Leadership In Law Podcast

BONUS How Law Firms Win With Google Local Services Ads

• Marilyn Jenkins • Season 2

Share episode

In this session, we will show you how to tap into the power of Local Service Ads in your area to generate more leads, more calls & a great ROI.

What You're Going to Learn:

 - Why Local Service Ads is a no-brainer for most Law Firms

 - How you can jump on board (if you have not already)

 - What it takes to rank in the top 3 results

 - How you can take advantage of high quality leads at low CPL and maximize your ROI to truly WIN with Local Service Ads

Don't miss this opportunity to take your law firm's marketing to the next level!

Register now and secure your spot!

https://event.webinarjam.com/channel/LMZ-LocalServiceAds

Space is limited!

#familylaw #divorcelaw #immigrationlaw #personalinjurylaw #workerscomplaw #wclaw #criminallaw

#legalmarketing #lawfirm #lawfirmmarketing #law #legal #attorney #lawfirm #lawyers #justice #lawyer #legalmarketingtips #lawyerlife #lawfirmlife 

Prefer to press the EASY Button and have us do this for you? Visit https://lawmarketingzone.com/bookacall to book a 15-minute C.A.S.E. Growth Session with Marilyn



The Law Firm Growth Guild is designed to help you learn and use proven marketing strategies, grow your firm smarter, and scale your law firm predictably.

Visit https://checkout.lawmarketingzone.com to find out more and to join the private community.

My team and I are adding new content weekly so you can be intentional about your growth and development each week.

Join our private community, Law Firm Growth Guild, Your Shortcut to Marketing Mastery and More Clients at
https://checkout.lawmarketingzone.com

Ready to level up your law firm marketing? Book a FREE Discovery Call with Marilyn Here: https://lawmarketingzone.com/bookacall

Leadership In Law Podcast with host, Marilyn Jenkins
Powered by Law Marketing Zone®
https://lawmarketingzone.com
A full-service Digital Marketing Agency helping clients increase Leads, Cases, and Profit by getting their digital marketing right.

Subscribe on your favorite Podcast listening platform!

Like, Share, and Review us!

#leadershipinlawpodcast #leadershipinlaw #lawmarketingzone #marilynjenkins



Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Leadership in Law podcast with host Marilyn Jenkins. Cut through the noise, get actionable insights and inspiring stories delivered straight to your ears your ultimate podcast for navigating the ever-changing world of law firm ownership. In each episode, we dive deep into the critical topics that matter most to you, from unlocking explosive growth to building a thriving team. We connect you with successful firm leaders and industry experts who share their proven strategies and hard-won wisdom. So, whether you're a seasoned leader or just starting your journey as a law firm owner, the Leadership in Law podcast is here to equip you with the knowledge and tools you need to build a successful and fulfilling legal practice.

Speaker 2:

Hi everyone and thank you for joining me for the session today. Today we're going to be talking about how to win with local service ads by Google. My name is Marilyn Jenkins. I just wanted to chat about how we help attorneys with the case model law firm growth guide. We have our case models broken into basically three portions, where we help you drive leads with organic SEO, paid search and database reactivation. We help you drive leads with organic SEO, paid search and database reactivation. We help you maximize conversions with your website, your reputation management and automations where appropriate, and optimize results based on your total spend for paid ads and your average cost per lead to make sure we're getting the correct ROI for you. So this is the case model law firm growth plan broken down in those three portions. Today, what we're going to be talking about is a paid service. So this is the case model law firm growth plan broken down in those three portions. Today, what we're going to be talking about is a paid service. This is the local service ads by Google. So if you are here with me, I do need your attention. So if you could turn off your cell phone, turn off Facebook, and if you're a law firm owner and you're serious about getting better results with your Google local service ads, the next 30 to 45 minutes are going to change your life. What we're going to cover today is going to be what local service ads are, where it's active, how it works, how you can jump on board, if you haven't already, what it takes to rank in the top three results, and how you can take advantage of high quality leads at low cost per lead and maximize your ROI to truly win with local service ads.

Speaker 2:

And who am I? Why should you listen to me? I am the founder and CEO of MJ media group and law marketing zone. I'm the author of the Google business profile training guide. I've worked in digital marketing for nearly 20 years and learned all the things so that I can I know what works and what doesn't. I've worked with over 150 law firms and service-based businesses. I've worked exclusively with attorneys since 2018 and I've helped many of my clients grow to over seven figures in retainers using our programs. You can visit my website, lawmarketingzonecom or mjmediagroupco, and see our testimonials of the clients that we've worked with over the years.

