Criminal Defense Advertising
- Grow Your Criminal Defense Practice With Digital Advertising Services
Advertising Management Services for Criminal Defense Law Firms
Any criminal defense law firm looking to grow its practice shouldn’t underestimate the power of a solid internet marketing strategy. Most potential criminal defense clients are very likely to search the web for a criminal defense attorney when they find themselves in a bind.
Because of this, your criminal defense firm needs a strong online marketing plan so that it can provide a professional, helpful website for potential clients searching for your defense services.
Criminal defense advertising online takes a certain level of finesse, which is exactly what our digital marketing firm can offer.
At Digital Logic, our talented team has extensive experience handling successful criminal defense attorney marketing campaigns.
In fact, one of our biggest success stories is from a criminal defense law firm–Belen Law Firm in Phoenix, Arizona. From a completely new law practice, Belen Law Firm’s organic traffic increased by 2,242% from 2019 to now.
If you want to see this level of success with your criminal defense law firm, let’s talk. Schedule a call with us to see how our team can help you achieve the level of success you’ve been reaching for.
Why Is Criminal Defense Marketing Important in 2023?
Let’s face it: traditional marketing isn’t as essential as it once was. Instead of hiring an attorney from a billboard or commercial, potential clients are now moving to Google and other search engines.
Google makes it easy for prospective clients to “comparison shop” for a criminal defense lawyer. By searching for a defense lawyer this way, they can quickly get a list of all the criminal defense law firms in their area, compare each based on practice areas, case outcomes, and online reviews, and then make a call based on what they find.
What this means is your criminal defense marketing strategy needs to be top-notch. Otherwise, the other criminal defense firms will show up much higher in Google search results.
The further your website listing is from the number one search result on Google, the less likely potential clients are to visit your website.
Using a number of digital marketing tactics, our team can help you grow your organic traffic, reach more potential clients from your target audience, and rise to the top of search engine results pages (SERPs).
In the following sections, we outline how a good digital marketing strategy can give you an exponential rise in traffic, as well as an increased number of solid criminal defense leads.
How Can Digital Advertising Services Help Grow Your Criminal Defense Firm?
Digital marketing isn’t new by any means, but as time goes on, it grows more and more nuanced each day. Without working with an experienced online marketing firm, it can be incredibly difficult to market your criminal defense services on the Internet.
But that’s what we’re here for – to help you market your legal practice on Google, the largest search engine in the world.
The team at Digital Logic focuses on keeping up with all the latest trends and best practices in digital marketing, ensuring your website – and your firm – don’t fall behind.
Criminal Defense Marketing Services
Some of the most effective, groundbreaking strategies we use for our clients include the following:
Criminal Defense Marketing
How Do Criminal Defense Law Firms Get Clients?
Many lawyers invest in more traditional forms of marketing, which works well enough for many people. However, there is much more variety when it comes to digital marketing. Some of the ways in which a criminal defense lawyer can get clients online include the following strategies.
Take Advantage of the Efficiency of PPC
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a very cost-effective way to generate leads online. PPC allows you to target certain keywords, so that when searchers type that into a search engine, your sponsored ad will show above the organic search results. You also only have to pay for each click that you get, which is much more budget-friendly than paying just to have your ad show up. By working with a law firm marketing agency, you can easily set up your PPC campaign and have someone else manage it on your behalf.
Optimize Your Website for Search Engines
Just as potential clients are particular about their likes and dislikes, so are search engines. By implementing a comprehensive SEO strategy, we’ll optimize your website to appeal to both real people and to Google.
Marketing to one or the other won’t have nearly the same effect as marketing to both. Our job is to ensure that your website is professional, practical, and polished. Luckily, that’s one of our many strong suits.
On-page SEO is important not only for growing your traffic and appealing to search engine algorithms, but also for boosting the effectiveness of your PPC strategy.
When you set up a PPC campaign for your criminal defense practice, you want to make sure that the money you’re spending on clicks doesn’t go to waste. To do this, make sure your landing pages are fully optimized.
Landing pages are where your potential customers are taken when they click on your PPC ad. If PPC is what gets them in the door, SEO is what helps make the sale.
