We know full well about the competitive market of legal professions and law firms. So, everyone in the field must go beyond to display their skills and make their presence visible. 

Legal professionals should bring their marketing game up with a dash of search engine optimization (SEO) or/and pay-per-click (PPC) marketing. That is where the real question comes in: Which would suit your law firm better: SEO or PPC? 

SEO and PPC are two marketing strategies that:

1.  Aim to obtain traffic for your website and  
2. Increase visibility through different approaches

Deciding between SEO and PPC could be a difficult decision. Both offer different benefits and require a different kind of attention and, of course, budget. 

Hence, we decided to highlight the cons and pros of both marketing strategies in this article. So, you can make the last call on which tactic works best for your law firm. 

SEO: Search Engine Optimization  

This strategy refers to increasing your brand reputation and gaining authority. You can do this by polishing your content, gaining backlinks (which helps maintain credibility), and focusing on user experience. 

Pros of SEO 

• Cost-Effective: The cost for SEO strategies is much more stable than PPC campaigns. Since no cost is directly attached, you can gain excess traffic through a single investment. 
• Long-Term Results: Although the result of an SEO campaign takes time, it stays for a longer time. Once you reach the top position in the SERP, you can enjoy it for a long time. And as long as you keep updating your website with good quality content and relevant keywords, your plan is successful. 
• Reach and Credibility: SEO is the easiest way to place your law firm in front of the most relevant customers in your location. Since SEO includes third parties (social media, news resources and others), you can get a better reach. 

In SEO marketing, you update the content of your website according to the popular keywords relevant to your field of practice. The backlinks will have Google and other search engines consider your content informative and valuable, hence gaining the near top position in Search Engine Result Pages (SERP).  

Cons of SEO 

To understand and dive more into the ”SEO vs. PPC for Law Firms” battle, next are the cons of SEO.  

• Unpredictable: With the constant changes in Google’s algorithms, highly ranking keywords today might be less helpful tomorrow. Therefore, your search ranking may experience turbulence sometimes. 
• Time-Consuming: It takes time to see the results with SEO practices. Your SEO team has to dedicate a lot of time and effort to see results that could take weeks or months from when you start. 
• Competitive: Digital marketing is a highly driven mart, especially for the legal discipline. Many law firms are targeting the same audience with the exact keywords. So, you have to think above with your strategies to gain results.  

By now, we understand; what SEO is and things to consider before opting for this marketing tactic. 

PPC: Pay-Per-Click 

It refers to the tactic where Google places the ad for your law firm on the top of the Search engine result page based on relevant keywords. You (only) pay for every click on the page, hence Pay-Per-Click. 

Pros of PPC 

• Immediate Effect: With PPC, the day your ad gets approved is also the day you can begin receiving traffic. SEO takes time to show results, but with PPC, you can get immediate traffic and general conversions. 
• Better Targeting: SEO revolves around targeting keywords relevant to your region. However, with PPC, you can target according to demographics or potential clients in neighboring cities. PPC will broaden your audience, so you know you’re investing money in the right place. 
• Measurable: You can measure the clicks, impressions and conversions with PPC. It will help you manage your strategy and optimize it for better results. 

With a professional, you can keep improving your PPC strategy and reducing CPC (Cost Per Conversion). 

Cons of PPC

• Costly: The average cost per conversion of PPC will be higher than SEO. You pay for each click, and the amount can significantly depend on the keywords and their competitiveness. 
• Short-Lived Results: Google shows your ads at specific times of the day that determines the result. This practice is good for optimizing your strategy but would provide limited exposure. Unless you have an unlimited budget, your ads will stop appearing, which will decrease the traffic, too. 
• Complex: PPC requires more focus than SEO. It demands a team of professionals with immense knowledge. They can brainstorm a unique strategy of what will work best and its appropriate execution for good results.  

The hefty amount is all worth is it offers immediate desired results. With an accurately designed ad, you gain visibility and knowledge of the interest of your potential clients. 

SEO and PPC Together 

For law firms, it is ideal to consider both marketing strategies. Since the market is competitive and the lead volume is low, you can use both marketing tactics hand in hand to get the most out of digital marketing. 

PPC and SEO have a few things in common that can support each other in a successful marketing campaign.  

1. Both rely on relevant keywords
2. They both count on the target audience and address searchers’ intent 
3. The two depend on the changes in Google’s algorithm
4. And finally, they require deep research and understanding of the audience

By understanding the audience, marketers are more likely to address a common issue in a far better way that resonates with potential clients and forms a connection with them. 

Meanwhile, on the other hand, we have a few differences in the SEO and PPC tactics that require attention to get the most out of these two. These differences are;

1. No matter how much you invest in your PPC advertising, people find it hard to believe in its authenticity and will not click on it anyway (sounds like a risky investment) 
2. Most people will not trust ads and only clicks on them once their product or service research is complete.

1. PPC is already paid (although SEO is free apart from time and labor), but the keyword bidding can get competitively expensive
2. If you compare traffic earned through SEO and PPC, there’s no doubt that people will choose organic, top-ranking sites over paid advertisement. Even if the PPC ad would take them to the same webpage)
3. On the brighter side, PPC brings leads more rapidly than SEO does. It takes up to 6 months or more for SEO to deliver results.
4. PPC is part of a campaign that ends with the campaign. SEO is a long-term marketing strategy, relevant as long as the page appears in search results.
5. SEO is vital for a successful law firm strategy. However, PPC is not a necessary advertising tactic and is only considered a bonus move.

Therefore, utilize the keywords insight from a PPC ad to optimize your SEO campaign. Similarly, evaluate a well-performing PPC campaign and convert it into valuable content. Using PPC and SEO together can offer more brand exposure hence, prospects for your law firm. 

A Combined Strategy: SEO and PPC

Getting your law firm out there in public requires so much attention and hard work (of course, the brainstorming part too). Therefore, we’ll list the things to consider to get the most out of SEO and PPC for your next marketing campaign.

• Understand the algorithm of Google so you can decide on a reliable strategy.
• Come up with a tactic that goes well with Google’s algorithm.
• When hiring a professional marketer, ensure they do not promise a result that sounds too good; to be true.
• Revise the period required to see results. SEO is unpredictable with the timeline, but your service provider shall be able to provide an approximate timeline
•  Discuss your expectations with the campaign; are they practical? 
• Lastly, since this is essential to long-term marketing, assess your return on investment (ROI) and look for growth in your reports. Is the investment worth it, or does your strategy requires modifications? 

Before we end this article, there is one more thing to add. Trust your professional marketer. Campaigns are a tough grind. It requires constant attention, focus, and the ability to find a solution to the problems at hand. 

PPC campaigns are troubling enough that only specialists can tackle the challenges and market changes. PPC advertising or SEO strategies; depend entirely on your key performance indicators (KPI). Discuss your KPIs with your team so they can design a campaign accordingly. 

Ask for a weekly or monthly report and asses the progress in performance. It will help you identify any changes the campaign needs, readjust budgets, or redesign specific areas of the campaign for maximum yield. 

Key Take Aways

Both can offer many benefits. So, if you are still wondering which is better for law firms? Then the answer is both! A mix of both can be helpful for your overall marketing strategy. 

Not to forget that nothing guarantees results; this (too) demands a lot of trial and error to see what combination works best for your website. But with proper integration of these powerful marketing tactics, they sure will prove a result worth your efforts and investments.