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Marketing Your Practice Through Google

Five tips on the benefits of search engine advertising

By Maya Blyth and Ken Matejka, Legal PPC

Are you thinking about marketing your law practice in a search engine like Google, but not sure you should take the plunge? Here's part one of a two-part series about why search engine advertising is a great way to get more clients:

1. React immediately to events in the news, changes in the law, or even your own personal whims. Unlike more traditional forms of marketing like the Yellow Pages, you don't have to worry about planning your ad copy months in advance.

2. Reach people outside of your geographic area - people in other cities, the entire state of California , or even other countries. This is especially helpful if you practice an esoteric area of law, or you are looking for plaintiffs for a class action lawsuit. If you're a personal injury lawyer, you may find that injured tourists often return home before beginning their search for a San Francisco attorney.

3. Pay as much or as little as you want (and start & stop advertising at any time). No matter what your budget is, you have an unlimited amount of flexibility. Having cash flow issues or going on vacation? Pause your advertising until you're ready to resume. Not enough work? Spend more this week to get a few extra inquiries.

4. Get real feedback about how well your Web site converts visitors into clients. Google allows you to track conversions and other important data about your Web site visitors. If your data is telling you that a page on your site is a top exit page (i.e., they often leave your site from that page), you can experiment with different looks for that page, creating more conspicuous calls to action, or trying different copy.

5. Easiest and most effective way to ensure that your web site is visible in the search engines. Even if your site ranks well for certain phrases, you cannot rank well for the thousands of words and phrases that are relevant to your practice areas. Also, for new or poorly optimized sites, search engine marketing may be the only way to ensure that people can find you on the internet.­

Next issue: Reasons 6 through 10 of why search engine advertising is a great, cost-effective way to get more clients.

Ken Matejka and Maya Blyth are cofounders of LegalPPC, a San Francisco based marketing company dedicated to helping solo practitioners and small law firms get more clients from the Google search engine. They can be reached at ken@legalppc.com or maya@legalppc.com