces a plain choice: Google Ads, or pages on the firm’s own website. Ads can produce calls this week. Pages take longer and keep working after they are paid for.
That is the real question behind law firm PPC vs SEO. Each channel does a different job well.
Lexicon writes legal content and does not run ads. PPC still gets a fair hearing here, including the searches where ads are the better buy.
PPC rents a law firm a place on the results page one search at a time, and that place disappears when the spending stops.
Content earns a place that takes longer to build and is never guaranteed. Hire-now searches favor ads, research questions favor content, and firms with the budget run both.
How a Law Firm Pays for a Click, and What Content Pays For Instead
A law firm using Google Ads cost-per-click bidding pays for each click, at a price set fresh for every search. Placement depends on Google’s Ad Rank calculation, which “is calculated every time a user does a search” and weighs the firm’s bid, “the quality of your ads and landing page,” and “the competitiveness of an auction.”
The actual charge is only what’s “minimally required to clear the Ad Rank thresholds and beat the Ad Rank of the competitor immediately below you.” So a legal click’s price depends on who else bids in that city and practice area.
Content pays for something different. A practice area page is paid for once, carries no per-click charge, and keeps existing afterward. It has no guaranteed placement and earns traffic slowly.
The two channels meet on the landing page, which is content that Ad Rank weighs.
When Paid Search Makes Sense for a Law Firm, and When Content Does
Paid search and content each fit a different kind of law firm search.
Paid search tends to make sense for:
- Hire-now searches in urgent matters, such as criminal defense after an arrest.
- A new office or practice area with no organic presence yet.
Content tends to make sense for:
- Questions from research-stage searches that come before the call, which ads rarely answer well.
- Visibility for firms working with a small budget that cannot sustain ad spend.
Firms with the budget usually run both.
What the Bar Rules Say About Paying for Search Ads
The bar rules on paying for search ads start from permission. Under ABA Model Rule 7.2, “A lawyer may communicate information regarding the lawyer’s services through any media,” and paragraph (b)(1) lets a lawyer “pay the reasonable costs of advertisements or communications permitted by this Rule.” Under Rule 7.1, ad copy and landing pages cannot be false or misleading.
Search ads are not solicitation under the Model Rules, since the Rule 7.3 comment excludes communications “automatically generated in response to electronic searches.”
Competitor-name keywords are where states split. North Carolina’s 2010 Formal Ethics Opinion 14 concludes it is “a violation of Rule 8.4(c) for a lawyer to select another lawyer’s name to be used in his own keyword advertising.” South Carolina’s Ethics Advisory Opinion 20-01 says “A lawyer may use internet competitive keyword advertising that includes the names of competing lawyers and law firms,” but not a link that poses as a competitor’s site.
Your state’s version of these rules controls, and this is not legal advice.
How to Split a Legal Marketing Budget Between PPC and Content in Four Steps
Splitting a legal marketing budget between PPC and content takes four steps.
Step 1: Sort the Searches
Sort the searches the firm wants into hire-now and research-stage, using Search Console queries and intake notes.
Step 2: Price the Hire-Now Terms
Before setting an ad budget, pull the Keyword Planner top of page bid estimate for each hire-now term in your market.
Step 3: Fund the Research-Stage Pages
Put content money into the pages a content program should produce for research-stage questions, and make every ad landing page useful to the reader.
Step 4: Review Paid and Organic Together
Each quarter, compare channels in Google’s paid and organic report. Move money toward the channel that signed matters, not the one that drew clicks.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do Google Ads help a law firm rank higher in organic search?
Google Ads do not help a law firm rank higher in organic search. Google states that it “doesn’t accept payment to crawl a site more frequently, or rank it higher.” Paid and organic placement are separate systems.
Can a law firm bid on another lawyer’s name in Google Ads?
Bidding on another lawyer’s name in Google Ads depends on the state. North Carolina treats it as a Rule 8.4(c) violation, while South Carolina permits it without deceptive redirection.
How are Google Local Services Ads for lawyers different from regular search ads?
Google Local Services Ads for lawyers charge per contact, not per click: firms “only pay when a customer gets in touch from your ad.” Google also checks each lawyer’s state bar license.
How can a law firm estimate the cost of a click in its practice area?
A law firm can estimate the cost of a click in its practice area with the Keyword Planner top of page bid estimate, which Google bases on Quality Score and competition. Agency averages are not a substitute.
Law Firm PPC vs SEO: Fund Each One for the Job It Does
The law firm PPC vs SEO decision gets easier once each search has a job. Ads cover searches that need an answer today. Content covers the questions clients research before calling. Both depend on the landing page.
Call 877-486-8123 or contact us online to talk with Lexicon about law firm content writing for your practice.
David Arato, JD is the founder of Lexicon Legal Content, an attorney-owned legal content marketing agency serving law firms since 2012. Lexicon writes the pages law firms use for search, including practice area pages, blog posts and FAQ content. David is a frequent contributor to Attorney at Law Magazine and Attorney at Work and a recurring guest on legal marketing podcasts.
