The emergence of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), adapted to provide direct answers to users’ questions, has led to an interest in GEO (generative engine optimization) that corresponds to and closely parallels the more established practices of SEO (search engine optimization). Often GEO and SEO can complement each other and work hand-in-hand, but there are a few areas in which achieving maximum AI readability may mean you need to make tailored “tweaks” to your law firm website. An AI readability audit helps you (or your digital marketing team) to identify those areas and apply any needed adjustments.
AI-Ready Web Design
Many of your steps toward auditing a law firm website for AI readability will be engineered around the specific needs of LLMs and the practicalities of the ways they “read” websites and gather (and process) data. In some instances, however, you will find that the adaptations you may want to make (depending on what your audit finds) can affect the way your site appears to the ordinary human viewers you hope may become your clients. One area in which this intersection can be particularly obvious is in mobile site optimization. Google has been increasing the weight the company’s eponymous search engine gives to mobile optimization features in determining how websites “rank” in search engine results pages (SERPs) for a few years now; the company’s contention has been that as mobile searches make up an ever larger share of search activity, it makes sense to prioritize sites that cater to mobile users.
LLMs take this preference for mobile-ready web design and amplify it. To give your law firm’s content the best chance of being read and referenced by AI search tools, double-check for the following:
- “Mobile-first” design: This term gets tossed around a lot as a catchall for websites that offer some mobile-specific functionality. You want to apply a stricter definition during your audit. Take the “first” part of mobile-first seriously, and test each page of your website for readability and navigability, starting with the smallest screen size you think visitors might use (don’t forget the latest folding screens!).
- Menus and navigation: While we are thinking about navigation, be sure to check not just the layout, but the function, of any menus (including header and sidebar menus) and their elements. Buttons and other features intended to help readers move from one place to another across your website get the same treatment. “Call-to-action” elements embedded in the middle of site pages are particularly prone to becoming unusable, invisible, or simply misplaced, in mobile browsing (this is another reason to work up from the smallest screen). Pay special attention to any features that are designed for desktop users to access via “hovering” their cursors: Are they obvious in mobile view? Do they function appropriately without a mouse to guide the cursor?
- Loading speed: Sometimes pages will load at the same speed in a mobile browser as on a desktop. Often they will not. Mobile visitors who feel frustrated staring at a blank page, or one full of blank boxes where visual content theoretically might be, will frequently click away to continue their search for legal information and services elsewhere. Lower your bounce rate and keep prospective clients engaged by making sure your pages deliver the same low-friction experience, regardless of device.
- Size matters: Review your site’s CSS to make sure that images, banners, and other design elements are designed for responsive sizing: You want your layout to prioritize proportions, not pixels. Be sure to check both portrait and landscape modes; responsible design should adjust seamlessly to match the orientation of the user’s device.
Remember: Current LLM systems were built in the mobile-first era. Expect them to take mobile screen sizes and mobile browser functions as their “default” assumptions and to prioritize accordingly.
If You Like It, Then You Should Have Put a Tag on It
Search engine marketers have been preaching the good news about structured data for years. While not visible to a website’s human visitors, structured data (typically via the industry-standard schema tag system) can be enormously helpful in helping search engines figure out what you think is on your website and how you see the site pages relating to one another.
What Are Schema Tags?
Data markup (you’ll be looking for, and examining, JSON-LD files) facilitates indexing by making sure that web crawlers can categorize each page of your website. This indexing function then makes it much easier for search algorithms to interpret your page content in light of the schema “tags” with which you have chosen to label it; the search engine knows not just what the page says, but the kind of document (help page, bio, etc.) the page is intended to be. The outcome, generally, is better (and more accurate) retrievability, which is exactly what you want if you are hoping the people who need your legal services will find your law firm website.
Is Structured Data Markup Really Crucial?
Search engine specialists have debated how central schema markup really is to LLM search results, particularly when compared to how structured data practices impact traditional SERP rankings. Some experts confidently assert that schema markup is even more important for AI readability than for traditional search engine indexing, while tests using vs. not using structured have yielded “promising, but inconclusive” results in Google’s AI Overviews.
The Realist’s Approach
The degree to which schema tags impact AI readability, and how those effects translate in terms of inclusion in citation links, is an interesting intellectual puzzle. However, it is not an intellectual puzzle you need to solve in order to audit your law firm website for AI readability. Some of the answers may be moving targets: both LLMs and the search engine algorithms whose results they sometimes incorporate in generating answers are constantly in revision, and often these changes amount to minor shifts in the relative weight assigned to each of the factors the program is considering in determining which possible websites to present in response to a query.
The practical bottom line we are all missing when we focus on these questions is that there is no downside to structured data. Your law firm has nothing to lose by using it. Structured data markup is a low-cost intervention with potentially high rewards and virtually no risk. Make sure all pages on your website are conforming to schema tag best practices now, and start building the website authority that will make it easier to integrate any updates later, if JSON-LD develops to the point where changes are needed.
