Increasing visibility around your law practice is a constant challenge that many law firms face. With so many strategies and tools available, it’s difficult to determine which marketing solutions will position your practice in front of the people who are most likely to hire you.
Facebook advertising creates another channel through which new clients can find your services. But Facebook “likes” don’t always equal more visibility, which has led many law firms to wonder if they should ditch the Facebook paid ads.
Do Facebook Ads Work?
The user data that Facebook has gathered lets advertisers gain a tremendous amount of insight into their followers. But for a law firm that’s looking to grow its client base, Facebook advertising can be an uphill battle.
Facebook ads, like Google’s AdWords, work on a pay-per-click (PPC) basis. This can lead to high marketing costs if your Facebook advertising isn’t done correctly.
Facebook advertising isn’t the “sure thing” that many law firms believe it is. When compared to other forms of PPC advertising, Facebook ads have shown lower conversion and clickthrough rates.
Facebook users aren’t necessarily looking to make a purchase. They’re more likely to be connecting with friends and engaging with non-promotional content. This increases the difficulty of reaching new clients through Facebook advertising.
More importantly, users have become accustomed to ads in social media. As a result, they’ve become more adept at tuning it out.
Why Organic is Still More Effective in Online Marketing
The limitations of Facebook advertising reinforce the importance of having a long-term and well-managed search engine optimization (SEO) strategy.
Many law firms have successfully used SEO to position their services in front of the people who are actually looking for them.
Search engine users are already aware of the need for your services and have taken the first step in finding law practices like yours. This significantly boosts your chances of converting them into paying clients.
SEO is more reliable in generating the right kind of traffic to your website. It brings new visitors into your sales process and increases the rate of return visits.
Doing SEO the Right Way
You must implement some key steps in order to get the results you’re after when using SEO. This begins with your on-site optimization, which lays the foundation for all other SEO strategies.
Utilizing the right keywords in your site’s title tags gives search engines the information they need to index your site’s pages. Your page’s meta descriptions provide additional information that creates a context for users.
Header tags allow your content to be broken up into sections, which provides clarity to search engine algorithms. Using image descriptions and ALT tags gives meaning to those site elements that can’t be read by search engines.
Your site’s content plays a major role in your SEO strategy. This includes blog posts, infographics, videos, and other forms of content that give users information related to your legal services.
Building a strong inbound link profile is a critical component to a successful SEO campaign. When high-quality websites point visitors to your content, it causes search engines to view your law firm’s website more favorably.
SEO is a more comprehensive approach to generating visibility for your practice when compared to Facebook ads.
Advertising through Facebook may provide some benefits in the form of targeting specific users. But SEO provides a greater return on investment and puts your firm in front of users who are already searching for (and more likely to buy) your services.
If you’re trying to decide whether or not to use Facebook advertising, it might be more useful to look at your website’s SEO. What elements might you still need to implement? How can you improve your existing SEO strategy?
Let us know what you think in the comments below. We’ll provide you with the resources you need to generate greater visibility for your practice and grow your law firm’s client base for the future.
