How to Geo-Target Google Ads for a Law Firm
Set location targeting to people **in** your target area rather than people interested in it, unless you deliberately want out-of-area enquiries. Layer city, county, radius and postcode targeting so you can bid and report separately, exclude the areas you cannot serve, and give each meaningful location its own landing page rather than a single generic one.
Presence or interest: which location setting should a law firm use?
Google offers two location options: people in or regularly in your targeted locations (presence), and people in, or who show interest in, your targeted locations. The second is the default in many accounts and it is the single most common cause of enquiries from the wrong side of the country.
| Setting | Who sees your ads | When a firm should use it |
|---|---|---|
| Presence | People physically in or regularly in the area | Default choice for most firms with a defined service area |
| Presence or interest | Adds people elsewhere searching about the area | Only where out-of-area clients are genuinely wanted |
| Exclusion by presence | Blocks people in an area | Cleanest way to remove regions you cannot serve |
There are legitimate reasons to use interest targeting — immigration, international family work, a specialist practice with national reach, or property matters where the client lives elsewhere. The point is that it should be a decision with a reason attached, not a default nobody changed.
How should city, county, radius and postcode targeting be layered?
Treat locations as reporting units, not as a single blob. If Manchester, Cheshire and a 15-mile radius around your office all sit inside one campaign as one target, you can never tell which of them is producing usable enquiries.
- City / town targeting — the workhorse. Add each named place separately so you get per-location performance data.
- County or region — useful as an outer ring, usually worth its own campaign so its budget cannot eat the core.
- Radius — good around an office where the catchment ignores administrative boundaries. Start tighter than feels comfortable.
- Postcode targeting — precise, and genuinely useful where a small number of postcode districts hold most of the value.
Where budget is limited, the sequence that tends to work is: tight core area first, prove the chain to instructions, then widen outward one ring at a time with its own budget line.
Which locations should you actively exclude?
Exclusions do more for enquiry quality than most bid changes. The list is usually short and obvious once written down:
- 01Jurisdictions you are not admitted to practise in — Scotland and Northern Ireland for many England and Wales firms.
- 02Areas outside a realistic travel or service radius for matters that require attendance.
- 03Overseas locations, unless you deliberately serve international clients.
- 04Specific towns that historically produce enquiries you routinely decline.
That last one only becomes visible when location data is joined to the outcome of the enquiry. If your reporting stops at lead count, you will never know that one town produces a steady flow of enquiries that never become matters.
How should you handle 'near me' searches?
'Solicitor near me' and 'law firm near me' are high-volume, generic, and much cheaper per click than specific practice-area terms — which is exactly why they can quietly consume a budget. The searcher's location determines what 'near me' means, so the location settings are doing all the qualifying work.
If you run them, run them with presence targeting, tight geography, a strong negative list, a practice-area-relevant landing page, and a separate budget so you can judge them on their own merits. Judge them on enquiries you would take on — not on cost per click, where they will always look flattering.
Do you need location-specific landing pages?
Where a location is a real part of your positioning, yes — but a location page is only worth building if it has something location-specific to say: the office, the team who work from it, the courts or tribunals you appear at, local funding or fee arrangements, parking and access, and genuine local proof.
A page whose only local content is the town name swapped into the heading is worse than a single strong practice-area page. If you cannot write three genuinely local paragraphs, keep the practice-area page and let ad copy carry the location. The broader post-click argument is set out in landing-page testing for law firms.
A geo-targeting audit checklist
- Location option set to presence, unless interest is a deliberate decision.
- Each target location added individually so per-location reporting exists.
- Radius layers separated from named-place layers.
- Exclusions in place for jurisdictions and areas you cannot serve.
- Near-me terms in their own campaign with their own budget.
- Location bid adjustments reviewed against enquiry quality, not click cost.
- Landing pages matched to location claims made in ad copy.
- Location captured in the CRM so it can be joined to instructions later.
Sources and basis
- Google Ads Help — About location targetingReference for presence versus interest targeting and location exclusions.
- SRA / jurisdictional practice scopeBasis for excluding jurisdictions a firm is not admitted to practise in. Not legal or regulatory advice.
- Mavari delivery experienceFrameworks and examples described from senior paid search and lead-generation work, including previous legal Search campaigns. No client data or client outcomes disclosed.
Founder of Mavari Digital. Senior paid search and lead-generation experience across professional services and international markets — founder-led delivery, no account handover. More about Darcy.
Geography, practice-area structure and measurement handled together.
Question about your own account?
Send Darcy a short note about what you're seeing in your Google Ads or your enquiry reporting. It goes straight to him — no sequence, no sales team.