Leadership In Law Podcast

BONUS How AEO Is Replacing SEO—And What Your Law Firm Needs to Do About It

• Marilyn Jenkins

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Search is changing—and fast. If your law firm is still relying on old-school SEO tactics alone, you’re already behind. In this 30-minute workshop, Marilyn Jenkins breaks down the rise of Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)—what it is, why it matters, and how law firms can adapt to stay visible, relevant, and profitable in an AI-driven world.

You’ll discover:

Why Google’s new AI Overviews and zero-click searches are reshaping how people find legal services

The difference between SEO and AEO—and why answering real client questions now beats keyword stuffing

How voice search, chatbots, and AI assistants are changing local search behavior

Simple strategies to get your law firm featured in AI-powered search results

How to use tools like ChatGPT, AnswerThePublic, and schema markup to boost visibility

The one change you can make to your website this month to start seeing results


If you want to future-proof your law firm’s marketing and start showing up where the real traffic is going, this is a must-watch session.

Plus: All attendees get a free copy of the AI Search Visibility Guide to help you implement what you learn, fast.

Webinar Link: https://event.webinarjam.com/channel/LMZ-AEOSEO

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Ready to level up your law firm marketing? Book a FREE Discovery Call with Marilyn Here: https://lawmarketingzone.com/bookacall

Leadership In Law Podcast with host, Marilyn Jenkins
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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Leadership in Law podcast with host Marilyn Jenkins. Cut through the noise, get actionable insights and inspiring stories delivered straight to your ears your ultimate podcast for navigating the ever-changing world of law firm ownership. In each episode, we dive deep into the critical topics that matter most to you, from unlocking explosive growth to building a thriving team. We connect you with successful firm leaders and industry experts who share their proven strategies and hard-won wisdom. So, whether you're a seasoned leader or just starting your journey as a law firm owner, the Leadership in Law podcast is here to equip you with the knowledge and tools you need to build a successful and fulfilling legal practice.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to another workshop from Law Marketing Zone. My name is Marilyn Jenkins and I'm glad to have you here today. This is a new workshop that we haven't done before because of all the changes with SEO and some of the things that related to digital marketing. Everybody's talking about AI and it needs to be part of the conversation, so this month we're talking about all about AEO and what that is what it does, how it works and what you can do about it to make sure that your firm is staying top of mind and getting the most leads and the most eyeballs as possible. I want to congratulate you for being here today and investing 30 days to understand how things are changing and how you can use this new technology to grow your lead and case flow and, of course, grow your profits. Feel free to drop any questions in the chat or you can email them to me at Marilyn at lawmarketingzonecom, and I'll get back with you. So what we're going to be covering today in this workshop is a couple of things that we're talking about, as I mentioned, is the shift from SEO, which is search engine optimization, to AEO, and which we'll talk a little bit more about that and explain it more in a minute. It's how consumer search behavior is changing and evolving. As consumers, we're getting more exposed to AI over and over again, and how that's actually shifting to how we find things and the overall impact of AEO on local businesses. We'll talk a little bit about that and then, of course, I want to make sure to share some strategies that you can use to optimize specifically for this new system.

Speaker 2:

But real quick, here's a little bit about myself. So who am I and why should you listen to me? I'm the founder and CEO of Law Marketing Zone and MJ Media Group. I'm the author of three books on digital marketing. I've worked in digital marketing as a strategist since the early 1990s and worked with hundreds of law firms and local businesses exclusively with attorneys since 2018. And I'm the host of the podcast Leadership in Law, a top 5% podcast. So what is AEO? Aeo stands for Answer Engine Optimization, and you most likely have already been exposed to this and maybe you didn't even realize it, but this is a big shift that Google and some of the other search engines are using, and even platforms like ChatGP are actually starting to use some of these as well. So, number one, like why Aeon matters? Number one consumers are using voice search and AI assistance more and more every day. I've had an Alexa here in my office for seven years for several years now and I use it quite often. We also have hey Google on our cell phones and we ask questions and people are becoming a lot more comfortable asking these assistants to help them find things locally, different things that they're trying to go through or problems that they're trying to solve. Consumers are getting a lot more used to using these types of things. And number two this is one of the.

