Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)

From SEO to GEO: How AI Is Rewriting Law-Firm Visibility

By Dave Taillefer, Business Director / ICONA

Organic search remains one of the most effective marketing channels for Canadian law firms. But as artificial intelligence reshapes how people seek and consume information, traditional search engine optimization (SEO) alone is no longer enough.

Generative AI, through platforms like Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot, is changing how clients discover legal information. The familiar goal of “ranking first on Google” is being replaced by a new challenge: appearing in the answers that AI systems generate and cite.

This evolution has given rise to Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)—a strategy focused not only on human clicks but on machine-level visibility, where your firm’s knowledge is retrieved, synthesized, and referenced by AI systems.

In this article, I’ll explain what GEO means for law firms, how it differs from classic SEO, and the steps practitioners can take to remain visible as legal search moves into the AI era.

Why This Shift Matters for Lawyers

Traditional SEO has always aimed to rank a webpage high for certain keywords and encourage users to click through. In an AI-driven world, that click may never happen.

1. From clicks to answers

Clients are increasingly receiving synthesized answers directly from AI interfaces - without visiting any website. These “zero-click” results mean your firm could lose visibility even if you technically rank well. The key question becomes: is your firm’s insight part of the AI’s answer?

2. From pages to passages and entities

Modern AI systems interpret meaning, not just words. They extract short passages, facts, and structured data to build their responses. For law firms, that means success depends on how well your content can be read, parsed, and reused by machines ~ not only by human visitors.

Old habits like keyword stuffing or long, undifferentiated pages are no longer effective. Instead, law-firm websites must be structured for machine-readable clarity, passage-level extractability, and accurate citations.

The Pillars of GEO for Law Firms

1. Relevance Engineering

Relevance engineering ensures your content is written and formatted so AI systems can accurately retrieve and trust it. Think of it as legal content that’s understandable to machines.

This involves:

• Writing in short, well-defined sections that answer specific client questions.
• Including jurisdictional references (e.g., Alberta Family Property Act, Criminal Code of Canada).
• Using structured data (technical: JSON code) like LegalService, Organization, and FAQPage schema.
• Testing your firm’s visibility by running legal questions through ChatGPT or Perplexity and seeing which sources are cited.

The goal is not just readability, but retrievability and credibility within AI pipelines.

2. Intent Orchestration and Query Fan-Out

When a potential client types, “How does separation work in BC?”, AI doesn’t stop there. It expands the query into related questions:

• “What happens to the family home?”
• “How are parenting arrangements decided?”
• “What’s the difference between separation and divorce?”

Your website should provide structured answers to all those questions. This creates an intent hub—a content ecosystem that helps AI understand your authority on the full topic.

To achieve this:

• Map all sub-topics your clients typically ask about in consultations or online chats.
• Create interlinked pages or FAQs for each, maintaining jurisdictional accuracy.
• Use clear, plain-language headings that match real client questions.

3. Platform-Aware Optimization

Not every AI platform retrieves content the same way:

• Google AI Overviews draws from its search index and prioritises structured, trusted sources.
• Perplexity openly cites passages, allowing you to test which parts of your content appear.
• ChatGPT references licensed or verified data through Bing or its internal browsing tools.

To adapt:

• Keep all key pages indexable and up-to-date with accurate schema markup.
• Ensure that facts, citations, and lawyer attributions are explicit.
• Provide consistent language across text, videos, and PDFs so all versions of your content can be retrieved.

4. Measurement and Visibility Tracking

AI search makes analytics more opaque ~ traditional metrics like “rank” or “impressions” tell only part of the story. Law firms need a GEO-specific approach to measurement.

Track three categories:

• Inputs: number of optimized pages, schema applied, FAQs added.
• Channel visibility: citations or references found in AI engines, server log patterns showing AI bot visits.
• Outcomes: leads, consultations, or calls that originated from AI-driven visibility (e.g., branded or question-based queries).

Use these insights to refine content strategy continuously.

How GEO Differs from Traditional SEO

For law firms, this means moving beyond visibility for “divorce lawyer Toronto” to being the firm cited when AI explains how separation or parenting time work under Alberta law.

A Practical GEO Roadmap for Law Firms

1. Audit your current site

• Identify practice areas already attracting traffic or citations.
• Break content into smaller, question-based passages (e.g., “What is spousal support?”).
• Add schema markup and entity tags (lawyer name, firm, jurisdiction, statutes).

2. Build topic hubs

• Map out key client intent clusters: family, criminal, civil, estate, etc.
• Create interconnected content hubs that comprehensively answer each cluster’s related questions.
• Ensure your tone remains accessible and compliant with Law Society advertising rules.

3. Test retrieval

• Ask AI engines common legal questions and note whether your firm appears.
• Where you don’t appear, refine your passage clarity and add authoritative signals (citations, lawyer attribution).

4. Strengthen authority

• Keep all bios, credentials, and regulatory links active.
• Reference authoritative Canadian sources such as CanLII or Justice.gc.ca.
• Update content immediately after legislative or case-law changes.

5. Track and report

• Build a GEO dashboard to monitor citations, bot activity, and content updates.
• Track inquiries or conversions that originate from AI search mentions.
• Use this data to inform quarterly content updates.

The Road Ahead

AI-first discovery is rapidly becoming the standard. For Canadian law firms, visibility will no longer hinge solely on ranking for keywords—it will depend on being the trusted voice AI systems quote when clients ask legal questions.

Generative Engine Optimization offers a framework to ensure your firm’s legal knowledge is discoverable, credible, and correctly attributed in this new search landscape.

While many competitors are still focused on legacy SEO tactics, those who invest early in GEO will secure a first-mover advantage—building trust with both clients and machines.

At ICONA, we’re helping Canadian law firms make this shift: from ranking-first mindsets to retrieval-first strategies; from isolated web pages to AI-readable content ecosystems; from click-driven marketing to answer-driven visibility.

If you’d like to explore how your firm can prepare for GEO and measure its impact, schedule a call.

About the Author

Dave Taillefer is Business Director at ICONA Inc., overseeing SEO, content strategy and digital transformation for Canadian law firms. With deep knowledge of legal marketing, technical SEO, and now generative search strategy, Dave helps firms future-proof their online visibility.

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