Law Firm (Google Policy Document)
INTRODUCTION
Within this document, we have highlighted four Google AdWords advertising policies lawyers need to be aware of to run successful Google paid search advertising.
Pharmaceuticals:
Only three countries in the world allow pharmaceutical companies to market directly to consumers. These countries are the U.S., Canada, and New Zealand. Despite these countries allowing pharmaceutical consumer marketing, there are still strict advertising regulations that pharmaceutical manufacturers must abide by.
If a law firm engages in digital marketing efforts in order to acquire pharmaceutical or medical device cases, this policy can potentially keep you from advertising on Google at all. Using drug or medical device terminology in your ad text or on the website where the ads direct traffic will immediately restrict your ads. This applies to all ad formats – search ads, display ads, and video ads among others.
An exception for the ads can be requested if the ads meet certain requirements.
- Be extremely careful about your ad text (pharmaceutical terms should not be the main focus of your ad)
- Focus on the consumer exercising their rights, learning about their legal options and any notable achievements of the law firm (the same applies for the website and webpage where the ad drives traffic).
Note: Though clients may be tempted to include drug or device keywords related to the cases they are advertising in their ad text and website, the ads will actually appear more often and perform better without too many of these terms.
Personalized Advertising:
Google analyzes very specific user behaviour and matches this behaviour to relevant ads. Users find content they are interested in, and advertisers find the users and potential customers they are looking for.
Note: One of the most popular form of personalized advertising is a Gmail ad, which is essentially a type of Display Ad that appears in the Gmail application. Google limits the type of content that can be analyzed as a part of personalized advertising.
You are not allowed to advertise gambling, alcohol, health conditions, treatments, medical procedures, personal failing, or traumatic experiences. Even though lawyers can advertise for drug and device cases using Search, Display, YouTube, and other forms of Google advertising, they cannot utilize personalized advertising.
Law firms that want to utilize personalized advertising need to focus their targeting on users who are actively looking for a truck accident lawyer, rather than just users who were in a truck accident. Ad text and the website landing page should focus on providing information content.
Trademarks:
Many law firms use Google AdWords to obtain clients with claims against specific companies or who have been affected by specific products, and this can cause issues with Google AdWords. Google works very hard to protect trademarks, so when advertisers use trademarked terms, it can cause problems. Google does permit the use of trademarked terms in certain circumstances, including for resellers or sites simply providing information.
Note: Google will not allow advertisers to use other trademarks for competitive purposes. Additionally, Google will not approve ads with trademarked text that ask for "extensive information before displaying commercial information", or ads with "landing pages that require users to provide extensive information before displaying commercial information." Trademark restrictions will only show up if the company with the trademark complains to Google about trademark abuse. Due to this, lawyers may not encounter trademark policy issues. If they do, the best course of action is to ensure your ad text and website content is purely informational. Focus on providing details about the case, and encourage users to seek more information by reaching out to the law firm. After doing this, you can request an exception from Google for the content.
Destination Requirements:
One of the most common reasons Google ads are not approved has to do with the violations in Google's destination policies. Law firms often buy domains specific to the types of cases they want, the advertiser would have to ensure that the domains are set up correctly if they want to use them to run paid search ads. Google includes two types of URLs in ads: display URLs and destination URLs.
Oftentimes, lawyers buy vanity URLs and point them to a page on another website. Google will not allow this because any type of redirect or domain masking causes ads to be disapproved. Advertising policies regarding display URLs and destination URLs have not always been this strict, but in an attempt to fight fake news, many advertisers, including Google and Facebook, now require matching display URLs and destination URLs.
Post-Click Landing Pages:
Landing pages are website pages designated as the destination for paid advertisements – typically pay-per-click ads, display ads, and social media ads. Once persons click the client’s ads, the landing page will be the first thing they see. This is where all the campaign efforts come to fruition.
A lawyer postclick landing page is a standalone web page that focuses on driving action. It would be best to use elements such as the following:
- Explainer videos
- Benefit-oriented headlines Trust badges
- Testimonials to convert visitors to leads
Compelling Headline with Keywords:
The landing page should have a compelling headline that highlights the value proposition or benefit and include your target keywords for Search Engine Optimization purposes.
Note: Use descriptive headlines that match the Call-to-Action
Long-Tail Keywords:
Focus on longtail keywords, not just head terms. Avoid keywords such as "lawyer" and "attorney", as these single- word 'head' terms are extremely expensive. Additionally, only large firms can afford to compete in that arena. (Using general keywords can result in costly ad spend).
The focus should be placed on longtail keywords and 'body' keywords, which incorporate more than just a single word in a query.
By targeting long-tail keywords, advertisings will be able to ensure that ads are being as specific as possible. This will increase the likelihood of attracting potential clients interested in the specific services being advertised.
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