Speaker 2:

This is what we do. Our mission is to triple the revenue of 500 law firms in the next three years. We're a full-service digital marketing agency for law firms where we have a package, a plan, for each and every size law firm. If you have little pieces that are not put together, we can analyze your omnipresence and your strategies and see where the missing pieces are and help you with that. Our team is here to support you every step of the way.

Speaker 2:

So what are Google local service ads? So if you have Google local service ads also known as Google guaranteed or Google screened in your local area, when you do a search on your phone or your desktop for something like this for instance, san Diego estate planning lawyer you'll see the very first results that come up are the Google Screened and they have a click to call button, so you're getting calls directly from this. Then the Google PPC or pay-per-click ads are directly below that. Then comes the map pack and then the organic results. So if you're in the Google local services ad, you're going to be at the very top of Google search when someone has a need for you. So this is a great place to be. So you can see this again when you search for it. Notice it says Google screened. So this is super, is super important because they do a background check and it gives you, basically, google's endorsement. So you definitely want to do that when you click on it, before you click to call. If you were to click on it to read it, you'll see they are Google screened and the background and license is checked by Google.

Speaker 2:

So, are anyone here on the webinar? Are any of you guys participating in Google Local Service ads in your local area? If you are, drop a one in the chat. I'd love to see how many are doing it and, yeah, to see if you're taking advantage of it. Okay, great. Okay, I'm seeing a few ones. Good, I'm seeing a few twos. Okay, so then a couple of yeah, do a two if you're, if you're not doing it yet, because we're going to talk about why you definitely need to be doing this. Okay, great, I'm seeing a few ones and a few twos in the chat box. That's great.

Speaker 2:

So why do Google screened or Google guaranteed? Why does it matter? What do you do when you're a consumer and you're looking for services? You google it, right? Well, 87% of consumers search Google when looking for service providers. Okay, it's the number one place your customers are looking when they have a need for your services. If they're looking, they're a hot lead. Okay, local service have come up first in the search results on both mobile and desktop. There is no higher intent than a prospect, prospect, than a customer who is proactively looking for your services at that moment in time. So you can be the first one to show up there. You must have a plan to win with Google local service ads. Okay, where is it active?

Speaker 2:

Now, this was Google. Local service ads were rolled out across the country. They started in different places. I believe at this point they are nationwide and they're starting to roll out internationally. So, if you, you know, definitely check and see if it's live in your area and get on it, if you're not already on it.

Speaker 2:

Okay, how it impacts service results, search results. Well, as you can see here and this is not an attorney screenshot, but this is showing the power of if you're in here the top results contain this client as a Google Guarantee. They're also in AdWords. They're also in the Map Pack and they're in the SEO listing, organic at the bottom. So you can see the power of someone searching for you right now and they find you in four places on the search result. That tells them that you actually are the one to call.

Speaker 2:

So how does it work? You have to complete a services application. Google will run a background check on you and your partners and associates, so they do want to run that on every attorney in your firm. They're going to check your license. They're going to do a background via Pinkerton Consulting check your insurance. Business owners and all lawyers must complete a background check.

Speaker 2:

Okay, once it's approved, if it's active in your area, you'll pay on a pay-per-lead basis, not a pay-per-click, so don't get this confused with Google Ads. Okay, so we've seen between $25 to $250 per lead, but you know that's a range. It depends on locations and it also can shift over time. So you can have some weeks where your cost per lead may be less, some weeks where it may be more and then, like I said, it varies by city and practice area. And what you want to do is when you get your Google Local Services ad set up, you can then choose a bid, okay. So, yes, they are. It's still a bidding process, but you only pay per call. So you can say let Google choose the right bid, or you can manually set your own bid with a maximum that you want to use.

Speaker 2:

And how are you charged for it? You set a weekly budget that limits the total number of leads that you receive in any given week. So, for example, say your budget is $2,000 a month, you can tell Google you want to spend $500 a week. That's going to average to $71 a day, so your cost per lead is going to be around $35. So you're looking at 57 leads a month, 14 leads a week and 2 a day, but once your weekly budget is spent, your ad goes offline. Now you may get a different number of leads from day to day, but you never spend more than your designated weekly budget.

Speaker 2:

That's one of the beauties of local service ads, and you have the ability to immediately dispute leads if you receive a lead that's not valid. And recently Google has announced that they're using AI to automatically refund some leads, so that saves you having to do the dispute process. So what kind of leads can you dispute? So if the lead was for a wrong number, they're trying to sell you a product or service. If it's someone seeking employment at your business, the caller didn't discuss the business Okay. If it's spam. If it's a pre business Okay. If it's spam. If it's a pre-recorded call. If it's in a location that you don't serve and if it's for services that you don't offer. But let me say you need to do this quickly. Okay, you want to dispute them quickly so you get also get feedback from active users.

