Speaker 1: 0:05

What is the right balance between paid ads and organic SEO for law firms? Welcome to Legal Marketing 101. I'm Toby Rosen. When we're talking about digital marketing strategies for law firms, there are two major approaches that almost always come into play, and that's paid ads, usually on Google, and organic SEO, or organic growth. Both of these strategies have advantages, but the key to doing really well with them is to understand how they work and what they can bring to your firm and when to use them. So we're going to break that down today, but I do want to give you a heads up that we're going to get really basic at the start, and you may hear me repeat myself a few times and go over the same tactic you know two or three times in this episode. That's because this is a really important thing to understand. So if I'm saying the same thing over, it's just because it's important.

Speaker 1: 0:56

So, first up, paid advertising. Often we're calling that PPC, pay-per-click advertising. This is when we're paying for online visibility. This is Google ads, where our firm's website appears at the top of the search results, or maybe Facebook ads, where we have these ads that pop up in potential clients' news feeds, and there are tons of different types of paid ads. There are display ads, like the banners you're seeing on websites. There are these social media ads on LinkedIn, instagram, facebook, tiktok. The list goes on. And then we even have things like sponsored content, where you pay for your content to be featured on relevant sites.

Speaker 1: 1:33

The real appeal here is the immediate visibility that paid ads can offer. Need new clients right away? Paid ads can get your name in front of a targeted audience almost instantly there's a caveat to this, but I'll come back to that and you have complete control over who sees your ads. You can choose specific demographics like location, age, interests, and on some platforms you can even get more way more granular. With those kinds of things and with paid search, we're targeting users who are actively searching for the particular type of legal services that we sell. This level of control ensures that our advertising dollars aren't wasted on just all the people who exist that don't need our services.

Speaker 1: 2:14

And another huge benefit when it comes to paid ads. Just one of the up top things here is scalability, so we can start really small. We don't have to start with a $10,000 a day budget, and then we can ramp up our budget when we actually see some results coming in. The flexibility in controlling ad spend makes it really easy to adjust based on our goals and on our marketing budget, really. But with this great power does come great responsibility.

Speaker 1: 2:42

As effective as paid ads can be, they can also be very short-lived. The minute you stop paying, your ad is gone from people's feeds or from the search results, because you're essentially renting this visibility. You're not owning it. But on the flip side, organic growth and organic SEO, search engine optimization is all about building your online presence naturally without paying for these placements. All about building your online presence naturally without paying for these placements.

Speaker 1: 3:07

Now, I'm going to keep referring to this organic side of things as SEO, because organic growth feels a little hacky to me. But what we're really talking about here is comprised of a couple of different elements. First, we're talking about SEO, which is search engine optimization. So we're optimizing to rank highly on Google, bing, whatever search engines we're targeting. And then we're talking about content marketing, doing things like blog posts, articles, and there are a bunch of different ways we get exposure on that. And then there's social media presence, which again is not just Facebook or Instagram or one or two things. There's a huge network out here that we can take advantage of, and then we're even getting into things like local SEO, online reviews, all of those other things that we can do to organically grow our online presence Organic growth. The big thing that we don't like about it is that it tends to take longer to kick in, but the benefits really are worth the wait.

Speaker 1: 4:00

One of the biggest advantages is that the entire strategy here is what's called a trust-building strategy. When potential clients see your law firm consistently ranking high in search results or coming up in their searches on Facebook or frequently providing valuable content on social media, they're starting to trust your expertise. It's kind of like a nurturing system or a drip email campaign. It positions you as a leader in your field and in your market, and that trust can lead to better client retention and some referrals usually. And another big plus here is the cost efficiency over time. Yes, there is an upfront cost when it comes to SEO, and, while you are going to invest in creating this content and optimizing the website and tinkering with this and that and all the other stuff, once that content is out there, it is going to continue to work for you without needing as much of an ongoing payment as when it was created your blog post explaining complex legal concepts for family law. It'll be there for potential clients to find it whenever they need it. And as that organic presence grows, so does your firm's authority and reach. All without this recurring ad spend. That's, you know, every time someone clicks. But on top of all of this one of the really big things that organic SEO brings and it's one of the things a lot of people misunderstand about it organic clients are highly engaged clients. These are people who have found your firm after doing their research. They've read your content, they're getting a sense of your expertise and who you are, and by the time they reach out, they're already warm leads. They're more likely to convert into long-term clients because they already feel connected to your firm.

