I’ve been in the process of writing an article for Slaw that critiques the ROI of paid search advertising, and ended up conducting a bit of a research project.
My task? I wanted to know exactly what the average cost-per-click was with Google’s Adwords for search phrases that contained the word ‘lawyer’.
Using the Google keyword research tool, an item I blogged about back in July, I was able to turn synonyms off and then export those terms into a CSV file. That file was then imported into a spreadsheet. I tallied up the sum, and divided by the total number of terms, and…
The average price paid per click over the past year for all searches containing the word ‘lawyer’ was: $9.49 per click!
That’s close to $10,000 per 1000 monthly visitors received. And since it’s my research, let me be the first to say it – Wow!
This also comes on the heels of April’s Tamar 2008 Search Attitudes Report out of the UK, that said “91 per cent prefer using natural search results when looking to buy a product or service“.
I’ll have much more to say when my Slaw article comes out, but the short story is… give me strategic SEO and content marketing any day over those numbers.
Do you really want to rank for “lawyer”?
Clarification: I took ALL the search phrases that contained the word ‘lawyer’. There were 150-something different combinations, each with their own average bidding price.
Cool post!
With sufficiently specific/targeted keywords, $10 per click would not be unreasonable.
I remember a long time ago (long before getting into law school) looking up the top CPC keyword. I was surprised to discover it was “mesothelioma.” I had no clue what the word meant. It’s a form of cancer resulting from asbestos exposure.
Apparently there were a number of websites representing class action lawsuits all bidding top dollar for the keyword. The law firms running these websites were paying well into the $70/click range!
Thanks for the comments Lawrence. Yes, mesothelioma is still a monster CPC phrase, with the current average for ‘mesothelioma law firm’ sitting at $43 per click range. And that’s average, not the top placement.
Now where I will disagree, is whether this is a worthy ROI on a firm’s advertising dollar. There’s a lot involved here, so I’ll have to comment in more detail within my Slaw article, but the economics of $40,000/month per 1,000 visitors – remember that’s visitors and not clients – is very poor. With a 1-2% conversion rate of visitors to leads, and then only a portion of those leads turning into actual files, it’s simply a tough argument.