What To Include
At a minimum, your law firm website should include schema tags for these pages:
- FAQPage – ideal for the Q&A style LLMs seem to prefer
- LegalService – so both search engines and AI tools know what kind of business your website belongs to
- LocalBusiness – with information consistent across site pages (and ideally your law firm’s social media and other digital surfaces, as well) to optimize for local search
You will probably also want to apply structured data markup to an “about” page and an articles page, particularly if you are using blogs as an integral part of your SEO/GEO content strategy. To take your schema tags to the next level, apply the same technique to your practice area pages.
Talk to the Machine
One feature check specific to LLMs that any AI readability audit should include is an llms.txt. These text files are formatted in Markdown and added to a website’s root directory.
An llms.txt file provides “cheat sheet” information to LLMs as they scan your site; you could also think of them as a “map” of sorts to orient LLMs as they scan your content. The goal is to enhance AI readability in much the same way that sitemap.xml improves readability for traditional web crawlers. The inclusion of llms.txt may take a while to yield measurable dividends, but the reasonable expectation at this point is that AI tools will begin to rely more heavily on their own search algorithms (independent from the traditional web search results they often integrate in their processes) as we move through the rest of this year.
Answer Questions With Authority
As long as you are identifying FAQs pages using structured data and giving LLMs a guide to your law firm website, you will probably want to review the content to make sure that it is a good fit for the categories (i.e., data types) you have identified as important. To get the most bang for your buck, you can combine this step with checking for important “authority” signals that both traditional search engines and LLMs look for when evaluating website quality.
Q&A
Obviously you will want to answer questions that really are asked frequently on your law firm’s designated FAQs page, and you will probably want to do so in a question-and-answer format. However, you should not leave the “direct answer” format on the FAQs page! Make sure that your blog articles and even the pages describing your practice area(s) contain bite-sized answers to questions clients visiting your practice commonly have about how your law firm works and the kinds of cases you handle. If you think the answers look a little like something you might see showing up in the “featured snippets” sections Google sometimes drops into your search results pages, you are on the right track!
Say Your Name
Bolster the efficacy of your LocalBusiness schema by naming your own “entity” (your law firm) in multiple locations. At the very least, the law firm’s name should appear on every page; shoving it into locations where it does not fit naturally is not an improvement, but as you review the content already on your website, look for places where it would make logical sense to name your firm again, and maybe speak with your content strategist about ways to create more of those opportunities in the future. Of course, mentioning individual attorneys is also important: Their reputation is your reputation! Be sure that your blog pages give attribution when a partner or associate is the author, and connect the law firm name to the attorney’s own digital presence through a bio that highlights his or her current focus and past achievements.
Cite Your Sources
As an expert in your practice area(s), it makes sense that you would not need to cite the kinds of information that a law firm would typically post on a public website in the same way that you would need to provide references throughout a court brief. However, search engines and LLMs alike pay attention to the sources a website explicitly identifies in written content (go ahead and name drop!) and the pages to which the website links.
As tempting as it is to keep visitors on your own website as long as possible, you need links pointing off your site to other pages whose authority is undisputed. The easy strategy here is to link to the government websites detailing the legal codes or rules of court that have regular relevance to your practice; blog pages can be an effective tool for building this kind of authority over time, but be sure to review the content on your practice area pages as well to look for chances to “level up” your site content.
Work With a Search Specialist
The landscape of search has changed dramatically in just a few years. Transitioning from a world in which Google reigned the unquestioned arbiter of search traffic to one in which competing generative engine search tools jostle for position has left many attorneys feeling more than a little breathless from the whirlwind journey. At the same time, the old axiom holds true: The more things change, the more they stay the same. Consider visiting with an experienced law firm marketing agency that understands SEO and AI, as well as understands the importance of legal accuracy and ethics compliance.
AI readability requires some adjustments to account for the differences between traditional search engine indexing protocols and LLMs in terms of data access and classification, but the underlying principles of integrating accurate “signposts” throughout your law firm website and ensuring that the content on your pages is not only topically relevant, but crafted to present bots as well as humans with evidence that your site is a trustworthy source of answers to core questions, remain in place. An AI readability audit simply helps to ensure that your law firm website is applying those principles for LLMs.
Annette Choti, Esq., has over two decades of legal experience and is the Founder & CEO of Law Quill, a concierge legal marketing agency for law firms. Annette authored the bestselling book Click Magnet: The Ultimate Guide To Digital Marketing For Law Firms, hosts the popular Legal Marketing Lounge podcast, and founded Click Magnet Academy where she teaches professionals to leverage the powerful LinkedIn platform. As a sought after speaker for Bar Associations, Legal Associations, and Marketing Conferences, Annette provides legal marketing insight along with an entertaining twist. Annette used to do theatre and professional comedy, which is not so different from the legal field if we are all being honest. Annette can be found on LinkedIn or directly through email at Annette@LawQuill.com
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