Background
In the second half of 2025, SEO agency Digital Catalyst took on an atypical client request: a mid-sized law firm whose organic Google traffic was healthy, but which had noticed that prospective clients were increasingly turning to AI tools to "recommend a law firm"—and the firm had never once appeared in any AI recommendation.
The Challenge
The legal industry is a highly active vertical for AI search. When a user asks ChatGPT or Perplexity, "Which law firms in Beijing specialize in intellectual property?", the recommendation list the AI returns has a direct impact on the volume of business inquiries. The problems this firm faced: content that was expert but impenetrable, zero Schema implementation, and unverified AI crawler accessibility.
Strategy
GEO Audit Phase (Weeks 1–2) The agency produced a complete GEO audit report covering: an AI crawler accessibility check (which revealed that robots.txt was blocking GPTBot), Schema coverage (0%), a content AI-readability score (low), and a competitive AI mention-rate comparison (all three competitors were being cited).
Prioritization and Execution (Weeks 3–8)
- Fix robots.txt to open up access for AI crawlers
- Add Organization + LocalBusiness + Attorney Schema
- Rewrite six core service pages into a "Q&A-friendly" format and add FAQPage Schema
- Add an llms.txt declaring the firm's primary practice areas and authoritative content pages
- Publish five high-quality legal-explainer articles (goal: to be cited by AI as an authoritative knowledge source)
Results
A re-check after 12 weeks:
- Frequency of AI recommendations (tested weekly across 10 core queries): up from 0 to an average of 7 times per week
- Branded direct search volume: up 15% year over year, an indirect reflection of AI word-of-mouth conversion
- Website inquiry-form submissions: an increase of 23 per month on average, of which the client estimated roughly 30% came from AI channels
Key Takeaways
For agencies, a GEO audit has become a new standard service offering: a low entry price (it can be completed in 16–24 hours), clear deliverables (an audit report plus a remediation checklist), and—because most clients' GEO foundations are extremely weak—substantial room for improvement.