Speaker 2:

Our feedback from active users are basically we're seeing a lower cost per lead than pay-per-click. Again, you're at the very top of the search, so it's a faster also lead. We're seeing higher quality leads than AVO or Lawyercom. We still get some price shoppers, but you have to follow up with these quickly. It's a solid ROI for most of our clients who have jumped on board. And why is this a no-brainer for most law firms? You want to show up at the top of the results where clients are looking. They are actively searching for your services. You only pay on a per lead basis. It's lower cost than pay per click. You get higher quality leads and the ability to modify your budget based on schedule. You can actually go into your system, your management portal, and increase or decrease your budget per day of the week if you want.

Speaker 2:

So how do we get this set up? So it's definitely something you need to be doing. So how do we do that? So what you want to do is, you want to check the eligibility. So when you go in to fill it out, you check in with your city and zip code and your category, choose what you're looking for and check the eligibility and then follow the steps to complete the form. So you can say, like over here on the right, the types of searches you want to be found for. So if you don't do charitable give your estate planning, you don't do charitable giving or guardianship, you can turn those off. So you can be very specific on the types of searches that you want Google to show you for.

Speaker 2:

And how do you get set up? First, you want to choose your types of cases, your local area, the hours of operation and, please, you know, if you have an answering service. It's going to make a lot of sense for you to be 24-7, so your ads are shown 24-7. And the answering service can then get those leads and qualify them for you. So you also have to have an average of a three-star rating in reviews and it will connect to your Google Business profile, complete a background check, upload your law license, set your bid amount, set your billing information and include all the lawyers in your office. So if you work with us. We'll support you and handle all of this for you.

Speaker 2:

You can sign up for local services at the address on your screen adwordsgooglecom slash local services slash sign up. Go in there, sign up. See if it's eligible in your area. Okay, this is going to help you connect with more customers, and so go and see if it's available and then start creating your profile. We can help you with that. We can help you connect with more customers, and so go and see if it's available and then start creating your profile. We can help you with that. We can help you with the bid information, the disputes and handling all of that for you.

Speaker 2:

How does the ranking work? Okay, your proximity to potential customers' locations, so you want to be near where they're doing the search. So, again, this is for local services. Your review score and the number of reviews you receive will also help with your ranking. Now this is important your responsiveness to customer inquiries, and so you have to be able to reach out and answer these calls as soon as they come in. If they leave a message, you have got to call them back quickly. That responsiveness is part of the ranking factor. Not answering your phone reduces your eligibility, so if you don't have an answering service. You need to set your ads to be your hours of operation. Definitely set your business hours and again, 24-7 is great if you can take those calls. If you can't, it's going to damage your ranking now. So, whether or not we've received serious or repeated complaints about your business, okay. So that again comes down to the reviews. People can actually come back and say I didn't like the way they answer the phone, or they didn't answer the phone and you want To be clear about that, because Google does track all of that or they didn't answer the phone, and you want to be clear about that, because Google does track all of that.

Speaker 2:

So, in addition to these ranking factors, google will attempt to spread out your leads over the time. Okay, over the time, like throughout the day. This is to prevent you from spending all of your entire budget early in the week, like if you've got a weekly budget, or if your ad's generating leads more quickly than your budget can accommodate. So you have to. You know they may pull your ad if it's getting leads too quickly. You may see your ranking affected if your ad paused temporarily in order to even out the spread of your leads. So the question is can you afford to spend more? Is it working for you? Then perhaps increase your budget. So how to win with local service ads Dial in your service area, your profile and your budget.

Speaker 2:

Mark all the cases as booked. As soon as you book an appointment, deal with disputes quickly. That's why I said if something's coming through and it's not a valid lead, go into your profile and dispute those leads and then drive verified reviews. This is going to be integral to growing your reviews and target an 85% booking rate in your reporting. So you want to make sure you you take those calls, you qualify them and you book them as quickly as possible. So let's talk about dialing in your profile. So you want to set up your budget. You want to open it up if you have the capacity. These are very cost-effective leads. So if you've got the capacity the budget capacity, certainly increase that. Update your ad schedule. Only office hours are 24-7, like I said before.

