More Cases. Better Clients. Real Results.
Start a Conversation with GAVLAs if regular SEO wasn’t already complex enough to understand, there’s now another acronym creating a whole lot of clamor in legal marketing circles: GEO, otherwise known as generative engine optimization. Essentially, some folks like to claim that SEO and GEO are two completely different things and both need to be approached in completely different ways. The reality? Separating the two is just a convenient way to try and coerce more money out of law firms. SEO and GEO are fundamentally connected. If your firm’s site has a great SEO foundation already in place, chances are you’re on the right path for GEO as well.
What does matter is AI visibility. While AI search platforms prioritize the same signals as organic search engines like content trustworthiness, authoritativeness, and technical quality, the fundamental difference between the two types of searches is how the results show up. With typical organic rankings, when a user types in “When do you need a personal injury lawyer?”. they’ll see a list of links to law firms to click on. When viewers look at an AI-powered summary in Google or on ChatGPT/Claude, they receive a comprehensive answer immediately. There will be links cited, some of which may happen to be links to law firms. But if the viewer gets their answer from the summary provided, their search may end there. This simple fact explains why you may be experiencing less website traffic than before, by the way.
So, what does that mean for law firms? Here are some things to consider:
Focus On Quality
While your firm’s website may be seeing less overall traffic than before due to the prominence of AI search, it’s important to remember that your firm’s content itself can be featured in AI summaries or snippets. This can help viewers reach out to your firm if they see the firm’s name cited in the AI summary or visit your website to learn more about your firm after reading that summary. AI engines crawl content a little differently than traditional search engines do. AI engines go one step further and attempt to interpret content, analyzing whether or not it’s worthy of citation. That means your content needs to be better than it’s ever been before in order to get featured in AI summaries.
What do we mean by better?
- Written for humans, by humans. AI-written content is really easy to spot and performs really poorly over time. Avoid it at all costs.
- Accuracy matters. AI bots usually ignore content that has errors.
- Update content frequently to prevent inaccurate or outdated statistics.
- Content uniqueness matters. If your content reads almost exactly like that other law firm’s content, that’s likely a red flag for AI crawlers. Think about what makes your firm stand out from others. Focus on those qualities when crafting content and don’t just focus on words, either. High-quality images and videos all count as content and can help your firm’s website be more credible and trustworthy.
- Make sure there are no technical issues with your website as a whole.
Always focus on quality over length. Long gone are the days of keyword spam.
Prioritize Structure
If your law firm’s website hasn’t had a structural overhaul in four years or more and still has pages upon pages of old blogs about topics that are no longer relevant, you owe it to yourself to consider a refresh that includes a hard look at how your site and content is structured and organized. One massive part of AI visibility is making sure that answers are easy to find and that every page and blog on your site has a unique purpose. One of the worst things you can do is post content for the mere sake of posting content.
Every piece of content should have a unique purpose, whether that purpose is to introduce a new concept via a subpage that links back to a foundational practice area page or a blog that answers a commonly-asked question about a type of case your firm handles (and then links back to the other pages that go over that particular type of case). How pages are linked to each other and where those links occur is a big deal for AI search. If anything on your site is difficult to find or loads slowly (and there’s the importance of a website that performs well technically again), there’s a good chance your site’s content won’t be considered for an AI summary on Google and other search/AI engines.
Make Answers Easy to Find
Content featuring clear formatting that better funnels readers toward getting the answers they need is a major part of making content human-friendly. This means that content should not only be easy enough for most folks to read and understand, but that it should be organized in a fashion that naturally lends itself toward formatting that matters to AI visibility. One type of formatting that often works well is FAQ (frequently asked questions) formatting. Consider the types of questions potential clients ask your intake team every day. Include those questions within your content with a clear structure that pairs the question with its answer. It’s also important to keep the answers more on the simple side whenever possible. Approachability affects readability and visibility. It’s only natural when you think about it. Humans want to understand what they read.
Also ensure that pages have clear labels, tags, and navigation options on your site. Keep the flow of your site simple and easy to find information on.
Keeping Things Visible
Ultimately, AI search and AI summaries are tools that exist to make our everyday lives easier. Some of the concepts and acronyms marketing companies throw around may seem overly complicated just to make things seem overly complicated.
At GAVL, we like to keep things simple. Our team understands the AI search world and stays on top of the tech to help our clients make sense of all things AI and help our clients’ sites perform the best they can. If your site needs a refresh to help it stay better equipped to stay visible in the AI world, reach out to our team today. Let’s navigate the future together.