You can make a lot of small, but effective changes to your landing page that will encourage visitors to take action rather than “bounce,” or leave the page. Some of the most important optimizations include the following.
Content
If someone searches for “criminal defense attorneys in Chicago,” and clicks on your PPC ad, it’s important that your landing page has relevant content. Maybe your law firm handles multiple practice areas. The landing page for that keyword should be based around criminal defense rather than other topics like personal injury.
Images & Visuals
It may seem obvious that your site should have visually appealing elements that catch the searcher’s eye. When a searcher reaches your landing page from your PPC ad, you want them to be drawn in by the images, videos, and other visuals on that page. Relevant content is great, but it can only get you so far. Pairing relevant text with eye-catching visuals is a recipe for success.
Utilizing the Space
In some situations, you can do more with less. Rather than filling your landing page with large blocks of text, distracting colors, and other unnecessary elements, consider taking advantage of the white space. When done properly, using white space strategically can actually highlight the most important information on the landing page.
Combining Techniques
Combining all of the above techniques will make for a landing page that is not only visually appealing, but also useful for your PPC campaign. A better landing page is essential for hooking your audience once the PPC ad gets them to your site.
Optimize Your Google Business Profile and Legal Directory Profiles
If a potential client searches online for a criminal attorney to help with their case, are they more likely to choose an attorney with very thorough online profiles or one whose profiles are nearly bare?
Because they can learn more about an attorney with a completed profile, they’ll very likely choose them over the other option. Filling out and maintaining your online profiles is important, as this could lead a searcher to choose you over your competitors.
So, how does this tie in with paid advertising? Google My Business is an amazing (and free!) way to increase local visibility for criminal defense lawyers.
This might already be obvious to you, but did you know you can also integrate your GMB profile with your PPC campaign?
If you already have a Google Ads account set up, all you need to do is link that with your Google My Business account. Once you do this, there are three specific search elements that can positively impact your PPC campaign and help you get more conversions.
The same strategies can apply to legal directories, which generate millions of visitors on a regular basis. As a criminal defense lawyer, you want more visibility in places where a potential client might look for you. If they’re not looking in Google, they might look in one of several popular legal directories. While it is a good idea to optimize your directory profiles and fill them out as much as possible, you can also pay for an ad that will show your listing above organic results.
Location Extensions
You can also take advantage of extensions for your search ads. Location extensions for Google Ads will display the address for your business at the bottom of the ad and highlight it in blue. This way, searchers won’t need to take any extra steps to get directions to your business.
These extensions also increase the overall Google Quality Score for your ad, which lowers your cost-per-click. Location extensions also make your ad slightly larger, which in turn makes it more noticeable. In other words, location extensions are a must.
Map Pack
Let’s say that a searcher wants to find the best criminal defense attorneys in their area. By doing this online, that makes it even easier to comparison shop until they find one they like. If they search a term like, “Phoenix criminal defense attorney,” Google will show them what they call a “Map Pack.”
The Map Pack is the list of businesses that will come up in a list form when you search certain terms on Google. Generally, the pack shows three listings with the option to expand the pack for more choices.
If your business shows up in the top three listings, great! That means searchers won’t need to expand the list to find you. If you’re not in the top three, that’s okay. You have plenty of options for improving your GMB profile ranking. The simplest way is by filling out your profile as completely as possible. The more information you include about your business, the better.
However, you can also use paid ads to improve your map pack position. When you run regular Google Ads, the link will appear above organic search results. The same idea applies to GMB listings that are linked with a Google Ads account. If you run ads for your GMB account, you have a chance to appear at the top of the pack, even if your organic listing is much further down the line.
Google Conversions
You can (and should) also take advantage of something called Google-hosted conversions. Because advertising on Google has become so strategic, it’s important to be able to track the most important KPIs to make the most of your marketing budget. Google-hosted conversions can give you more insight into how searchers are interacting with your Google Ads.
They measure a number of very specific behaviors and interactions with your ads, including the following.
- Number of clicks on the “Call” button
- Actions such as viewing a menu, ordering from a listing, saving a listing, and much more
- Number of clicks on the “Get directions” button
- Number of clicks on the link to your website
Paying close attention to the above metrics can help you optimize your paid search strategy, drive more traffic to your site, and ultimately increase your ROI.
