Google Ads Policies: Ep. 4: Compliance Strategies

This episode of Legal Marketing 101 is brought to you by Thumbs Up Survey. Build better online surveys faster with Thumbs Up Survey Mention Legal Marketing 101 when you request access to the beta at thumbsupsurveycom to get access to features and discounts first. Thank you to our partners at thumbsupsurveycom. Welcome to Legal Marketing 101. I'm Toby Rosen. Welcome back to episode four in our Google Ads Policy Series, the final episode in the series.

We've talked about what Google's policies are, what advertising and editorial policies are, and a little bit about how they work, and today we are talking about some of the best practices for compliance. Google Ads content policies serve as a really critical framework for governing the nature and the appropriateness of website content linked to ad campaigns. For lawyers and small law firms like I work with, understanding and adhering to these content policies is essential for creating user-friendly and compliant landing pages that actually provide really valuable experiences to prospective clients. Google's content policies are very wide-ranging and, of course, there is the argument about the motivations of some of the policies, but on its face, the majority of these policies are aimed at promoting transparency, relevance and user safety across the Google Ads ecosystem, and these policies govern everything from landing page content to website functionality, to user experience standards that ensure that users receive accurate, trustworthy and valuable information when they're clicking on ads. That's what we should believe is the end goal for Google here, and, of course, these policies apply to all the content that you enter into Google Ads, the platform itself. That's pretty obvious, but we've touched on it a few times and we're going to talk about it a little bit again now, and that is that the policies here do also apply to the online properties you're connecting to Google, and that includes a bunch of different things. And Google Ads imposes various restrictions on landing pages and the website content to protect users from misleading, harmful or even just low-quality experiences, and these restrictions could include prohibitions on deceptive content or malicious behavior or non-functional features that just detract from the user experience. It's kind of wide-ranging, but fortunately, it's easy to stay on track.

Just build good landing pages, and of course, that is easier said than done, but there are a few key strategies that you can use that will keep you on the right path. So first, you want to ensure that your landing page content aligns really closely with ad messaging that you're using to provide a seamless and cohesive user experience. It should be the same thing when they click. You know before the click and after the click, and by delivering on the promises that you've made in the ad copy and maintaining consistency in your messaging, you'll instill confidence and trust in prospective clients and encourage them to take the actions you want them to take.

Yes, we do want to generate leads with our landing pages, but we need to actually provide valuable and relevant content that actually addresses users' needs, concerns and inquiries. This is for Google and this is for clients. We can't just slap up a page that says call us. We need to use tools like FAQs, case studies, testimonials and just other general informative content to demonstrate our expertise, our credibility and our authority on our landing pages. Then I want you to take a step back and work on optimizing your landing pages layout and design. This may seem a little bit counterintuitive, but what we want to do here is maximize clarity and accessibility, and I'm sure that's not counterintuitive. This enhances user engagement and it helps create a really clear path to drive more meaningful user interactions. Clear navigation, or no navigation when possible, and things like intuitive interface elements and mobile responsiveness these are now absolutely essential considerations for your landing pages. Lastly, we do want to have a clear and very conspicuous call to action or CTA as I usually refer to it that is going to prompt users to contact the firm or schedule a console or do whatever it is we're trying to do with this particular landing page. Not only does this help us optimize for conversion and it gives us a bunch of opportunities to drive more engagement if we sprinkle that CTA throughout the page but this CTA is going to make it very clear to Google what we're after. There's a form after that or a scheduling link. It's very clear to them. That's what we're trying to get people to do, and that leads us to the what you can't do section of compliance, and that's prohibited content. We're switching gears from do this to definitely, definitely don't do this.

Google ads content policies include strict and, again, rather wide guidelines regarding prohibited content, including restricted products and services that may not be promoted through the platform. I'm going to get a little bit more serious here, because understanding and adhering to these guidelines is essential for maintaining compliance and avoiding ad disapproval or account suspension. Both of those are just the things we just don't want to deal with. Prehibited content may encompass a variety of categories, including illegal products or services, deceptive practices and harmful content that violates user trust or safety. Examples of prohibited content may include illegal drugs, counterfeit goods, hacking software and deceptive financial services. And while you might think that these don't apply to you, remember Google can only review what they can see, so it may not be as obvious as you think that you aren't doing one of these bad things. Their automated systems don't always see things the same way we do, and their human reviewer can't see, and sometimes can't understand, the difference between legal services for and actually committing certain types of things that usually you have to end up in front of a judge for.

So, in addition to prohibited content, google ads content policies also regulate the promotion of restricted products and services, which may be subject to additional scrutiny or just limitations. Restricted categories may include adult content, gambling related services, healthcare products and certain types of financial services, and those two at the end healthcare and financial services. They can kind of sort of apply to a pretty huge number of legal services. So what I suggest is that you ask your Google ads manager to carefully review Google's policies and guidelines to ensure that your ad campaigns comply with all the relevant restrictions and prohibitions.

Ad disapprovals. They're not the end of the world, but they're just not really that fun to have, and if things get really bad and your account is suspended, that starts to be a much more serious problem. Hopefully this isn't something you're going to experience, but if for some reason, one of you runs into these issues, feel free to contact me. That's it for the Google ads policy series. That doesn't mean we're done with policies. Things will change. We'll talk about it more, but we'll be back next week with more on legal marketing. That's it for legal marketing 101. Check out rosanadvertisingcom for more. Thanks,