Speaker 1: 5:42

Okay, let's get into the pros and cons here, because we've talked a little bit about how these work, but let's talk about the big pros of paid ads for legal advertising. One of the advantages that I mentioned up top is near immediate visibility. If you're in a competitive area like personal injury or corporate law, paid ads is a really good way to push your firm to the top of search results or in social media feeds, and it can give you an edge over competitors. This strategy can be a game changer, especially if you have deep pockets and you need new clients fast. Another major benefit here is the ability to target really niche audiences. Paid ads let us get incredibly specific about who sees our content. So, whether we're trying to reach clients in a specific geographical location or people who are specifically facing one legal issue you know one particular thing or even if we're just trying to target age groups, paid ads is really effective when it comes to focusing on the exact audience most likely to need our services. Plus, there's a lot of flexibility that comes with paid ads. We can easily scale our campaigns up or down based on our budget, our goals, our success and whether we want to run ads all year long or just during peak seasons, or we want to have different sets of ads that run at different times. We're in complete control here.

Speaker 1: 7:04

But there are some cons here, and you may have figured out what the biggest one is going to be and this is really the most obvious thing here but it is high costs. So in those initial examples of PI or corporate law, in these saturated legal markets, it can get really expensive, really fast to maintain a presence, and this is especially true if your competition is also investing heavily in ads. So the more competitive the market, the more you're going to have to spend to stay visible. And then a big con here is ad fatigue. Let's face it, people get tired of seeing ads, especially if they feel like they're being bombarded with promotions every time they go online and, as a result, potential clients could tune out from your ads or just skip over them altogether, which limits their effectiveness pretty significantly. But lastly, paid ads, while they do provide this immediate burst, they provide short-term results. Sure, they're great when the budget is flowing, but once we stop spending, our visibility disappears, and this can make it really tough to sustain long-term growth without the constant ad budget.

Speaker 1: 8:12

Now let's switch gears a little bit and let's talk about the pros of organic growth, because, unlike paid ads, organic growth offers something that paid strategies can't, and that's sustainable results. The content you produce today, whether it's a blog post or a high-ranking, evergreen page on your website, this can continue bringing in clients for months or years and in some cases I've seen it do it for decades in clients for months or years, and in some cases I've seen it do it for decades. It's like planting seeds that just keep producing fruit over time, even when you try to stop them. Another really major plus to organic is that it helps us build this authority and trust, and that's not just the domain authority that it can help you build for your website, but by constantly showing up in the search results and posting insightful content on the website and on social media, you're positioning yourself as a thought leader in your field. Clients are much more likely to choose a firm that appears knowledgeable and credible, and this also just leads to stronger client relationships, more referrals. It's this you know flywheel that keeps itself going and, additionally, organic strategies are so much less dependent on this immediate financial outlay. Yes, it does require an investment of time and resources, but once the work is done, the ongoing payments usually stop. If we're going to keep doing links or we're going to keep creating content, it can continue, but if we stop, it's going to continue to deliver some results for quite a while. But organic growth, it does come, but if we stop, it's going to continue to deliver some results for quite a while.

Speaker 1: 9:39

But organic growth, it does come with its own cons, and I'm guessing, like in the last section, you figured out some of those cons immediately. The most obvious up top is that it takes time. You are not going to see immediate results, like you do with paid ads. Building up these SEO rankings or building a social media following and getting engagement requires a lot of patience and dedication. And that leads us to the next challenge, which is that consistency is super key here. If you stop posting content or you let your SEO efforts slide, your organic visibility will suffer, falling behind on your content. Falling behind on this can make it really difficult to regain your ranking in search engines and to maintain the level of engagement you had with your audience. And then, on top of all of this, when the Google gods decide to, we have algorithm changes Search engines, social media platforms they're updating the algorithms all the time, and this affects how visible our content is. One day we're ranking up at top and one day we're buried under our competitors. So we have to be up to date on these algorithm changes and while there isn't a new cost for the content, we have to figure out how do we stay on top.

