Law Firm AEO Checklist: Get Your Site Ready for AI Answers

Is your site indexable and eligible for a snippet?

Check this first, because Google says a page must be indexed and eligible to show in Search with a snippet to appear as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode. There are no additional technical requirements.

1. Confirm important pages return a normal 200 status and are not blocked by robots.txt.
2. Remove accidental noindex tags and conflicting canonical tags.
3. Make sure your hosting provider or CDN does not block search crawlers.
4. Verify the site in Search Console and review the indexing report.
5. Link to every important page from another page on your site.

Which crawlers should you allow?

Make a deliberate choice for each crawler instead of blocking everything or nothing. OpenAI documents three with different jobs, and other companies publish their own.

For other AI products, read each company's own crawler documentation and keep your robots.txt in step with your decisions.

Does each page answer the question first?

Write a direct answer in the first one or two sentences under each question-style heading. Systems that summarize or quote a page work best with text that stands on its own.

• Use headings that match how clients ask the question.
• Give a short answer first, then the detail, then an example or next step.
• Keep paragraphs short and avoid jargon without a definition.
• Date your pages and update them when the law or your process changes.

Do you have useful pages for each practice area and location?

Create a distinct, helpful page for each practice area and each place you genuinely serve. Do not mass-produce near-identical pages that change only the city name. Google's spam policies treat doorway abuse as a violation.

• Describe the problem, who it affects, what the process looks like and what it costs, in your own words.
• Add local facts you actually know, such as the courts you appear in.
• Link related pages together, and link up to a practice area hub.

Are attorney credentials and sources visible?

Show who wrote or reviewed each page and prove their credentials. Link to the state bar record for each attorney, and cite statutes, court rules and agency pages when you state a rule.

• Give each attorney a bio page with bar admissions, practice focus and a link to the official lookup.
• Name the author and the date on guides.
• Cite primary sources, and link to them.
• Avoid results claims you cannot support. ABA Model Rule 7.1 prohibits false or misleading communications about a lawyer's services, and each state has its own advertising rules.

Are your firm details consistent everywhere?

Use one version of your firm name, address, phone number, hours and practice areas on your site, Google Business Profile, bar listing and directories. Google lists up-to-date Business Profile information as a good practice.

See whether directory listings help law firm SEO for how to choose listings and avoid paying for low-value ones.

Should you use structured data?

Use it where it accurately describes visible content, and do not expect it to be a requirement. Google says there are no extra requirements for AI features, and that structured data should match the visible text on the page.

• Organization and LegalService markup can describe your firm's name, address and contact details.
• Do not mark up content that does not appear on the page.
• FAQ markup no longer earns a Google rich result, since Google deprecated that feature in 2026.

Do you need an llms.txt file?

No evidence says you do. Google's John Mueller said in June 2026 that llms.txt is purely speculative for now, and noted that none of the AI systems use it. Adding the file is low-effort but also unproven, so finish the steps above first.

What should you avoid?

Avoid anything that promises or manufactures results. These tactics put your reputation and bar standing at risk.

• Guaranteed AI mentions from any vendor.
• Mass-produced pages with thin or duplicated content.
• Fake or incentivized reviews without clear disclosure.
• Paying someone to recommend your firm without checking your state's advertising rules.
• Claims about results that you cannot support.

How do you measure whether it is working?

Test real client questions on a schedule and combine that with analytics. A single result is not a trend.

1. Write ten questions a client would ask, including your city and practice area.
2. Run them in the AI tools you care about each month and save the answers with the date.
3. Track referral traffic from AI products in your analytics.
4. Watch impressions, clicks and indexing in Search Console.
5. Track calls and form submissions to see whether visitors become clients.

The background is in how AI search chooses law firms. You can also see how your firm appears in this directory.