Speaker 2:

You've probably seen this, maybe not didn't even realize what you were seeing, but Google is favoring featured snippets and zero-click searches. Now, what is this? This is there's always been a featured snippet for the last oh, three, four, five years, I think. When you search for something, at the top, google tries to answer that question without you having to click to a website, right, I mean, even if it's something like a YouTube video that answers your question, they'll give you a timestamp of where your answer is, so it saves you having to go anywhere to see that, and that is a huge thing. It's called the feature snippet and it's at the top of your search results. That's been replaced by an AI overview version of that which, like you probably noticed, as you search for something, it's doing a little typing. It looks like it's typing out your answer for you live. So that's a huge thing. It keeps your attention, keeps people on the page.

Speaker 2:

The other piece is that it's the zero-click search. So, as I mentioned, google really wants to keep you on their platform as long as possible, so maybe you'll click on an ad or something like that, right and help the revenue. So this featured snippet pops up and you don't have to click on anything. That's what's called zero-click search. So there are ways for business to get in that area and become an answer. Now the really cool thing is we'll talk a little bit more about this, but if you see this little link button, see the green arrow I've got pointing at it. That's a little link button. Every time Google answers a question with AI overview, it's always going to link to where that information came from and that goes to whatever website. So in this case, we want that to be your website right, where you're answering those types of questions on a local basis. That's what our goal is with AEO and number three. Businesses that answer questions effectively get more visibility and more leads. So, as I showed you with that little link, that's a fantastic way to get more traffic to your site, to help people understand different problems that they're trying to solve and to give them solutions that obviously work. So get the content built in a way that really helps people solve whatever they're trying to do answer any of the questions they're asking.

Speaker 2:

So how is search behavior changing? In the past, people may have searched for divorce attorney near me, personal injury attorney near me those types of searches. I'm not to say they don't anymore, but a lot of people still do that and the near me related searches are still extremely popular. But with AI being part of it, you can now start to have more of a conversation with Google or Alexa or hey Google or whoever, whatever platform it is that you're using for these types of searches. So now people are saying how long does it take to get a divorce in Texas? Can I get alimony if my spouse is on disability? Those different types of questions that people can ask now, and these featured snippets and voice search results are replacing traditional rankings. Yeah, you still want to be high in organic rankings because that is underneath the AI results and people are still clicking on websites using the SEO side of things. But, boy, if you can get into the top result and that featured snippet area with these more specific questions, you're going to see more targeted traffic to your website because you're answering those very specific questions.

Speaker 2:

So what's the difference in AEO and SEO? Well, we've talked a little bit about this already, but SEO really focuses specifically on ranking you in Google by using keywords. I mean, there are a lot of other factors involved in this, of course, but at the end of the day, you're trying to rank a specific page on your website for a specific keyword or keyword phrase, some sort of term, right, it's almost a one-to-one relationship. You're trying to get it to rank when somebody searches for this thing, right? Obviously, it's optimized specifically for search engines, so Google being the number one. It's also, though, we're also optimizing for Bing, yahoo and some of the other ones that are out there Now.

Speaker 2:

With AEO, or answer engine optimization, they're more focused on delivering those instant and accurate answers. So, not so much focused on where you're ranking in the search engines, but the fact that you're at the top when somebody does a search for something. This is optimized, obviously, for AI driven responses and user intent. So we talked about that search earlier for, like a divorce attorney near me, that's a search intent related purchase, most likely right. So it could be research, but more likely it's an intent to purchase related right. So they're ready to make that decision. So they're wanting to set an appointment and learn if somebody is the expert in that thing.

Speaker 2:

So the impact on the business when it comes to AEO, obviously owning that position, owning position zero, is huge right and position zero is that featured snippet. So that's going to drive more traffic to you. It's going to answer more questions for people that are out there searching for you and just get you more exposure for your website. And obviously you get leads instantly because of that zero thing. You know, being the one at the top before any of the listings. And if they click on that, if you've built your website right and we've talked about this in other workshops getting your that appointment is a lot faster. And then, of course, you become the trusted local expert a lot faster and then, of course, you become the trusted local expert. So these zero answer things, they zero the snippets at the top of them, search results that the AI pops up. They're different depending on where you're at right. So if you're typing in personal injury attorney near me in Memphis, they're going to give you results related to that area. So if you're building content specifically for that, you can get into that locally, which is pretty sweet. So that's a big thing.

