When JSO Digital was based in lower Manhattan I would hire NYU law students to write all of our content. We built entire content sites like the Safe Birth Project on good old fashioned research and writing, written by really smart kids. But the game has changed. Google is moving to a zero click model, AI overviews are eating the 10 blue links, and LLMs will spit out a blog post for you in under a minute.
Content marketers are on the back foot.
SEO and GEO are still worth it for law firms
And yet, especially for law firms, where the dollar value of a new client is often quite high, SEO and its new cousin generative search optimization ("GEO") are very much worth doing, assuming they are done in a way that goes with the grain of the changing internet.
From topical depth to experiential depth
I look at the industry right now and see innovators like Firm Pilot using AI models to evaluate content that has ranked in the past and using those learnings to build content on today's web. The problem with law firm SEO driven copy is most of it is garbage. It's the legal equivalent of a niche site. I will write 100 pages of drivel about travel in Bali and the search engines will reward me for topical depth.
Now more than ever, it's not about topical depth, it's about experiential depth.
There is very little you can learn from what ranked in the content mill days, even if some of it is still standing and converting today.
What you learn as a 1L
In law school as a 1L, you learn from the restatements. The restatement of torts, the restatement of contracts. These are treatises of black letter law that largely tell you the default rule.
A binding contract requires consideration, torts and foreseeability, etc.
Most law firm blogs are shallow versions of the restatements, written entirely for search engines. If I were starting a law firm, I wouldn't bother with this style of writing any longer. Instead, I'd pivot to client stories, anonymized of course, and lawyer war stories.
Become a documentarian
I would use my blog to become a documentarian of how the firm helps, who it helps, and what the solutions look like. Sure, give me the black letter law, but then tell me how it has been applied to an interesting set of facts, what the common pitfalls look like, and how they can be overcome.
What Google's Helpful Content guidelines actually ask
Google's Helpful Content guidelines ask content creators two simple questions every firm needs to put front and center:
- Does the content provide original information, reporting, research, or analysis?
- Does the content provide insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond the obvious?
What this looks like in practice
Channel Reddit.
Start with a colorful client story. Describe the problem in detail. Now discuss how you applied the law to help, and why the solution was far more complex than most would imagine.
The ingredients:
- Colorful fact pattern based on personal experience
- List the black letter law
- Application of the law for a solution
- Detail the solution
The necessary shift is from rote recitation of facts to some storytelling.
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