Don't just take it from us...
Research Matters
Conduct Keyword Research to Boost Your Marketing Efforts
Keyword research is essential both for PPC and SEO efforts. In PPC, you’ll want to target the keywords that are both relevant and within your budget.
In SEO, you want to target keywords that are both relevant and high in search traffic. As we mentioned before, a criminal defense law firm’s website benefits from both PPC and SEO, but it can also benefit from one over the other. It all depends on what stage of growth your firm is in.
Utilize Negative Keywords
You can also take advantage of something called “negative keywords.” Negative keywords are basically keywords that you don’t want to show up for in paid search results.
For example, you are a criminal defense lawyer, but you don’t want cases related to drug crimes. You can list keywords related to drug crimes as negative keywords. This will prevent you from showing up for those searches, therefore saving you money on those clicks.
With the control that negative keywords give you, you can stop spending money on clicks that can’t turn into valuable leads. In a more general sense, you can use them to optimize your PPC marketing strategy to reach the best possible audience. What’s more, is that you can even go a layer deeper with negative keywords.
After examining how your targeted keywords are performing, you can identify which phrases are underperforming compared to the others. When you notice that a keyword just isn’t getting results, even if it’s related to what you do, you can set it as a negative keyword. It wasn’t worth the money you were spending, so you can shift that budget into other areas.
Improve Quality Score
When advertising on Google, it is absolutely essential to get your Quality Score as high as possible for each ad. The quality score lets you know how relevant and useful your landing page and ad are.
You can also use this score to identify areas for improvement, even when it comes to your targeted keywords.
To calculate a Quality Score, Google takes the following three factors into account.
- Ad relevance: How relevant is your ad to what the searcher asked for?
- Expected CTR (clickthrough rate): How likely is it that your ad will be clicked when shown to a searcher?
- Landing page: How useful and relevant is your ad’s landing page to searchers who click on your ad?
Split Test
Split testing, or A/B testing, is a critical element of any successful PPC campaign. A split test is almost like bringing science and digital marketing together. On one side, you have your control, which will not change. On the other side, you will change one or more variables to see how that impacts your campaign. Some common variables involved in split testing include the following.
- CTA (calls to action)
- Target audience
- Ad copy
- Landing pages
- Accessibility
- Scripts of calls and emails
- Visual elements on the ad or landing page
Many other testing variables exist, but it’s important not to test too many at one time. If you make changes to too many variables, it can be extremely difficult to determine which change made the biggest impact. We also recommend having a goal in mind before you start A/B testing. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, split testing has no point.
Lastly, you should always give your tests time to gather enough data. If you start to see results and end your test too early, you’ve missed out on valuable information that may have changed your outcome. Many PPC professionals will run split tests that last around one to two months, although others run those tests for much longer.
The results of your split test will either show you that what you’re already doing is working, or that you should change one or more of your variables to see better results.
Include Ad Extensions
We’ve already mentioned the location extension for Google Ads, but there are many other assets that you can apply to your ads that make them stand out.
Google Ad extensions are also free, meaning they are an easy, budget-friendly way to boost your PPC campaign’s success. You can apply these extensions in different ways, such as to an ad group, to a certain campaign, or to all your search ads at once.
Importantly, these extensions are not guaranteed to show up every time Google shows your ad to a searcher. This decision is left up to Google’s algorithm.
The algorithm takes many factors into account, including the extension’s past performance, other ads on the same page, and your ad’s placement.
Currently, Google has 19 total ad extensions that are available to you. Eleven of these ads must be set up manually, which could take a few minutes.
The other eight extensions are dynamic, meaning they’ll be created by Google’s algorithm using the information you have on your website and in your account.
Use Ad Groups
An ad group is made up of multiple ads that have similar targets or goals. For example, you can make an ad group for a criminal defense attorney campaign with related keywords.
Once you have your keywords, you’ll set your CPC (cost per click) bid. You can either set the bid for the group of keywords or for each keyword individually.
Invest in Geofencing Advertising
Geofencing is a location-based digital marketing strategy that works in real time. To put it simply, geofencing allows you to establish a geographic area where you want your Google ads to trigger.
