Common Google Ads Mistakes Lawyers Make

Legal keywords are among the most expensive in all of Google Ads. Personal injury clicks routinely hit $100–$200. Criminal defense runs $50–$100. Even family law sits at $30–$60 per click. At those prices, every mistake isn't just an inconvenience — it's a direct hit to your bottom line. A single misconfigured campaign can burn through $5,000 in a week with nothing to show for it.

We've audited hundreds of law firm Google Ads accounts while managing PPC for lawyers, and the same mistakes appear over and over. The good news: they're all fixable. The bad news: most firms don't know they're making them until thousands of dollars are already gone.

Here are the most common — and most expensive — Google Ads mistakes law firms make, ranked by how much money they typically waste.

1. Using Broad Match Keywords Without Guard Rails

This is the single most expensive mistake we see. A lawyer sets up a campaign targeting "personal injury lawyer" on broad match. Google interprets this liberally and starts showing ads for:

• "how to become a personal injury lawyer"
• "personal injury lawyer salary"
• "personal injury lawyer jokes"
• "free personal injury advice"
• "personal injury lawyer near me hiring"

None of these searches are potential clients. But you're paying $100+ every time someone clicks.

The fix: Use phrase match and exact match for your core keywords. If you use broad match, pair it with an aggressive negative keyword list and monitor search terms daily for the first 2–4 weeks. Add negatives like "jobs," "salary," "school," "how to become," "free," "pro bono," and "hiring" before you launch.

2. No Negative Keyword Strategy

Related to mistake #1 but distinct. Even with proper match types, you need a comprehensive negative keyword list from day one. Law firm accounts without negatives waste 20–40% of their budget on irrelevant searches.

Essential negative keywords for law firms:

• Job-related: jobs, hiring, salary, career, internship, paralegal
• Education: school, degree, how to become, requirements, exam, bar
• DIY: free, template, form, sample, pro bono, legal aid
• Informational: what is, definition, meaning, types of, examples
• Competitor-specific: names of firms you don't want to bid against

The fix: Build a master negative keyword list before launching. Review search term reports weekly and add new negatives. Create shared negative keyword lists that apply across campaigns.

3. Sending Traffic to the Homepage

Your homepage is built for everyone — it mentions every practice area, has navigation to dozens of pages, and serves as a general introduction to your firm. That's exactly why it's terrible for PPC.

When someone clicks an ad for "DUI lawyer," they want to see DUI-specific content: your DUI experience, DUI case results, DUI client testimonials, and a clear way to contact a DUI attorney. Your homepage doesn't provide any of that focus.

Homepage conversion rates for legal PPC: 2–4% Dedicated landing page conversion rates: 8–15%

The fix: Create dedicated landing pages for each practice area you advertise. Each page should match the ad's message, address the specific legal problem, and include relevant case results and testimonials.

4. Not Tracking Phone Calls

Here's a stat that should concern every law firm running ads: 65–80% of legal leads come through phone calls, not form submissions. If you're only tracking form fills as conversions, you're telling Google that 80% of your valuable clicks produced nothing. Google's algorithm then optimizes for the wrong thing.

Without call tracking, you also can't determine which keywords, ads, or campaigns actually generate consultations. You're making optimization decisions with 20% of the data.

The fix: Implement call tracking with dynamic number insertion. Services like CallRail or CallTrackingMetrics assign unique tracking numbers to each traffic source. Set up call conversion imports into Google Ads so the algorithm knows which clicks produce calls.

Losing money on Google Ads and not sure why? We audit and manage PPC for lawyers every day. Our audits typically find 25–40% wasted spend that can be immediately reallocated to what works. Get a free account audit →

5. Bidding on the Wrong Practice Areas

Not every practice area has the same ROI in Google Ads. A personal injury case might be worth $50,000–$500,000+ in fees. A simple will might be worth $500. If you're bidding on both with the same strategy, your math is broken.

High-ROI practice areas for Google Ads:

• Personal injury (especially truck, motorcycle, medical malpractice)
• Mass torts
• Criminal defense (DUI, felonies)
• Business litigation
• Employment law (plaintiff-side)

Lower-ROI practice areas (proceed carefully):

• Estate planning (low case values relative to CPC)
• Immigration (price-sensitive market)
• Traffic tickets (very low case values)
• Simple divorces (commoditized, price-shopping dominant)

The fix: Calculate your target cost per acquisition for each practice area based on realistic case values and close rates. If a practice area can't support the cost per click, don't advertise it on Google — use lower-cost channels like Facebook or SEO instead.

6. Running One Campaign for Everything

We regularly see law firms with a single campaign containing every practice area in one ad group. "Personal injury lawyer," "divorce attorney," "DUI defense," and "estate planning" all competing for the same budget with the same ads.

This creates two problems. First, your ads can't be specific to the search. Someone searching "car accident lawyer" sees a generic "full-service law firm" ad. Second, Google allocates budget unevenly — your high-CPC personal injury keywords eat the entire budget, leaving other practice areas with zero impressions.

