How I Will Use Google Ads to Get Your Maine Law Firm More Business

Why do law firms need marketing?

Attorneys need marketing because in 2025 87% of Americans who sought legal advice began their quest with a Google search. And in 2026, the vast majority of your potential clients will choose a lawyer on the basis of information they find online, without ever speaking to anyone at a law firm. To succeed in the Maine legal services market, you first need expert online marketers who have technical knowledge of Google and understand Maine's unique economic drivers and demographics. I have an engineering master's degree and 20+ years' experience working in Maine with Google's Search and Advertising products, and am Google Certified in most of them.

As an attorney, your goal is to get clients, not maximize website traffic. And a basic rule of getting clients is that you want to attract people who are ready, willing and able to avail themselves of your legal services - not “tire-kickers”. That way, you won't spend money on ad views by users who don't engage with your ad and so don't become clients.

Successful Google Ads campaigns will take care of that. That's where I come in. You run and grow your law firm, win cases for clients. I'll run your Google Ads, and we'll both make money.

Google Ads work for lawyers because:

• They appear near the top of search results when users type queries into the Google search engine.
• They reach clients actively looking for a lawyer. More than 60% of people looking for legal services click paid ads when those ads match their search intent.
• You can target clients by location, day/time, demographics and practice area.
• You control your daily advertising budget, bids, and schedule.
• You pay Google only when someone who is looking for services like yours clicks on one of your ads and visits your website.
• Results are measurable: detailed analytics enable you to track campaign results and make marketing decisions based on hard data.
• Although legal services is a very competitive market - especially for practice areas like personal injury and product liability - properly managed Google Ads campaigns can produce a high return on your marketing investment - better than that of other online and offline media.

Pros and Cons of Google Ads for Law Firms:

Best Google Ads products for attorneys:

• Google Search Ads appear prominently in Google search results when potential clients do queries seeking legal services.
• Google Local Services Ads target local prospects looking for a lawyer. They appear in Google search results and on Google Maps. A unique feature of this Google Ads product is the “Google Screened” badge which firms that meet Google's high quality standards can display on their website.

How Google Ads works:

Google Ads uses a “pay-per-click” (PPC) model, which means you pay an amount- based primarily on the competitiveness of the search term - each time a prospect clicks through to your website from one of your ads. There is no charge for impressions (ad views) - only for clicks that produce a site visit.

Google Ads is used by 98% of businesses worldwide that do pay-per-click advertising, because it reaches people who are searching for what they're selling - with an all-industry mean conversion rate of 6.06% and return on investment of 200% in 2024.

What Does Legal Services Digital Marketing Cost in Maine?

Most law firms should expect to invest in PPC and/or SEO marketing between approximately $2000 and $5000 per month. Factors that determine the necessary investment include:

• Practice Area: Personal injury, criminal defense and family law will generally require greater marketing investment - in some cases 10%-25% of revenue - than other practice areas.
• Competition: Think ratio of potential clients to available attorneys in your local market area. Law firms in very competitive, high-income urban markets should expect to make a greater investment in marketing compared to lawyers in rural or suburban areas.
• Scope of Work: A bundle of marketing services - like search plus social media - will generally cost more than a single service like SEO or PPC. (But bear in mind that marketing generalists will not be the best for any specific channel, and that price and value are two different things.)
• Skill of the Marketers: Simple work that can be done by low-paid cubicle-dwellers far from Maine can often for a few weeks get you more website traffic (which may or may not convert to new clients). Once the easy stuff has been done though, you may find yourself paying more for their services than they are returning in new clients and revenues. And you'll be pushing back the date when you could have had the ongoing business growth you could have had by working with me.

How to avoid wasted clicks on your ads

In a Google Ads campaign, you bid on keywords. Google will show your ads to its users when they search on the keywords you choose, and variants of them. Very broad keywords like "maine lawyer" will produce many website visits - for which you pay Google - but few paying clients. Very specific keywords - keywords that closely match your legal specialties, like "bath me divorce lawyer" or "best divorce lawyer near me" - will produce fewer site visits (hence less Google spend) but more paying clients.

Negative keywords

Another means that Google provides for avoiding wasted clicks is to enable us to associate negative keywords with your Ads campaigns. For example, if you don't do personal injury law, we can set that phrase as a negative keyword for your campaigns to tell Google not to enter you into any ad auctions that involve personal injury.

More about how Google can benefit your law firm:

How to demonstrate that users' money and lives can safely be entrusted to your firm

Effective SEO Strategies for Law Firms

My Google Ads campaign management pricing

Unlike in the traditional agency model where the management fee is charged as a percentage of your media spend, my management fee stays the same regardless of how much you spend with Google. That way I'll have no incentive to spend more of your money on Google click charges, but will instead work to get the biggest possible return for you from your Google campaigns

Once your Google Ads campaign is up and running, you'll pay only (1) Google click charges for clickthroughs to your website from your Google ads, and (2) my modest flat monthly fee for ad creative, ongoing campaign management, and reporting. Plus, all the work that I do is unconditionally 100% money-back guaranteed to satisfy you.