Advertising for Personal Injury Clients With Google Ads?

There are 3 quick, easy ways to save money and run a more efficient Google Ads campaign. (Google Ads was formally known as Google AdWords.)

You will get more clicks for your Google Ads dollar and far fewer irrelevant calls from people who weren’t injured in an accident. Paying Google for irrelevant calls costs you money at your call center and uses your office staff’s time to speak with those callers.

With these three methods, we eliminated 100% of irrelevant searches/clicks, and although not all calls are viable personal injury cases, every call has been from someone injured in an accident.

Change Your Google Ads Keyword Bidding Type

Use broad match modifiers. We switched our keyword bidding from broad match to modified broad match, eliminating many irrelevant searches/clicks. The results were astounding and were seen immediately.

Don’t know what broad match modifiers are? It’s a less general method of targeting searches on Google. But maybe you don’t even want to know what it is. It doesn’t matter. Just tell your Google Ads manager you want to try using modified broad-match keywords. If you don’t like it, you can always switch back to broad-match. If you want to read about it, see Wordstream’s explanation of modified broad match keywords; See Google instructions on how to set up broad match modifiers.

Note: Using broad match modifiers will result in fewer clicks and, therefore, fewer good clicks and accident cases retained because it’s more targeted. But you’ll get a lot fewer bad clicks. Just spend the money you saved in other geographic areas and get more cases.

For example, I might get 10 cases out of 100 clicks using broad match keywords costing $12,500 @ $125 per click and $1,250 per case, but get 8 cases out of 40 clicks using modified broad match keywords costing $625 per case.

You can keep your daily budget the same, and Google will show your ads to more qualified leads. Add more areas if you max out your budget for your targeted geographic area.

Our Google Ads campaign manager cautioned against using broad match modified keywords because we would get far fewer clicks, but it transformed our results for our Google Ads campaign. It’s a no-brainer. We were advertising in only one county but did not max out the budget for that county, so we are getting better calls without affecting our retained case volume. We get fewer clicks and calls.

Use Practice-Specific Negative Keywords for Personal Injury Lawyers

The most important tip here is to use negative keywords specifically for personal injury lawyers, which can save you money when using Google Ads.

What are negative keywords? Negative keywords prevent your ads from being shown to people searching for those words.

Google defines Negative Keywords as: “A type of keyword that prevents your ad from being triggered by a certain word or phrase. Your ads aren’t shown to anyone who is searching for that phrase.”

We paid $145 for a click when someone called to ask us to review a document. The search he made was “lawyer to review document.” We added the words “contract” and “document” as negative keywords and Google will no longer show our ads to anyone using the word “contract” or “document.” Again, as with keywords, there are different types of matching for negative keywords.

I see Google Ads all the time for personal injury lawyers when doing searches for which no personal injury lawyer would want their ads to be shown. It has to cost them a fortune and they don’t even know it.

This image shows the results of a search that Google Suggest shows people searching for, “auto accident lawyer no injury near me.” Two personal injury lawyers are advertising for that search and will pay for the clicks!

Two lawyers advertising for a Google search “auto accident lawyer no injury near me”

Or how about these two Google Ads for personal injury lawyers advertising for the search phrase “eviction lawyer”? Would you want to pay for clicks when someone is searching for a lawyer to stop an eviction?

These personal injury lawyers are advertising for “eviction lawyer”!

We started our Google Ads campaign using a Google Ads campaign manager who uploaded several lists of a few thousand negative keywords. Most of those negative keywords have nothing to do with law, but one of his lists was to eliminate searches for fields of law, such as divorce, which are unrelated to injuries and accidents.

Our Google Ads campaign manager developed his negative keyword list for personal injury by managing Google Ads for other personal injury lawyers and continually adding negative keywords to the list. That was good, but the problem is that he didn’t see every keyword ever searched for a lawyer. Since he’s not a personal injury lawyer, he doesn’t understand the subtle nuances in fields of law and what type of cases we want and don’t want.

Consequently, we were paying for clicks from searches unrelated to personal injury. So, I spent several days researching negative keywords for a personal injury lawyer advertising on Google and uploaded my own list (you can upload many lists).

Even I couldn’t think of every negative keyword or find everything from my research. for two months I looked at our Google Ads account overview page every day to see what keyword searches we paid for but didn’t want. Now, I check every few days. Over time, I added a few more negative keywords here and there.

How to Research Negative Keywords for Personal Injury Lawyers

First, for at least the first few months, look at your Google Ads account overview page to see what keyword searches you are paying for. Tell your Google campaign manager about every keyword search you don’t want to pay for so it can be added to negative keywords.

Second, write down a list of every negative keyword you can think of that would cause a personal injury lawyer to spend money on a wasted click. Negative keywords such as eviction, ticket, prosecution, lemon, and trademark will prevent useless searches that will cost you money.

Third, research on Google to find fields of law that you either hadn’t thought about or didn’t even know existed. I have a friend who does space law, yes there is a need for that more than ever and he’s been doing it for at least 30 years.

Fourth, start researching keywords people use for those areas of law you don’t want. Search on Google for “find keywords” and you will find keyword tools you can use.

Personal injury lawyers who license 1-800-HURT-911® can get a free list of negative keywords for personal injury lawyers from us.

Use a Google Ads Campaign Manager and Work With Him or Her

I have an extensive resume which includes studying aeronautical engineering, being one of the first computer hackers in 1971, starting and managing several businesses, and managing our advertising and websites, but I also have a personal injury law practice. If I don’t have the time or expertise to manage a Google Ads campaign, you don’t. That’s why we use a Google Ads campaign management company.

However, your Google Ads campaign manager needs and deserves a little help if you’re looking to stay competitive with Google Ads. While you’re not an expert on Google Ads, your campaign manager isn’t an expert on personal injury law. Help your campaign manager out by finding additional keywords that aren’t already on his or her list.

Bonus Tip #1 – Google Search Partners Network

Turn off advertising on the Google Search Partners Network.

Google Search Partners Network allows your Google Ads to appear on websites other than the Google search engine. That means your ads could appear on this website if we had advertising, another lawyer’s website, or on websites where you don’t want your ads to be seen.

Bonus Tip #2 – How to Get Your Google Ad Noticed and Clicked

Mixing numbers, letters, and symbols in your Google Ads title will increase conversions and ROI. If that mix is a brand, the increase is even more substantial.

If you have a vanity phone number use it in your Google Ads title on the left side of the title. If your vanity phone number is trademarked, use the registered trademark symbol ®. If it’s not registered, use ™.

Because ® and ™ are symbols, it attracts attention and increases conversions. Additionally, using a trademark symbol indicates a brand which also increases conversions.

See the astounding results achieved by using 1-800-HURT-911® in our Google Ads title.

Bonus Tip #3 – Enable Google Seller Ratings

If you have reviews on Google, enable Google seller ratings to add star ratings to your Google Ads making them stand out from your competition.

Read more about how advertising for personal injury lawyers with 1-800-HURT-911® will skyrocket your personal injury caseload.

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