Speaker 2:

So let's talk a little bit about the strategies. Now that it comes to some of these, there's a couple of things that you could do that would really help start your digital marketing presence in a way where you can get more exposure for these types of things. Obviously, you want to optimize for the snippets. This means that you need to create content on your site that's more specific, right? It's not just generic, trying to rank for personal injury attorney in Memphis or a divorce attorney near me or that kind of stuff, right? So building content that is much more specific how much does estate planning cost? How much does a trust cost?

Speaker 2:

Answer direct questions that people are thinking of asking. Okay, and one way you can do this by creating an FAQ section on your site, on your child custody page, for instance. Maybe at the bottom of the page, you have four or five or six different things to say. Here's what other people typically ask when they're looking at child custody page, for instance, maybe at the bottom of the page you have four or five or six different things to say. Here's what other people typically ask when they're looking at child custody agreements, and you lay out all those different things that they ask. Of course, there's going to be keywords in there and stuff that you want to make sense for the SEO side of things, but also the AI bots are watching this.

Speaker 2:

If they have a question that matches what somebody's typing into Google and you have the same question, they may use your snippet for that answer and you'll get a link back to your website, so you would be the featured snippet area, okay, so a great way to do this on your service pages is to build out a short FAQ section where it lists maybe five or six questions that people typically ask. What are those questions? That? Because people are asking those questions, you ask them all the time, right, we all know what an FAQ is. So on a service page for, say, child custody, at the bottom of that should be a very detailed how can I questions? That would be your FAQs, okay. Another thing you can do is go to answerthepubliccom, put in something like estate planning and it'll actually give you a list of things that people are actually asking related to that keyword phrase. So that's a great tip. Go to answerthepubliccom and get other ideas.

Speaker 2:

Two, once you, if you do a search on Google for one of these questions and you see the AI answer below that a little bit below that is going to be a section that said people also asked. So those are questions that you wanted to write content around as well, okay, so think about doing that. Yeah, so those are the people also asked is very important to give you more ideas for content. And also, don't forget about local search. Obviously, local search for voice search A lot of people searching on their phones for different things as well. We're sitting in front of the screen a lot more often and using it for a lot of things. So make sure that you're enhancing for things that people would actually say when they're researching instead of typing. So, if you're, we do things differently when we're researching researching something than if we're actually ready to buy. You can also answer some more generic questions and then more pointed questions. So you can.

Speaker 2:

Your attempt is to be found on all of these opportunities. Okay, structured data markup. Now this is where we're going to get a little nerdy on this, but structured data markup is something we do for our clients and basically the search engines Google being Yahoo and being the big ones got together and said let's build some type of structure that we can understand that every page on a website on the internet is about right. There could be a structured markup for a menu at a restaurant so that search engines know what that menu is. That's just a great example. We could do the same thing in our industry with service pages, blog pages and city-related pages. We can use specific markup for those different channels. As I said, this gets a little nerdy, but if you want to learn more about structured data markup, a great place would be going to schemaorg at schemaorg and a great place to get an overview of what's going on and how to lay out your data. It's code that ends up going onto your website behind the scenes. Humans don't see it, but the search engines do, and that's what helps them to list your pages and put them in the right place.

Speaker 2:

Also, don't forget about AI and chatbots. These are very important. We hear those terms a lot, I know, in the news and social media, but many of us let it go. I think these things are getting a lot more common where you can ask questions to a chatbot. There's a great book out that I just recently read AI Driven Leaders by Jeff Woods Absolutely fantastic book. Explains AI at a top level and then how you can use it for your business, to enhance your business Fantastic book. But make sure that you're using some of these things on your website as well. Here's an example of a lead boomerang chat widget. You can actually go there, type in questions, type in different things, write on the website and get answers straight from the wiki that they built. And a wiki is like your own encyclopedia and with all different resources about your business. So it's a very cool way to really help people who are on your site, especially if they're younger and they're more apt to have a conversation with a website. These chat widgets are a fantastic way to really get people to answer your questions while they're asking it and provide solutions for them and obviously usher them to an appointment as well.