Speaker 2:

Set up your business bio. You want to be as clear in your bio of what you do and the headshot you've got to use the headshot. Select the case types that you want to be in the search for. Set up your service areas. Include and exclude zip codes. So if you are, say, an estate planning attorney and there's certain zip codes in your area that maybe are not the type of income level that you want to work with, you can exclude those zip codes. So be creative on where you are and where you want those searches to come from and, of course, make sure you keep your business hours updated, especially if it's a holiday timeframe, that your business hours are up to date and, of course, add photos. Use a personality photo as the primary you want to feel. You want people to feel like you're approachable, okay, and that you're a friendly person that they want to call for help, okay.

Speaker 2:

When we say dial in your profile, what you show here is, under law, you can choose the types of law that you want and then, on the right hand side, so once you check eligibility, if it's there, then you can choose all the different types of cases you want to come from, appear for in the searches. So mark your cases as booked. That's super important. They're looking for an 85% booked rate, so you want to make sure that as soon as the lead comes in, that you mark it as booked if you book an appointment with them. Okay, this will rate your responsiveness by how well you complete each call, mark them as booked, add the customer details, include an email address. So when you're talking to the lead and it is a case you want to take, make sure you get their email address so that you can put it here in the case's book. By getting your email address, you also show Google that you have talked to them and then we can also contact them. We can contact them for reviews and you want to archive non-converted opportunities. So dealing with disputes, this is going to be hugely important. You need to make sure that you act quickly on this so you won't be charged for disqualified leads. That's why we need to act quickly on it. If they're outside your area not a service you provide, if they're obviously fake or auto dials, so jump in there and definitely mark those. You've got to report them quickly and, like I said earlier, this is very new. I believe in June 2024, google is now using AI to try to weed out the bad ones before they actually send them to you. Now here's where it gets exciting Driving verified reviews.

Speaker 2:

So within the system, a number of reviews is a major driving factor for ranking on local services. You want to provide a great service, as I know you always do, know you always do, and you want to leverage the dashboard to drive verified reviews by entering the name, email and click the request review button. Sorry for the typo. So when you're in your platform, in your dashboard, you can see the list of leads here and, if they're booked, you've got their email address. You can click on ask for review and then Google will send a review. So fill out the information here their email and their name and confirm that the customer agreed to receive an email. So that way you send that they're going to ask for a review.

Speaker 2:

Now you want to target 85% of booking, right, okay, so try to book as many of the appointments, as many of the leads, as you can Understand. It's in the reporting how effectively you convert calls into service clients will impact your ranking over time, okay. So you want to shoot for an 85% because, remember, these are qualified leads if they're contacting you. So you want to make sure that you do what you can to get them booked or dispute or archive. So what gets measured improves. So you want to keep an eye on this and make sure that your team that's answering the call, the calls as they come in, are very aware of how important it is to answer the phone, answer the phone quickly and get these leads taken care of. Okay, so look here, see, like this client, it's budget spent their budget's $500 a week and they got only a 56% booking rate. So we're working with them to get with these leads quicker and get your booking rate up.

Speaker 2:

So how to increase your lead flow from local services? Opening up your budget. I know I know it always comes down to spending more money. So you know there are better leads than pay-per-click. You can also, you know, let your budget run for a little while, see how it is, see the quality of the leads and then open your budget if you have it. You can also expand your service areas If you can work a little bit further away, add a zip code a little bit further away from your office, if it's, if you can work there, and then, of course, your case types your ad schedule if you can work there, and then, of course, your case types your ad schedule. If you're limiting to business hours, maybe you bring in an ad, an answering service, and you expand your business hours to 24-7 from just the open hours of the office and then, of course, to increase your lead flow, you can close out every lead you want, to mark it booked, scheduled or archived. Okay, so be aware of having to be in your local service ads dashboard consistently, request verified views on every case. Okay, that's basically everything works.

Speaker 2:

Just wanted to give you that information. If if this has been helpful, please drop a one in the comments. If there's information here that you didn't have before you know, drop a one in the comments. If you have any questions, please drop those in the comments. I'd love to offer a call to anyone who has any questions.

Speaker 2:

We do offer local service ads management for you. So this is part of Law Marketing Zone's service that we offer. So if your local service ad gets up to 75 calls a month, it's only $549 a month for us to manage that for you. What we'll do is we'll manage marking the leads, making sure they're getting taken care of in the dashboard, request for reviews, all of those types of things, as well as call tracking, and so we do set that up for you. So this is our monthly management rate, based on the number of calls. So it does scale. So if you are interested in the service at all, please let me know.