Criminal defense firms can use this tactic to target potential clients within their city, which can boost their local marketing strategy.
Add a Tracking Code to Your Website
Tracking conversions (or leads) is another way you can improve your online marketing strategy. Website conversions are actions that visitors take on your site, such as phone calls or form submissions.
One of the most comprehensive ways to measure the success of your digital marketing strategy is to track these conversions.
By understanding how site visitors interact with your page, you can make minor adjustments to increase the effectiveness of your strategy.
In order to do this, you’ll have to add a tracking code to your website. This way, you can monitor the calls you receive, the forms that are submitted, and the overall conversion behavior of searchers.
Customize Goals For Specific Marketing Metrics
Digital marketing for criminal defense law firms works best when you go into it with specific goals in mind. What are your goals for your law firm and your law firm’s website?
The answers to this question can help you tailor your criminal defense attorney marketing strategy to meet and target your specific needs. Many criminal defense firms establish marketing goals that relate to the following metrics.
Pricing plans starting at $2,500
Search Engine Advertising for Criminal Defense Lawyers
Expanding your reach and putting your brand in front of more potential clients doesn’t have to be complicated or stressful. With our skills and experience, you’ll see faster results with no wasted spending.
Criminal lawyers are busy building cases for their clients, and we understand that better than anyone. That’s why we aim to take all the guesswork out of marketing your law firm online.
If you are a criminal defense lawyer or law firm aiming to grow your practice, the following digital marketing strategies are absolutely essential.
Google Ads for Criminal Defense Lawyers
As soon as someone learns they may face criminal charges, they’re most likely starting to search for an attorney. Each year, the number of people conducting this search online increases.
As the largest search engine in the world, Google houses countless ads for criminal defense attorneys, allowing them to gain exposure for their brand. Google ads aren’t an absolute necessity, but the return on investment is historically impressive.
We also have extensive experience in managing PPC and LSA campaigns on Google, which means we know how to get you the most bang for your buck.
PPC Campaign Management for Criminal Defense Attorneys
Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns involve making effective ads that target certain audiences. These ads are housed above organic search results, so searchers will see your ad at the top.
Only when searchers click on that ad would you be charged. You can fully customize these campaigns to meet your specific needs as a firm or as an individual attorney.
Local Service Ads for Criminal Defense Attorneys
Local service ads (LSAs) are specifically useful for marketing your business to local searchers. These Google ads appear even higher on search results pages than PPC ads. They show up at the top of the search results when people search for local business services.
If they search specifically for legal services, only attorneys and law firms will show in LSAs. LSAs also go hand in hand with Google My Business profiles. The more information your profile has about you and your services, the better.
Should Criminal Defense Attorneys Focus On SEO or PPC?
In the world of digital marketing, SEO and PPC are two sides of the same coin. While one targets organic traffic, the other targets paid traffic. Both are essential for a well-rounded digital marketing campaign.
Depending on which stage of growth your law firm is in, PPC may be a better choice. In other stages, criminal defense lawyer SEO services are the way to go. However, we strongly recommend a synergistic approach.
A marketing campaign that utilizes the strengths of both strategies will yield the best short and long-term results.
In deciding which to prioritize more, you’ll need to take the following factors into consideration:
Time Constraints
As we mentioned before, SEO is the long-game strategy for digital marketing. Depending on the market you’re in, it may take months or even years before you notice a significant return on investment. With PPC, you will see more immediate results, as it positions your paid ad above organic search results.
Control
Although SEO is essential, it offers less control than PPC does. If you rank for keywords that are related to cases you don’t really want, you may have no control over this. PPC, however, offers much more control over your campaigns.
Through PPC, you can target specific audiences and tailor the keywords that you do and do not want to show up for.
Traffic Quality
As we said before, the amount of traffic you get doesn’t matter if that traffic isn’t turning into profit. One of the many goals of PPC is to specifically attract searchers who are likely to need your services.
For this reason, the traffic quality of PPC has the potential to be much higher than the traffic quality for SEO.
This is because you can strategically tailor your PPC campaigns to reach your target audience and only your target audience.
Cost
Both SEO and PPC budgets can be customized to meet your needs. SEO can be a relatively low-cost solution for attorneys looking to play the long game. However, PPC can also be cost-effective as long as you monitor and manage your PPC campaigns on a regular basis.