Speaker 2:

So let's talk a little bit about the future of search and AEO. Definitely want to talk about what's going on here. As I said, more searches are going to be conducted via voice assistance. We are just getting more comfortable asking our phone for different information beyond just directions and restaurant hours. Right, we're getting a lot more comfortable with doing these things, these more specific searches. Ai is going to play a greater role in determining these results. So one big shift is that zero click or that feature snippet area where you can actually get shown, no matter what your SEO is, as long as your SEO. Obviously you're doing things related to that, but getting into that top area can really help. Chatgpt also uses search to answer questions now, so if you ask it a question, it will go research that and bring the answer back to you and it will bring the references. So that's becoming a lot bigger area for different things as well, and then businesses can adapt early. The businesses who adapt early are going to be dominant in this area, right. So the sooner you can get started working on this content, the better off you are, because it's moving pretty quickly and just starting to implement some of these things is really going to help your business grow.

Speaker 2:

So, as an overview, I just want to go through what we talked about today. Obviously, the shift from SEO to answer engine optimization, or AEO, has been really big, and it's only happened in the last six or eight months or so and really kind of changed the landscape of search results and how people are communicating with businesses, how consumer search behavior is evolving. We just talked about that, why AEO is crucial to help you build more leads and get more visibility through your website, and then a couple of strategies related to optimizing your business. So do we have any questions? So let's get into some questions here. All right, if you have a question, no matter where you're watching on LinkedIn or YouTube or Facebook, any of the different platforms if you have a question, put that into the chat for this particular video and we'll see it. If it's live, obviously let's see what we got here.

Speaker 2:

Are there any search engines we should put on our radar other than Google? So yeah, the number two search engine in the US is actually YouTube. It happens to be owned by Google, so you definitely want to have them on your radar. It requires a different type of continent, obviously, a different kind of effort to go on there, but absolutely, people are searching YouTube. Quite often, google's a big one, right? If you can make Google happy, others are going to comply. I guess you could say that.

Speaker 2:

So if there was a number three, I would say it's probably Bing, and the one thing that's interesting about Bing is it typically has an older audience on it. Don't forget about Bing. I wouldn't go to the point of optimizing specifically for Bing, but I would optimize for Google and then make sure that everything on the Bing platform is set up correctly so that they're showing your results over there. Then, from an ad standpoint, bing might be a good option for your firm. If your client is older, the biggest reason that I've seen for it being an older crowd is that when you buy a PC with Windows on it, it has Microsoft Edge, which is their Internet Explorer browser, already installed, and a lot of people just don't change it over to Chrome or Firefox or any of that. They don't change to the Google platform, so they just leave it as is. So definitely don't forget about that.

Speaker 2:

Okay, what are the AI tools that can help me with AEO and how can I use them properly? So ChatGPT is a great place to start. There is a free version, okay, and the next question we have is what are the AI tools that can help me with AEO and how can I use them properly? Okay, so am I on my right tab here. Sorry about that. So ChatGPT is going to be a great place to start. There's a free version. Obviously, you can also pay for the optimized one. That's a little bit better version of it. I think I pay 20 bucks a month for ChatGPT.

Speaker 2:

As I mentioned that book earlier, the AI German Leader is a really great book. I would definitely recommend that. Understand how it all works together and how to build that into your business as well. There's some great stuff on leadership in your business and how to use AI. With that. Getting in there, using the tool, start to teach ChatGPT everything about your business and then, when you come up against a situation when you can put it in there and say, hey, I'm having get my thoughts together, chatgpt knows everything about your business, what you're doing, maybe your FAQ it's read through your website knows everything about your business, what you're doing, maybe your FAQ is read through your website. Then you can even go in and have a conversation with it.

