Pay-per-click mistakes lawyers make: not using negative keywords

The cost of keywords for legal terms has exploded in the last five years, increasing 30% every year. PPC campaigns need to be carefully constructed so that precious advertising dollars are not wasted and lawyers can get the most out of their PPC budgets.

Today, let’s talk about one of the reasons why a lawyer’s PPC campaign may not be successful … Don’t use negative keywords.

Advertisers for law firms often neglect the use of negative keywords as a component of a PPC campaign. They are a central component of a successful keyword list. Adding negative keywords to your ad group or campaign means that your ads will not show for search queries containing that term. For example, by adding the term Canada, Puppy, or Computer as a negative, our law firm’s advertisements would not display when someone entered “Canada Lemon Law”, “Puppy Lemon Law” or “Computer Lemon Law”. Or if you are doing bankruptcy work, you can add the word “free” so that your ad does not appear for “free bankruptcy service.” By filtering out unwanted clicks and impressions, negative keywords, you can reach the most suitable leads, lower your cost per click (CPC), and increase your return on investment (ROI).

A good place to start is within your AdWords account, where it will show you the actual keywords that people use to see your ads and / or get to your website. Look for a button / link on the Keywords tab that says “View search terms.” If you have Google Analytics connected to your site (or some other package), you can also check the same keyword list there. By reviewing this list on a regular basis, you can find words that have nothing to do with your practice area, location, or company and add them to your list of negative keywords.

Using negative keywords in your campaign is one of the easiest and most effective ways to significantly improve the performance of your campaigns. Every PPC search engine has a negative match feature that allows you to prevent your ads from showing when certain keywords are included in the search query.

Are you making this mistake with your campaigns? This could cost you a fortune. Not having negative keywords is one of the biggest mistakes you can make and a surefire way to go bankrupt quickly. Make sure to use them and you will see that their performance improves significantly.

For the success of your PPC!