2010 has seen record levels of Pay Per Click (PPC) spending in New York City for the top PPC positions. Even though only 20-30% of all user clicks end up going to PPC ads, attorneys continue to spend record amounts of money paying for these positions. The most common reason why some law firms continue to pay for PPC is due to a lack of performance of their existing website in the natural (or organic) search results. Since most attorneys do not have a sound search engine optimization strategy in place today, around 88% of all spending tends to go to PPC while only 10% goes to SEO. Despite this number, the attorneys with the highest organic research results tend to also have the highest ROI for their internet spending dollars.
Here is a list of many of the most common PPC ads being run in New York City today and their relative costs to compete for the top positions:
New York City Personal Injury Attorney: $31.35 per click
New York Medical Malpractice Lawyer: $30.25 per click
New York DWI Attorney: $27.37 per click
Investment Fraud Lawyers: $26.22 per click
New York Personal Injury Lawyer: $25.76 per click
New York Injury Lawyer: $25.40 per click
New York Car Accident Lawyer: $24.40 per click
New York Criminal Defense Lawyer: $23.96 per click
Tax Fraud Attorney: $22.09 per click
Construction Accident Attorney: $20.76 per click
New York Slip and Fall Attorney: $20.69 per click
New York Bankruptcy Attorney: $18.29 per click
White Collar Crime Lawyer: $16.12 per click
New York Divorce Attorney: $13.56 per click
Police Brutality Lawyer: $12.10 per click
Business Lawyer New York: $9.47 per click
Manhattan Real Estate Lawyer: $7.97 per click
New York Immigration Lawyers: $7.51 per click
Securities Fraud Attorney New York: $7.01 per click
Social Security Disability Lawyers: $7.75 per click
New York Probate Attorney: $5.85 per click
Real Estate Attorney New York City: $5.67 per click
*Note: These amounts fluctuate on a regular basis so these are only estimates based on the time of publication.
As discussed previously with the new changes to Google Places, the top 3 PPC positions in Google just became more prominent and arguably will become more competitive as well. Why? Most attorney PPC advertising takes place around common searches in local areas where Google Places (or maps) displays are present. Since Google has now moved their maps display in place of top PPC advertising on the right hand side of the screen, users will be stressed to see PPC ads below it – especially since the map now floats over these ads as you scroll down the screen to view them.
What does all of this mean to attorneys doing PPC?
- The top positions (located just above the organic results) just became more prominent and will likely become more expensive.
- - If you cannot pay for these top three positions in PPC, you should seriously consider finding secondary key words and terms that are more affordable for you. A good attorney SEO consultant will be able to help you with this.
- - If you have a website now that is not displaying high organically, you may want to reconsider your sending online for better organic results. On average, the ROI on this type of spending far outweighs PPC spending and gives you many more opportunities to capture more long-tail searches as well. Since 40-50% of attorney searches are non-repeatable, you will never be able to predict roughly half of the potential searches you could receive by forgoing good organic results for PPC.
- - Calculate your web spending ROI. Ask attorneys in the top PPC positions what they are paying for these clicks on a monthly basis and compare that with what the top organic position firms are paying for the same searches. Then ask them the new case value on average that each of them have received. I do this frequently with my clients and the differential is almost always significantly weighed in favor of organic results law firm.
- - Other forms of PPC advertising are becoming more cost effective alternatives. For example, Facebook now allows you to advertising to people by demographics (instead of keywords) and due to the lower level of competition for these advertising dollars, these may be a more cost effective alternative for your practice. With 500 million plus users, Facebook follows the old saying in marketing that you should fish were the fish are…and they are increasing on Facebook.
To learn more about law firm search engine optimization, please visit our website and see how we can help you create the highest value online marketing strategies for your law firm.
Unless you have the time and expertise to commit to this project, you should find an Atlanta SEO agency to help you. Getting ranked well on the search engines can be a little tricky if you do not know what you are doing. You can waste a lot of time trying techniques that do not work, and if you get it wrong it can actually end up hurting your placement.
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