Most family law firms waste thousands on Google Ads that generate clicks but never convert to cases. They blame the competition, their market, or their budget.
The real problem is simpler.
Their keyword strategy is broken.
Here are the five keyword strategies that separate profitable campaigns from budget drains.
1. Target Services You Actually Sell
This sounds obvious, yet it gets messed up constantly.
Firms often run “spray and pray” strategies, which involve throwing in a little bit of everything to see what sticks.
Personal injury keywords show up in family law accounts. Bankruptcy terms appear when the firm only handles divorce.
Start with the services you actually offer.
Use Google Keyword Planner or SEMrush to understand search volume for your core practice areas. Some practice areas have limited search volume, which affects budget allocation.
You need to know that upfront before committing budget you can’t spend effectively.
2. Understand Intent Categories
Three buckets matter:
- Purchasing intent,
- Core intent, and
- Research intent.
Purchasing intent means someone’s ready to hire now. Searches like “divorce lawyer near me,” “top rated family lawyer Milwaukee,” or “best divorce attorney” signal urgency.
Core intent sits in the middle like someone searching just for “divorce lawyer” without qualifiers. Higher search volume, lower conversion rates, less qualified leads.
Research intent has the most volume and the worst conversion. Those who are asking, “How much does a divorce cost?” or “What questions to ask a divorce lawyer?” These people are often 18-36 months away from hiring.
The mistake happens when firms spend heavily on research keywords without the infrastructure to convert them.
Without webinars, workshops, or lead magnets to nurture prospects over months, you’re pushing people to consultation pages they’re not ready for.
Prioritize purchasing intent first. Maximize visibility there before moving to core and research terms.
3. Map Keywords to Real Client Problems
Research keywords aren’t worthless. They just require different landing pages.
Someone searching “what happens to the house in a divorce” isn’t ready to schedule a consultation. They want educational content.
When your landing page says “Call now for a free consultation,” they bounce after you already paid for the click.
The solution is matching content to intent.
Landing pages should answer their actual questions and capture contact information with lead magnets. Nurture sequences convert them months later when they’re ready.
Client surveys show people research 18-36 months before calling their first lawyer. That’s a long nurture cycle. Without systems to support it, stick with high-intent keywords.
4. Build From Root Keywords
Start with core terms, then stack intelligently up and down the funnel.
Put your root keyword in the middle – “divorce lawyer.”
Building down the funnel means adding qualifiers that signal intent – “divorce lawyer near me” or “top divorce lawyer Miami.”
Building up the funnel means adding research terms – “how much does divorce lawyer cost” or “what questions to ask divorce lawyer.”
A limited budget means staying at the middle to bottom of the funnel. Without sophisticated lead magnets and nurture sequences, focus on where you can actually convert.
As your marketing matures and you build value ladder offers, you can expand up-funnel into research terms.
5. Don’t Trust Google’s Recommendations Blindly
Google Keyword Planner and similar tools use sampled data and estimates.
Use them directionally, not as absolute truth.
Here’s one specific example.
Put “divorce lawyer” and “divorce attorney” into Keyword Planner. You’ll see the same monthly search volume for both because Google combines them as close enough.
But the reality looks different.
Lawyers typically search “attorney,” while consumers usually search “lawyer.”
The conversion rates between these terms differ because opposing counsel doing research shows up in “attorney” searches more often.
Google won’t give you that precision. They bucket close variants together.
Your actual campaign data tells the real story.
Use tools for baseline understanding, then let campaign data guide decisions.
Fix Your Keyword Strategy
Keyword strategy determines whether paid search works or wastes money.
If your agency constantly discusses Performance Max and broad strategies without addressing specific keyword intent, you’re probably over-indexed on research terms.
That’s why paid search seems broken.
Pull your search term reports. That’s where the truth lives.
You’ll see exactly what searches triggered your ads and where the budget is going.
Keywords you target are one thing. Search terms that actually trigger your ads tell the real story.
Get your keyword strategy right, and paid search becomes a reliable client source. Get it wrong and you’ll conclude it doesn’t work for family law when the real problem is execution.