By thoroughly analyzing your campaigns, you can identify areas where you might be losing money. Then, you can shift that budget over to another area that has a better ROI. It also allows you to more easily track your ROI through conversion tracking.
Benefits of Online Advertising for Criminal Defense Lawyers
If you’re on a tight marketing budget or if you’re just starting out with digital marketing, you may opt for PPC to see faster results. While we tend to encourage law firms to use both SEO and PPC, we understand the appeal that PPC’s quick results have. So, what are all the benefits of choosing PPC over SEO?
PPC Ads are Cost Effective
PPC is also very cost-effective. You can set very specific budgets for your campaigns so that you don’t spend more than you want in a single day.
For smaller law firms with less brand awareness in their market, PPC can help you get a foot in the door without spending tens of thousands of dollars each month.
Early SEO efforts, while absolutely necessary, are often seen as less cost-effective because of how long it takes to see a return.
You Have Total Control of PPC Ads
Control is one of the most important benefits that PPC has over SEO.
Between call tracking, split testing, and other strategies, you can optimize your PPC campaigns to increase their effectiveness over time.
Just about any conversion metric can be tracked through PPC ads, so you can tailor your strategy to target your firm’s business goals.
PPC Ads Produce Fast Results
We’ve mentioned this already, but PPC produces much faster results than SEO.
Especially for new law firms, this is an obvious benefit. PPC can help you hit the ground running with your digital marketing campaign and achieve easy entry into your local market.
What’s more, is that measuring the results of a PPC campaign isn’t rocket science. In fact, it’s much easier to track PPC results than it is to track SEO results.
PPC Ads Can Reach Your Target Audience
Keyword research is essential both for PPC and SEO efforts. In PPC, you’ll want to target the keywords that are both relevant and within your budget.
In SEO, you want to target keywords that are both relevant and high in search traffic. As we mentioned before, a criminal defense law firm’s website benefits from both PPC and SEO, but it can also benefit from one over the other. It all depends on what stage of growth your firm is in.
Websites With a Lower Domain Can Benefit From PPC Campaigns
If your website has a low domain rating, you may find that SEO success can take a long time.
PPC, however, allows sites with low domain ratings to compete on an even playing field with sites for major law firms. You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on PPC just to see a fraction of the return.
Even in the largest, most competitive markets, PPC gives smaller brands and businesses a way to reach new potential clients and customers quickly.
Law Firm Marketing Agencies Can Use Data From PPC Ads to Improve SEO Campaigns
PPC produces a lot of very specific, very useful data about your campaign. You can use this data to constantly improve your PPC campaign, but you can also use it to improve your other marketing channels.
As we mentioned before, SEO and PPC are a dynamic duo that support each other. Performance data from PPC can be used to guide your SEO strategy and improve its efficiency.
What Do Digital Logic's PPC Management Services Include?
At Digital Logic, we specialize not only in criminal defense SEO but also in criminal defense PPC. Our PPC specialists take the time to get to know each and every client, asking about their specific needs and goals for their business.
By understanding what you need and what your goals are, we can tailor our PPC approach to support them.
With a personalized PPC plan in place, we will manage your campaigns, give regular and transparent reporting about your campaign’s success, and consistently update those campaigns to ensure long-term efficiency.
In other words, we don’t just set up your campaign and let it run on autopilot. We constantly monitor your campaigns and update them as needed. Our team is just as focused on the end result as you are, which is exactly why we always strive for improvement.
We aim to increase your ROI over time, not just keep it at the same level for years and years. To learn more about the legal PPC services we offer, schedule a call with us today.
Work With the Best Criminal Defense Advertising Agency
When it comes to growing your firm and building your reputation online, you wouldn’t want to hire an amateur. Digital Logic has years of experience in online marketing for criminal defense lawyers. We’ve helped a number of criminal defense clients grow their firms.
Whether you’re with an existing firm or starting a new firm, we have experience and success on both sides. The services we provide are cutting-edge techniques to grow your website’s organic traffic, reach more potential clients, and increase your incoming leads.
Shoot us your email and our team will be in touch about your proposal
