The best bankruptcy Google Ads keywords are the ones that signal a person who needs to file soon and wants a lawyer to do it: "bankruptcy attorney near me," "chapter 7 lawyer [city]," "stop wage garnishment," "stop foreclosure sale." The keywords matter, but in this practice area your negative keyword list does more to protect your budget, because "bankruptcy" shows up in a huge number of searches that have nothing to do with hiring you.
Below are the keyword groups we'd build a consumer bankruptcy account around, the negatives we'd add on day one, and the routine that keeps the list clean.
Bankruptcy Google Ads keywords, grouped by intent
Group bankruptcy keywords by how close the searcher is to hiring, and give each group its own ad group with ads written for that situation.
| Group | Example keywords | Intent | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hire a lawyer | "bankruptcy attorney near me," "bankruptcy lawyer [city]," "chapter 7 attorney" | Very high | Your core. Exact and phrase match. |
| Chapter 13 / keep assets | "chapter 13 lawyer," "file chapter 13 to save house," "keep car in bankruptcy" | High | Higher fee cases. Budget separately. |
| Trigger events | "stop wage garnishment," "bank account levied," "stop foreclosure auction," "car repossessed what now" | High, urgent | Ads should name the event. |
| Cost questions | "how much does chapter 7 cost," "cheap bankruptcy lawyer," "bankruptcy payment plan" | Medium to high | Price shoppers, but real filers. Land on a page that discusses fees honestly. |
| Eligibility | "do I qualify for chapter 7," "means test calculator [state]" | Medium | Good for a consult offer. Watch for DIY filers. |
| Spanish | "abogado de bancarrota cerca de mi," "abogado de quiebras" | High | Only if your intake can handle Spanish calls. |
Two groups deserve more attention than they usually get. Trigger-event searches carry a deadline, which makes them some of the most valuable clicks in the account; our guide to garnishment, lawsuit, and repossession marketing covers them. And foreclosure searches often lead to Chapter 13, which is where the larger fees are, so see reaching homeowners facing foreclosure if you take those cases.
Location modifiers
"Near me" searches are already local, so they don't need a city in the keyword. City and county modifiers ("chapter 7 lawyer Riverside County") are worth separate keywords when you serve several areas, because they tell you where cases come from. Be careful with courthouse terms. "Bankruptcy court [city]" is usually someone looking for an address, a phone number, or a hearing time, not a lawyer. Test it with a small budget before trusting it.
Negative keywords every bankruptcy account needs
Add negatives before you spend a dollar. Here is a starting list by theme. Adjust it to your practice, since a firm that takes small business cases would keep some of these.
Lookups and public records
bankruptcy records, public records, lookup, search, PACER, case number, "did [company] file," "is [person] bankrupt," court records, bankruptcy court phone number
Do-it-yourself filers
forms, pdf, template, fill out, "how to file bankruptcy without a lawyer," pro se, free bankruptcy forms, petition download, instructions
Already filed or after the case
discharge papers, proof of bankruptcy, credit counseling course, debtor education course, "after bankruptcy," car loans after bankruptcy, credit cards after bankruptcy, mortgage after bankruptcy, rebuild credit
That last group surprises people. Someone searching "bankruptcy course" is very often already working with a lawyer or filing on their own, and someone searching "credit cards after bankruptcy" got their discharge years ago. Neither is hiring you this week.
Business, news, and companies
chapter 11, corporate bankruptcy, company files for bankruptcy, stock, news, specific retailer and airline names that are in the headlines
Jobs and education
jobs, paralegal, trustee jobs, salary, careers, CLE, law school, outline
Wrong product
debt consolidation loan, personal loan, apply, credit repair, credit score, balance transfer
Which match types should a bankruptcy firm use?
Start with phrase and exact match for your core and trigger-event terms. Broad match can work for bankruptcy, but only once the account has a solid negative list, real conversion tracking (calls over a minute, consultations booked), and a Smart Bidding strategy with enough data to learn from.
Broad match without those three things in place is how firms end up paying for "Chapter 11 airline bankruptcy news." It is one of the most common Google Ads mistakes law firms make.
Some valuable searches are ambiguous: "debt relief," "can't pay my credit cards," "help with debt." They draw debt settlement shoppers along with future filers. If you bid on them, put "Bankruptcy Attorney" in headline one and mention a consult with a lawyer, so the people who want a settlement program don't click.
A weekly search terms routine
A keyword list is never finished. These four steps, done every week for the first couple of months and every other week after, keep it healthy.
Pull the search terms report
Sort by cost. Look at everything that spent money without producing a qualified call or form.
Add negatives at the right level
Account-level lists for universal junk (jobs, forms, lookups). Campaign-level negatives to keep Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 terms from competing with each other.
Promote winners
When a search term produces consultations, add it as its own exact or phrase keyword with an ad written for it.
Check against intake notes
Ask intake which calls were loan shoppers, DIY filers, or out of district. Those notes often point to negatives the report alone won't reveal.
Want a second set of eyes on your search terms?
We'll review your bankruptcy keywords and negatives and flag the searches eating budget without producing filings.
Match the keyword to the page
A keyword is only half a decision. "Stop wage garnishment" should land on a page about stopping a garnishment, with the automatic stay explained in a sentence and a phone number above the fold. "How much does chapter 7 cost" should land somewhere that actually discusses fees. Sending every keyword to the homepage wastes the specificity you paid for. Our guide to bankruptcy landing pages covers the page side, and the full bankruptcy PPC playbook ties it together. If you'd like us to build and run it, that's our law firm Google Ads management service.
Frequently Asked Questions
The highest-intent keywords combine a lawyer term with bankruptcy or a chapter and a location, such as "bankruptcy attorney near me" or "chapter 7 lawyer [city]." Trigger-event terms like "stop wage garnishment" and "stop foreclosure sale" are also strong because the searcher has a deadline. Cost questions like "how much does chapter 7 cost" can work if they land on an honest fee page.
Start with public record and lookup terms (records, search, PACER, case number), do-it-yourself terms (forms, pdf, without a lawyer), post-discharge terms (credit counseling course, after bankruptcy, rebuild credit), business and news terms (chapter 11, corporate), job terms, and loan or credit repair terms. Then add more weekly from your search terms report.
Carefully, if at all. "Debt relief" searches mix future bankruptcy clients with people looking for debt settlement programs and loans. If you bid on them, use tight match types, a modest budget, and ad copy that clearly says you are a bankruptcy attorney so people looking for a different product don't click.
Only once the account is mature. Broad match needs a strong negative keyword list, accurate conversion tracking tied to real consultations, and Smart Bidding with enough data. Without those, broad match on "bankruptcy" tends to match news, business filings, and record lookups. Most firms should start with phrase and exact match.