Published: April 1, 2026
The primary focus of many law firm marketing agencies is high priced paid advertising on Google – often referred to as Pay Per Click or PPC. Pay per Click only works as long as you spend money to obtain the traffic, and this is prioritized by many agencies because they make money on the management fees, and it is done without much work.
But legal marketing agencies that have spent a law firm's advertising budget on PPC without fully developing a firm's web site content have potentially left law firms susceptible to devastating drops in business because AI platform answers and overviews are not influenced by paid advertising.
Online search behavior is changing dramatically. Historically, users have entered a query and obtained answers with links to what Google believes is the most authoritative site for users. Users would click one of many links, read the content and then continue to search until they obtained the answer to their question. Over time, Google has become exceptional at monetizing search by selling pay per click positions at the top of its listings. High value legal terms are amongst the most expensive words that Google sells internationally. By paying for clicks, law firms could obtain business.
Internet users long standing reliance on Google's listings, including its PPC links, is changing dramatically. Since AI platforms have become widely used, many users are either relying upon Google's AI Overview, or using an AI platform for searches, significantly changing the effect of PPC advertising.
Google AI Overviews reach nearly a billion searchers. Roughly 60% of Google searches now end their inquiry into a topic without the user clicking any result — the answer appears at the top of the results page through snippets or AI Overviews. These type of searches, primarily on Google (using Gemini) or Bing (using ChatGPT) are referred to alternatively as “AI Overviews,” “Search Generative Experience,” or “Zero Click Searches.”
If 90% of people are finding their lawyers through Google searches and 60% of them never click on a web site link, the only way you are getting those clients is by being cited by Google’s AI snippet. Buying PPC ads will no longer work.
Meanwhile, many people have quit using Google or other search engines for queries. They are using AI platforms instead. ChatGPT has over 400 million weekly active users. Perplexity processes millions of queries every day. Technology rating agency Gartner predicts that by 2028, up to 25% of searches will move to generative engines. AI-referred sessions jumped 527% year-over-year in the first five months of 2025. 58% of users report having replaced traditional search engines with AI-driven tools for discovering products and services. These types of queries are called “Generative Search,” “GenAI Search,” or “AI Powered Search.”
Large Language Models only cite two to seven domains on average per response — far fewer than Google's exhaustive list of blue web site links — which means the competition for inclusion is fierce. If 58% of users have replaced Google with an AI platform that only lists two to seven web sites, the potential payoff for getting cited is enormous.
The primary focus of many high cost legal marketing agencies is Pay Per Click advertising. It is one of many problems with law firm marketing agencies. While they may offer some SEO services, many law firms find these to be basic or rudimentary compared to agencies specializing in organic search. Pay Per Click advertising can be useful in some cases, but PPC is very expensive for law firms seeking high value cases.
This long standing reliance on PPC has taken a significant turn with the public’s move to using AI platforms for queries rather than search engines like Google. Many digital marketing agencies for lawyers have heavily favored PPC in order to capture new clients and have failed to do the difficult work of creating high quality web site content and technical SEO that AI will require to direct traffic to your site.
Our prediction; Marketing agencies that have prioritized PPC over web site content have set up law firms for failure with AI.
One issue of great concern for law firms who have relied on PPC without developing their web site is that you can’t buy a #1 position on AI platforms like you could with Google using PPC.
AI is a meritocracy. Being cited is based upon the quality of your online content, most notably your web site content. If you have ignored the development of your web site and relied entirely on PPC for new client traffic, there may be little or nothing for AI to cite from your web site.
Many digital marketing agencies for lawyers have heavily favored PPC in order to capture new clients and have failed to do the difficult work of creating high quality web site content and technical SEO that AI will require to direct traffic to your web site. In time, we expect law firms with agencies that have prioritized PPC over web site content will see dramatic drops in traffic and new clients.
Trial Guides Digital Marketing has created rapid content deployment plans for law firms that are primarily or solely reliant upon PPC for their traffic. These plans provide rapid development of practice are pages and blog content related to your areas of legal practice. This will help you generate content that will help feed AI platforms. The cost is tailored to the significance of the problem and the amount of content presently on your web site. Schedule a meeting to discuss the problem and obtain a quote.
Trial Guides Digital Marketing concentrates first on all aspects of SEO and its AI equivalents (GEO and AEO) for law firms. As discussed in our Complete Guide to Google Ranking, there are many aspects of a web site that need to be developed and perfected in order to achieve a high organic Google ranking, and many of these concepts apply to obtaining AI platform citations and traffic. Content is a major part of organic Google ranking and AI platform citation.
The structure of data and technical aspects of a law firm web site are also important for both. The creation of legal web sites, and technical SEO on existing web sites are important part of our digital marketing services. Technical issues including web site load speed, headline tagging, and other site architecture issues can significantly impact potential clients finding you online because they directly impact your ranking on Google and Google's AI Overviews. As discussed above they also significantly impact your ability to be cited by AI platforms such as Google Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude AI, Perplexity and others for GenAI searches.
The reality is that creating a web site for long term benefit both for Google and AI platforms requires work. Unless you can find an agency like TGDM that is dedicated to providing high quality services that require expertise and hard work, your digital marketing campaigns will never truly deliver the best outcomes possible for your business. You will not get long term benefit from an agency that only focuses on PPC ads that are easy for them to run and highly profitable for the legal marketing agency, while being very expensive for you.
If you are interested in improving the digital marketing for your law firm, schedule a free consultation.
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