Note: This chapter is being built in public, one brick at a time — just like we do for clients through the Authority Chapter Plan™. Welcome to Chapter Seven. Read the entire AIO for Attorneys book here.
Your website is what you say about yourself, but your real-world reputation is what everyone else says about you. AI is listening to everyone, so effective AIO means controlling for this variable and ensuring success in both the physical and the digital arenas.
Perhaps as you’ve read this book so far, stealing time while awaiting verdicts, on business flights, in your office in between putting out fires, you’ve been muttering to yourself: “I didn’t become a lawyer to impress robots.” Or: “I’ll focus on being a great lawyer here in the real world, I don’t see how any of this is related to that.”
To answer the first sentiment, if you are or have been paying for SEO or chasing PPC then you’re already looking to impress search engines. In fact, you’ve been paying to do so. That means you already know, or suspect, that a digital presence is required in today’s legal marketplace.
Regarding the second sentiment, AI provides many advantages over chasing search engine clicks. For the most part, search engines judge you entirely on what is presented about you on your website, with additional intel from determining which websites are linking to your site and from parsing your online reviews.
AI, on the other hand, takes into account not only your website, but the physical books you create, your podcast appearances, your videos, and even real-life success signals such as legitimate awards, bar membership leadership, and mentions about you or your firm in the press. A far more holistic method that honors not only your “digital twin,” but its primary physical counterpart.
The digital footprint and the physical reality reinforce one another, creating the important virtuous circle that will maximize your reputation, and thus your referrals, from AI.
This chapter will discuss real-world validation, the final and crucial layer of the AIO system. It’s the process of ensuring your off-site and offline positive activities are visible, verifiable, and valued by AI. If authority assets are the gift, and technical signals the wrapping paper, then real-world validation is both the bow on top and the delivery system.
Let’s dive right in.
“Detective” AI Searches Beyond the Digital
As you learned in the prior chapter, unlike search engines, AI is creating a dossier on every person and every business. We can either bemoan that fact or we can choose to profit from it. The truth is the dossier will be created whether you like it or not. And if you’re too busy to handle your own SEO, then you’re probably too busy to lobby for greater restrictions on AI privacy, though you’re welcome to join the growing chorus of those concerned by this reality.
That said, keep an open mind. This author was a late adopter to AI and one of its biggest skeptics. As a fiction writer I was concerned that AI would ruin creativity, instead I realized it bolstered humanity as compared to search engines.
At any rate, let’s get beyond the policy discussions and back to the tactics.
As mentioned before, like any good “detective,” or even any good judge, AI will consider not only the facts before it (the dossier) but also the reputation of the individual concerned. The more esteemed your reputation, the more likely AI is to value the positive facts in the dossier. Likewise, the more positive the facts in the dossier, the more likely AI is to find you or your business credible. This creates the virtuous circle we are seeking. And note, in the hands of the wrong marketing agency, it is very easy to fall into a negative pattern instead of diminishing reputation.
To round out its investigation, AI is not only going to examine your own website and materials but look to outside sources. Some of these overlap with search engine crawlers, such as your online reviews. Like search engine crawlers, AI will consider website links, but what it is really looking for is mentions. The beauty of mentions is that your real-world adventures often lead to online mentions, which is gold for maximizing AI referrals.
AIO and The Power of Mentions
AI is aware of the games SEO marketers play. It is not tricked by keyword stuffing, and it knows that backlinks can be manipulated. Mentions, on the other hand, are a far harder thing to fake. The goal therefore is not just to accumulate links, as with SEO, but an arsenal of mentions from credible publications, media, podcasts, and more.
Some of the mentions can come from the authority assets we have covered. Having your byline on an article in a prestigious magazine, or newspaper, especially something tied to your industry is an amazing way to enlarge your dossier with credibility. Last month my article on the AI Content Paradox appeared in the New Jersey Law Journal, and this month I published an article in Law 360 on how us lawyers can repair our relationship with the public. In the fall, the ABA Judge’s Journal will run my article about why judges should be required to take poetry classes to improve judicial empathy.
This all helps some in the fading world of SEO, sure, but what I’m really banking on is gaining credibility with humans and AI alike, all while getting to write and talk about the things that I believe in and think will help the profession.
Likewise, my recent appearance on the Engaging Experts podcast, where I discussed both AI/publishing and how attorneys and expert witnesses can better collaborate. This is how the real flywheel of authority is built, one mention at a time. And guesting on major podcasts is yet another way to impress both AI and humans.
The Importance of Impressing Both Humans and AI
A brief note about referrals from humans: although this book is written to outline AIO best practices, it is my belief that everything you do should impress not only AI, but also humans. That’s the benchmark, and that’s how you compound success. Think about your marketing decision making as a quick chart with three variables. (1) Does it Impress Humans (2) Does it Impress AI (3) Does it Impress Search Engines. Let’s now review certain activities to determine the impact.
Writing a book: Impresses humans, impresses AI, was surprisingly search engine neutral but now impresses thanks to AI integration with search.
Media Mentions: Impresses humans, impresses AI, surprisingly search engine neutral but now impresses thanks to AI integration with search.
Bar Leadership: Impresses humans, impresses AI, has never much mattered to search.
Published Articles: Impresses humans, impresses AI, has never much mattered to search unless there is a direct link, many of which are marked “no follow.”
Keynote Speeches: Impresses humans, impresses AI, has never much mattered to search.