Speaker 2:

I would be happy to chat with you a little bit and you know I also offer would like to offer anyone on this webinar a free SEO review and visibility scan. Well, like we said in the beginning, the full circle is if you're available, if you're being found in the Google search under local service ads, google PPC, in the map pack and organic, you're going to be the one they call. If you're in three of the four places, you're going to be the one they call. If you're in three of the four places, you're going to be the one they call over anyone who is not. So being in the map pack is extremely important. That's one thing that we want to help our clients do. So if you want a free visibility scan, please let me know. You can reach out to me.

Speaker 2:

We can book a quick 15-minute appointment and what we can do is we're going to analyze your online visibility. We're going to do a custom keyword list ranking report so you can see where you are now, and that analyze your online directory listings and the consistency of your name, address and phone number across the board, online reviews and reputation, your social presence and your website conversion effectiveness. This is a very thorough SEO review. It is free. So if you are, if you would like to do that, you can go to lawmarketingzonecom slash bookwithmaryland. This is a 60 minute call where we're going to. We're going to spend several hours putting these reports together and analyzing everything about your online presence and then we can help you see where the holes are, where you need help. After this meeting, you can take this information and do it for yourself, or you can have us do it for you. It's completely up to you. So if you are interested in that, you know, please go ahead and click that link and book some time with me.

Speaker 2:

So what's next is basically, it's like you have three options. You, you can do nothing and hope your referral service keeps sending you leads. You can do it yourself Go do your local service ads, get it set up, get it started and then just make sure you manage the after leads. And if the other the third option is schedule a 15-minute discovery call with me to see if we're a fit, so you could just go to my book a call calendar. Again, this is a 15 minute call, just a chat see if it makes sense to do an SEO audit for you what your needs, what your goals are, and again to see if we're a fit. So that's at lawmarketingzonecom slash book, a call.

Speaker 2:

If this has been helpful, please let me know. Just drop a one in the chat if it is, and again, schedule a session with me. These are the types of things that we're going to do for you a full SEO analysis of your online presence. Then we're going to help you develop a roadmap and a plan that best fits your firm. So you can schedule a call with me. The 60-minute calendar is Book with Marilyn. If you aren't sure which one you need, then drop your email in the chat and I'll send you a link to the meeting of your choice. You can simply specify if you want a 15-minute call and I'll drop you that link.

Speaker 2:

I'm not seeing any other questions. Yes, okay, there's a question about how do I find the eligibility. Go to the local services area, sign up and put in your category, obviously law, which types of law, and your location, and you'll check the eligibility there and find out if it's available in your area. As far as I am aware, it is available nationwide in the US and part of Canada. It is rolling out internationally.

Speaker 2:

Okay, disputing yeah, how do you dispute leads? Again, when you go into your dashboard you can see on each lead there's the three dots in the top right corner. You'll click those three dots, choose the dispute and then continue to fill out the next form and explain why it's a dispute. It's important that you dispute leads that are bad, fake, any of those types of things quickly. If you wait too long you could lose the right to dispute those Again. Local service ads they are pay per call, not pay per click, which makes them much more cost effective on the ROI side. And, like I said before, local service ads show up at the top of the search and they are in your local area. So you choose the zip codes that your ads show in and the zip codes that you can exclude.

Speaker 2:

Okay, I want to be respectful of everyone's time today. I'm not seeing any other questions. So again, if you're interested in us helping you with your local service ads, you can book some time with me. Let's see. Okay, so let's just go this. Drop your email in the chat. Let's see. Okay, so let's just go this. Drop your email in the chat if you're not sure which meeting you need or if you just want to simply get you started and start making those phones ring. Yeah, reach out. I would love to have an opportunity to show you how our service works and how we can help you grow as well. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm seeing some appointments being booked. That's great. I look forward to working with everybody and chatting with you to see how we can help you grow to the next level. I hope you guys have a great day and thank you again for joining me for how to Win with Local Service Ads by Google.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for joining me today for this episode. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode, and if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, you can connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. And if you're ready to take the next step with a digital strategist to help you grow your law firm, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to lawmarketingzonecom to book a call with me. Stay you. Just go to lawmarketingzonecom to book. A call with me Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, thanks for listening to Leadership in Law podcast and be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Leadership in Law podcast. Remember you're not alone on this journey. There's a whole community of law firm owners out there facing similar challenges and striving for the same success. Head over to our website at lawmarketingzonecom. From there, connect with other listeners, access valuable resources and stay up to date on the latest episodes. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Until next time, keep leading with vision and keep growing your firm.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Marilyn Jenkins

Host