Speaker 2:

I'm really having a hard time ranking for, say, divorce attorney near me, and I need to optimize my content. Here's the content. Help me make it better and ChatGPT will give you suggestions on that. That'd be a super simple way of improving your AEO and using ChatGPT to do it. You can even continue the conversation with I'm getting asked these three or four questions related to estate planning. Can you help me add this to this content as well? It's going to give you suggestions.

Speaker 2:

It'll go search and find those answers and then, of course, once it creates that content, it's very important that you don't copy and paste it directly, that you copy and paste it into a Google Doc or Word Doc or something like that and then you go through it, because Google's going to penalize 100% AI built content, and that's what you need to understand. You want to take this content and you want to make it your own? Okay. Ai is a fantastic tool to get stuff built, get it started, but we need to make sure that we're doing the human editing piece of this, okay. So you don't want to have an AI-built website. You'll never rank because Google's going to find that and penalize you for it. So go through it. Check for truthfulness. We call it AI hallucinations. When I make up stuff In part of your prompt, you can say don't do that, but you still need to double check for truthfulness, consistency, those types of things. Okay, so make sure that you're going through and you're editing it, that you're making it your own flavor.

Speaker 2:

However, you specifically talk when you're posting something. Obviously, that's a big piece as well, so ChatGPT is a great tool. The other thing I use is I use Claude and Gemini. I feel like their writing is a lot more as you speak, and I do like using those as well. There's a variety of free chat tools or AI tools out there. Find the one you like and then buy the paid version. Buy the one step up. It's going to cost you about $20 a month. There's also a tool called Jasper that you can check out, and it's been pretty popular.

Speaker 2:

I'm thinking, yeah, so Claw definitely is one that I like to use, and if I'm doing content on Google, I do like to use Gemini because it's done by Google. I've not tested out Gronk, and then another service that brings a bunch of them in together is One Minute AI, so that's an interesting thought to try. All right, so let's see. I don't see any other. Also, we're going to be going over more AI stuff in the future, so keep an eye open for future workshops. All right, I don't see any other questions here, so I do want to give you guys some free stuff today, one of the things that we've done.

Speaker 2:

We always give away some sort of guide or checklist or that sort of thing, and I've got one for today. It's called the AI Search Visibility Guide and it's a PDF file. There's a couple of ways to get it and it's going to be. It's going to go through this AEO stuff and other ways that you can make sure AI is finding your website. So a couple ways to get it Drop me your email in the chat or, if you prefer, just message me. You can message me on LinkedIn and my team will send that to you right away. It's got some great information on how you can beat your competition here, okay, so definitely reach out if you'd like a copy of that.

Speaker 2:

If you're interested in any of my books, they're on Amazon. All three of them are on Amazon. Some are in the Kindle and you can search for Marilyn Jenkins and my author page will come up and you can see all three of the books there. So we'd love it if you check those out. And, of course, we always want you to check out our YouTube channel. Our podcast is on the YouTube channel. We're constantly making content there, so if you would visit our YouTube channel, like and subscribe and you'd be the first to know about our new webinars and our videos. Like and subscribe and you'd be the first to know about our new webinars and our videos. And if you'd like to talk more about any of this or you want my help, you simply can visit lawmarketingzonecom.

Speaker 2:

Slash, book a call and that'll book a 15-minute call with me to chat about answering any questions and, as I say, press the easy button. If you don't have time to do this, reach out my company. This is what we do. We help our clients with these types of challenges and I want to say thank you so much for your time today. Keep an eye out for our next webinar. It'll be obviously a LinkedIn event as well, and if you have any suggestions for topics, please message me and I'll get them done for you and I hope you guys have an amazing day. Thank you so much for joining us and we'll see you online.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for joining me today for this episode. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode, and if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, you can connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. And if you're ready to take the next step with a digital strategist to help you grow your law firm, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to lawmarketingzonecom to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, thanks for listening to Leadership in Law podcast and be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Leadership in Law podcast. Remember you're not alone on this journey. There's a whole community of law firm owners out there facing similar challenges and striving for the same success. Head over to our website at lawmarketingzonecom. From there, connect with other listeners, access valuable resources and stay up to date on the latest episodes. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Until next time, keep leading with vision and keep growing your firm.

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