Speaker 1: 10:53

And really this is what it comes down to is finding the right balance. How much money do we want to spend on organic versus how much do we want to spend on paid advertising and how much focus do we want to put on each? The key question isn't whether you should choose paid ads or organic growth. It's figuring out how to balance both so we get the best of both worlds. Each approach serves a unique purpose and when we're using these strategically, they can complement each other so well and help us maximize our results.

Speaker 1: 11:24

So let's start with a simple strategy. We're going to use paid ads for quick visibility and organic growth for long-term success. Paid ads are really great if we need to get our firm's name in front of these potential clients fast, get some people in the door. Maybe we're launching a new service, opening a new office or just trying to break into a highly competitive practice area. In these scenarios, paid ads are going to help us gain a lot more immediate traction than something like SEO. But, on the other hand, if our goal is to just build long-term authority and sustainability we're not stressed out about getting people in the door quickly then we need to invest more in organic growth. So this means focusing on content marketing, seo and then building that strong social media presence.

Speaker 1: 12:09

These organic strategies yes, they take a lot longer to develop, but they are key in establishing that trust and building up that reputation over time. But here's the trick we need to allocate our budget based on our goals. So if we need these clients quickly and we can afford the cost, lean in on paid ads in the short term. If we have $5,000 to spend and we can run $4,000 worth of ads, keep the other thousand for organic that works, and over time we shift it the other way. This type of strategy can be really effective when we're trying to target these niche audiences, or we have this time-sensitive thing, or we just need to get to a level of revenue that works. But if we're already in for the long haul and we're willing to just, you know, keep our heads down and put in the effort for sustainable growth, keep the focus on those more organic strategies. Ideally, we want to find a balance where both of these are working together, but you definitely want to lean on the one that works better for you right now. But these can be combined as well. That's the thing is that organic and paid advertising can work really well together, just in a particular way.

Speaker 1: 13:17

I get a lot of questions about will my paid advertising help my Google rankings? And the answer is almost always no, it won't. But it can definitely help get more eyeballs on your content and it can help you refine your content more and that could help you lead to better rankings. This is really a team effort where the paid ads and the organic content. They're playing very different roles, but very complementary roles. So here's a basic layout of how this could work.

Speaker 1: 13:44

First, we're using paid ads to generate leads, so we're getting our name in front of potential clients. We've got them going to a landing page, we get them into a drip sequence and once they've seen our ad, click through to the site, they're subscribed or whatever it is. That's when the organic content comes in. So blog posts, emails, case studies, informative videos we've produced all of these are going to help nurture these leads, guiding them through their decision-making process. We've talked about nurturing drip sequences all of that before. This is how you can do it online, and this is really useful for us as law firms, because trust and credibility are really critical.

Speaker 1: 14:23

Paid ads can introduce people to a firm and a drip sequence can give them some specific content that's delivered just to them and and it's custom and it's personalized and that's effective. But by combining both strategies we're creating A a seamless client journey, and B a demonstration of hey, not only are we sending this to you, here's all the other stuff that's already public. What we're sending to you is special. What we're sending to you is special. So this client journey, from the first time that they see your ad to the moment they decide to contact your firm, having that funnel really, really tight, is important, because here's the thing about all of this. We're going to wrap up in a second.

Speaker 1: 15:02

But here's the major, major caveat to keep in mind Paid ads will only be effective if your lead funnel is leak-free. If you're driving traffic to a website that's slow, it's difficult to navigate, it doesn't have CTAs, it doesn't provide any valuable information, you are wasting your ad spend. And the same goes for capturing leads from organic. If you're not following up with them or you're not nurturing those clients properly, the organic spend is not going to make you money.

Speaker 1: 15:33

Before investing in paid or organic, you really need to make sure that your website landing pages and your lead follow-up processes are rock solid. The last thing we want to be doing is paying for traffic, only for these potential clients to leave because our site or our phone call or whatever it is, doesn't offer them what they need. The paid ads will drive traffic. The organic growth will drive traffic, but it's the internal systems that will turn those leads into clients. And you may be a little confused as to why I've closed with internal systems, but that's because we're going to be talking about internal systems automation and probably some more AI stuff very soon. But for today that's it for Legal Marketing 101. Check out RosenAdvertisingcom for more Thanks.