How Lawyers Can Protect Their Digital Brand
Law firms, like nearly every business nowadays, have shifted much of their resources from traditional advertising towards digital marketing to reach potential clients and maximize their return on investment. Unfortunately, the world of Google Ads and PPC is rife with operators who will do anything to gain a competitive advantage. Just because law firms are subject to state bar restrictions with their advertising does not mean that they won’t use unethical means to gain clients.
Buying Competitors Branded Keywords Has Become Commonplace
As digital marketing for law firms has evolved, the tactic in which a competing law firm buys branded keywords for their digital ad campaign has become fairly common. Instead of discouraging it like they did in the past, Google simply looks the other way. Indeed, Google’s Advertising Policies state that they will not “investigate or restrict the selection of trademarks as keywords, even if [they] receive a trademark complaint.”
The ethics of buying keywords remains a heavily debated topic among State Bar Associations that govern attorney advertising. When a firm’s name is shown next to a competitor, the advertiser might be confusing the consumer.
The problem stems from the difference between purchasing someone’s name as a keyword in Google Adwords and using their name or brand in the ad language itself. While the former is allowed, the latter is not. In other words, law firms should know that Google’s policy of looking the other way doesn’t apply to using trademarks within an Adwords ad. If a firm engages in this practice, Google will investigate if the trademark owner registers a complaint.
How Do You Find Out if Other Law Firms are Using Your Brand to Promote Their Own?
You can’t stop someone from using your brand name to promote their company if you don’t know about it. The following are important steps you need to take if you suspect someone is targeting your brand.
1. Do a search query for your law firm — this is one of the first things you should to find out if another attorney or firm is showing ads about your organic results. You can use your brand name in a search or you can put “attorney” followed by your name.
2. Research your competitors — using industry tools like ahrefs or SEMrush can narrow down the list of law firms that would try to capture your branded traffic. These tools will give you important data and insights about your local market and who would be most likely to try to steal your market share.
3. Use Google’s keyword planner — to search for your law firm’s brand name. If Google has listed a CPC for you, it indicates that competing law firms are either actively bidding on your branded keywords, or they have done so in the past. If your firm is well-known in the local market, there’s a good chance that your brand terms show in competitor search volumes as keywords. If other lawyers know that potential clients search for your firm, they may try to use that to their advantage.
How Do You Fix the Situation?
If the aforementioned steps have confirmed your suspicions, there are a few things you can do to stop them.
Make Some Phone Calls
One of the first things you should do (and the simplest) is to reach out to the attorney or law firm that is showing ads over your organic traffic. The person or firm might not actually be aware of the situation. Often, it can be other members of a team or a digital marketing agency that works with law firms that decided on the branded campaign.
If you happen to know that law firm, a phone call or email may solve the problem with minimal hassle. A thorough explanation may be more than enough to put the issue to rest.
Create Your Own Branded Google Ads Campaign
It should not be all that difficult to convince Google that your ad is more relevant to your organic traffic than your competitor’s if you put together a well-designed campaign around your brand. As a result, Google will give a higher quality score, which will put you at a higher spot on the page.
Check the Ad for Violations of Google Policies
If you find any violations of Google’s Advertising Policies in competitor ads, you should report them. While it’s perfectly legal for competitors to advertise over your branded queries, they cannot do so in a misleading way.
Whether it’s ethical or not, you cannot control how competitors may target your brand name to generate business. Nevertheless, there are things you can do to separate yourself from the competition. If you establish your brand as the most relevant and easy to find for customer queries, Google will have no choice but to put you at a higher position.
To safeguard your digital presence, your firm must watch your market closely along with your keywords and remain up to date on any changes with respect to online advertising and the legal profession. The bottom line is that law firms must be proactive with their digital marketing strategy to protect their brand.