Strategies to Optimize Content for AI

We have been noticing a couple of emerging trends here at The Modern Firm. First, we have noticed our clients have begun to get “referrals” from AI models like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Microsoft CoPilot, and Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE). 

The second trend is tied to the first: our clients are increasingly interested in how to optimize their law firm website content for AI. It’s an important question; AI use is growing, and AI gives fewer referrals than traditional search, meaning competition for visibility is more intense. AI tools are also, in a way, becoming gatekeepers for local referrals by providing recommended links.

But unlike traditional search, where paying for ads can get you a spot at the top of a search engine results page (SERP), ad placement is still uncommon in AI-generated answers, which prioritize clarity and authority. That can level the playing field for smaller firms that have great knowledge and experience, but smaller advertising budgets.

Understanding the Importance of SEO for AI Citations

Paige Silver-Dunn, Director of Marketing at The Modern Firm, provides some encouragement for attorneys who have devoted lots of time and resources to SEO and who are now concerned about optimizing content for AI: “For the most part, there is significant overlap between best practices for SEO and best practices for AI. If you are writing in a way that serves the needs of your clients and prospective clients, that is going to resonate with AI tools.”

She notes that almost all of The Modern Firm’s SEO clients have ranked on AI. Among them are Robenalt Law, a personal injury firm that has noticed an increase in referral traffic from AI, and Law Offices of Hope Lefeber, a federal criminal defense firm that has been showing up in many AI overviews, giving the practice excellent visibility.

Six Tips for Helping AI Recommend Your Law Firm Website

Write Authoritative Content that is Optimized to Target Your Ideal Audience

The end user for your website’s content is human beings. Creating unique content designed to meet their needs is one of the best ways to increase your website’s visibility to AI. Consider whether your content provides original information and analysis of a given topic. 

The EEAT framework is used by Google to evaluate the quality of content, and it’s also valuable in gauging how AI will assess that content. EEAT stands for:

• Experience: Does the attorney have firsthand, real-world experience with the subject matter?

• Expertise: Can the attorney show deep knowledge and respected credentials in this area?

• Authority: Is the attorney recognized by peers and colleagues as an authority in this topic? (This often shows up as an attorney getting quoted in news stories or cited by legal blogs.)

• Trustworthiness: Is the information provided accurate, transparent, and ethically presented, with sources cited?

A good question to ask yourself is whether a piece of content is something you would proudly share with a colleague or friend, or bookmark for yourself. If the answer is yes, the content is likely helpful enough that AI will also see it as valuable. 

Organize Your Content with Section Headings and Concise Paragraphs 

Optimizing content for AI requires not only providing thorough answers to the questions people are asking, but doing so in a concise manner that mirrors the way AI presents information: think brief answers, followed by well-organized elaboration. Information in clear modules with meaningful headings is easier for both AI tools and human readers to digest. Well-placed summaries (like the takeaways at the beginning of this article) provide AI with useful material from which to construct a “featured snippet” at the top of a search engine results page.

Use Clear and Understandable Language for Everyday Consumers

AI also prioritizes the explicit, specific, and clear language that your human readers value. You could say, “Personal injury statutes of limitations vary by jurisdiction, and certain circumstances may toll the statute of limitations.” That is a true statement. But a more helpful one might be, “In Michigan, you usually have three years from the date of an injury to file a personal injury claim. In cases where the injury was not discovered immediately, that time frame could be extended.”

Build a Technical Environment for Generative Engine Optimization 

Ensuring that search engines and indexing systems that crawl the web can access your content is key to AI visibility. That includes providing sitemaps to Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster, and other platforms or legal directories. Think of your sitemap as a table of contents for bots that help them discover your content as efficiently as possible.

Other best practices for structuring your site in an AI-friendly way includes using short, descriptive, consistent URLs; internal linking between pages that feels natural; and giving every practice area its own dedicated page. 

Using structured content and schema markup is also important to AI visibility. Structured data makes it easy to read pages and extract data directly from them; think of schema markup as metadata labels to help search engines and AI understand what they are looking at.

Update Your Content Regularly for Long-Lasting Results

Lawyers know that the law is constantly evolving; so is information online. Just as you might put more trust in a legal treatise that was updated this year than in one that’s ten years old, AI and search engines value recently-updated content over older material. Fresh content suggests that a site reflects the current state of the law, and that it’s safe for AI to show to users. 

AI-connected crawlers give higher indexing priority to webpages that are regularly updated, and an active site gets crawled more often. In situations where two websites give the same information, but one is more recently updated, AI answers are more likely to quote the newer page.

Fresh content doesn’t just impress AI tools. Imagine yourself consulting a webpage; if you saw language on the page indicating it was recently updated, you would likely feel reassured that you were getting current information, too.

In addition to periodically auditing and updating practice pages, regularly updating a blog on your site signals to both AI and human readers that you are an authority in your practice areas, Paige Silver-Dunn notes.

Pay Attention to Mobile Optimization.

Mobile optimization means designing and updating websites so they are easy to use on mobile devices. This optimization includes mobile responsiveness, but it goes further, including touch-friendly navigation, fast load times, and content that’s easy to read on mobile devices. These features, of course, improve user experience for humans as well.

Bing and Google both index websites primarily from their mobile versions, and these key search engines feed information to the most common AI tools: ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini. Good mobile optimization means that AI will read your site more thoroughly, increasing the chances your firm’s content will show up in their responses. 

Does Increased AI Visibility Translate to Increased Business?

Paige Silver-Dunn cautions that increased AI visibility, while important, does not always translate directly to increased business, or even increased website traffic, for law firms. People may simply be searching for answers to legal questions rather than trying to initiate contact with an attorney.

Increasingly, however, people are using AI as a referral tool, asking it to do things like “recommend a divorce attorney in Atlanta who specializes in high net worth divorce.” This is where targeting your site’s content to your ideal audience becomes crucial. You want to ensure that AI tools are able to clearly associate your firm with the exact type of clients and cases you’d like to attract.

In some cases, users of AI seeking information get the answers to their questions within the AI interface, meaning they don’t feel the need to click through to the website of a law firm referenced in an AI-generated answer. But even if increased AI visibility doesn’t increase business for that firm today, it may plant a seed in a user’s mind that will bear fruit when they are finally ready to contact an attorney.

To learn more about optimizing your law firm website’s content for AI, or other ways that AI can improve your practice, feel free to get in touch.