The fix: Create separate campaigns for each practice area. Within each campaign, create tight ad groups around specific keyword themes. This lets you write ads that match the search, control budgets per practice area, and optimize independently.

7. Weak Ad Copy That Doesn't Differentiate

Most law firm ads look identical:

"Experienced Law Firm | Free Consultation | Call Now"

When every ad says the same thing, you're competing purely on position. The firm that pays the most per click wins — which is the most expensive possible strategy.

The fix: Differentiate on something specific and provable:

• Case results: "Recovered $50M+ for Injury Victims"
• Speed: "Same-Day Consultation, 24/7 Availability"
• Specialization: "Only Car Accident Cases — Nothing Else"
• Risk reversal: "No Fee Unless We Win Your Case"
• Social proof: "500+ Five-Star Reviews"

Use ad customizers and responsive search ads to test multiple value propositions. Let the data tell you which messages resonate.

8. Ignoring Ad Extensions

Ad extensions (now called assets) take up more real estate on the search results page and provide additional information that improves click-through rates. Yet many law firm accounts have zero extensions configured.

Essential extensions for law firms:

• Sitelinks: Link to specific practice area pages, case results, about page, and contact page
• Callout extensions: "Free Consultation," "No Fee Unless We Win," "24/7 Availability"
• Call extensions: Click-to-call number (tracked)
• Location extensions: Shows your office address and map
• Structured snippets: List practice areas or services
• Image extensions: Add visual elements to stand out

The fix: Set up all relevant extensions at the campaign level. Google selects which to show based on the search context. More extensions = more chances for your ad to stand out.

9. No Geographic Targeting Strategy

A law firm in downtown Chicago doesn't need to show ads to people in rural Illinois. Yet we often see campaigns targeting entire states or even running nationwide for a firm that serves one city.

Wasted geographic reach means paying for clicks from people you'll never serve.

The fix:

• Target your actual service area (city + surrounding suburbs, typically 25–50 mile radius)
• Use location bid adjustments to bid higher in your core market and lower in outer areas
• Exclude areas you don't serve
• Set targeting to "presence" not "presence or interest" — the latter shows ads to people researching your area, not living there

10. Setting and Forgetting Campaigns

Google Ads requires ongoing management. The legal advertising landscape shifts constantly — competitor bids change, search behavior evolves, and Google's algorithm updates regularly. A campaign that performed well three months ago may be hemorrhaging money today.

What "set and forget" costs:

• Search terms drift as Google matches to irrelevant queries
• Competitor changes go unnoticed
• Ads fatigue and click-through rates decline
• Budget allocation remains static despite performance shifts
• Quality Scores degrade without ongoing optimization

The fix: Dedicate time for weekly optimization or hire someone who will. At minimum:

• Weekly: Review search terms, add negatives, check conversion data
• Bi-weekly: Adjust bids, review geographic performance, test new ad copy
• Monthly: Analyze conversion quality, review landing page performance, audit account structure
• Quarterly: Strategic review of practice area allocation, competitive analysis, budget planning

11. Ignoring Quality Score

Quality Score is Google's rating of your ad relevance, landing page experience, and expected click-through rate. It directly impacts how much you pay per click. A Quality Score of 10 can reduce your CPC by 50% compared to a Quality Score of 5.

Most lawyers don't even know their Quality Scores exist, let alone optimize for them.

The fix:

• Improve ad relevance by tightly matching keywords to ad copy
• Build fast, mobile-optimized landing pages specific to each ad group
• Improve click-through rates with compelling, differentiated ad copy
• Use responsive search ads with keyword insertion where appropriate

12. Not Bidding on Your Own Brand Name

"Why would I pay for clicks on my own name? I already rank #1 organically."

Because your competitors are bidding on your brand name. If someone searches "Smith & Associates Law Firm" and a competitor's ad appears above your organic listing, you lose potential clients to firms that are literally buying your traffic.

Brand keywords are cheap ($1–$5 per click) and convert at extremely high rates. The ROI is almost always positive.

The fix: Create a dedicated brand campaign with your firm name and common misspellings. Keep it on exact match. This costs very little and protects your most valuable search traffic.

The Compounding Cost of Multiple Mistakes

These mistakes don't exist in isolation. A law firm with broad match keywords, no negatives, homepage landing pages, and no call tracking isn't making four separate mistakes — the damage compounds. Bad keywords send unqualified traffic to a generic page that doesn't convert, and you can't even measure what's happening because there's no tracking.

The firms we audit typically have 3–5 of these issues simultaneously. Fixing them doesn't produce incremental improvement — it produces transformational results. We regularly see cost per lead drop 50–70% and lead volume increase 2–3x within the first 60 days of a properly structured account.

How many of these mistakes is your firm making? Our free Google Ads audit identifies exactly where your budget is leaking and how to fix it. We specialize in PPC for lawyers and have helped hundreds of firms stop wasting money and start signing more cases. Request your free audit →