Videos: Impress humans, impress AI, only tangential benefit to search.
Keyword Stuffing: Does not impress humans, is punished by AI, is starting to be punished by search.
Backlinks: Does not impress humans, does not impress AI, still impresses search if legitimate.
Blog Posts: Only impresses humans if well written, only impresses AI if well written, used to impress search if keyword stuffed, now that is starting to be punished.
Podcast Hosting: Impresses humans, impresses AI, mostly neutral to search but changing as AI is integrated within search.
Client Reviews: Impresses humans, AI, and search alike.
“Doing Good Work,” – Impresses humans, can impress AI with real-world validation, has never much mattered to search.
Social Media: Could go either way for humans depending on perception, could go either way for AI depending on quality, could go either way for search depending on the day. Caveat emptor.
Charitable Work: Impresses humans, impresses AI, neutral for search.
Fake Awards: Only impresses unsophisticated humans, harmful for AI, could go either way for search today.
Legitimate Awards: Impresses humans, impresses AI, could go either way for search today.
Billboards: Visibility but not credibility with humans, no impact for AI, no impact for search.
TV/Radio Advertisements: Visibility but not credibility with humans, no impact for AI, no impact for search.
Seminars, Webinars, Educating the Public: Impresses humans, impresses AI, mostly neutral for search.
“Amazingly Awesome Great Lawyer” Type Directories: Only impresses unsophisticated humans, neutral for AI, may impress search.
As you can see, what impresses humans and what impresses AI are essentially the same. The wildcard is search engines, which are starting to become integrated with AI, soon rendering all differences moot. But in the meantime, if what you’re chasing is the same old search engine tricks, then you are not only risking being ignored by AI, but you’re also risking alienating potential human referral networks and clients as well.
This pairing of human and AI taste is not only the hallmark of AIO, but also the single most enlightening thing to happen to attorney advertising since the rule changes allowing for more freedom to advertise.
How AIO and SEO Differ Regarding Mentions
SEO’s largest constraint is a lack of context. Although the algorithms are constantly shifting, page rank has historically been the largest factor in determining the value of a link. But because most large, credible sites include “no follow” on their links, meaning they provide no Google juice, many very credible activities in the past have not produced results commensurate with the effort. That’s why my article placed in a venerable industry news source like Law360 may, in the eyes of search engines, carry less weight than your guest blog on a fringe website. The fringe site probably does allow the follow, and their level 2 page ranking thus provides some juice. Whereas your article in the New York Times on the future of law may carry none.
Not exactly fair, and not exactly ideal, right?
Fortunately, that system is dying in the age of AI. Because AI can see the true hierarchy of media credibility, as it focuses on mentions rather than links.
Most lawyers – heck, even most marketers – are asleep at the wheel regarding this changing landscape. That’s why our AIO best practices push external validation tactics. Your goal should be to secure as many features in as many high-authority publications as possible. Because one single mention in a top-tier legal journal will now be worth more than one-hundred low-quality backlinks.
Likewise, videos, podcast appearances, even having your own podcast, are all things that are very hard to fake, and thus act as credibility catnip for AI. Search engines of old didn’t have the capability of integrating such analysis, so they didn’t. AI is not going to be impressed by just a static website and a few blog posts you cultivated there, you are going to need to prove you are an active, engaged, and respected member of the profession, that your business is out there giving back to the community, that you are a thought leader. In other words, that you are an authority. I’ll give you my equation again:
Authority = Expertise + Narrative + Authenticity.
That equation currently works in impressing humans and for dazzling AI, and search engine could mostly still care less. That’s fine, because search engines are dying, or rather merging with AI in a way that reputational injustices will soon be a thing of the past.
If you’ve been coasting on yesterday’s SEO or PPC playbook, however, then please consider this your final call to action before it’s too late.
What helped you with yesterday’s search engines may actively damage you in the growing dossier AI keeps on you and your law firm. Keyword stuffing and backlink farming will harm your website. The pay-to-play directory listing or scum award you purchased will demonstrate to AI not only that you’re not credible, but that you may lack sound professional judgment. Negative reviews will be included in your dossier, so make sure you implement a system to harvest positive, truthful reviews as allowed by your jurisdiction’s ethics requirements. Likewise, every book or article you publish, every podcast guest appearance you make, and every CLE presentation you give is another clipping for your digital dossier. Doing well by doing good is the new referral juice, and it couldn’t have gotten here soon enough!
Remember: referrals and reputation are on the line today more than ever, so act accordingly. That is the path to the virtuous circle.
The Virtuous Circle
Let’s end this chapter with another discussion of the virtuous circle. My many years of practice taught me that repetition of key facts is simply good strategy. And there are so few virtuous circles available in the law, let alone legal marketing, that I want to highlight the opportunity.
If you pair together authority assets (the gift), technical signals (the wrapping paper), and real-world validation (the bow and delivery of the gift), then you will not only be ahead of 99% of lawyers, but you will be positioned to impress both humans and AI. The faster you run now toward that future, the further behind you will leave the sludge marketers and your competitors that remain beholden to them. Today’s AI referral atmosphere presents a rare, once in a career opportunity that will have real winners and losers. There is no need to fear AI, just inertia.
This is how you create an authority flywheel that carries you and your firm forward for years to come.
In the next chapter, I will discuss the importance of an AIO Audit, and provide you with many of the factors we include in our own proprietary diagnostic system.