AI Keyword Research for Lawyers (Podcast)

This episode explores the core issues and practical steps for law firms to improve SEO performance using AI, keyword analysis, and structured strategies.

John Maher: Welcome to AI SEO for Law Firms, the podcast that cuts through the tech noise to give you the exact roadmap for dominating search everywhere optimization and landing high value cases. From MacDougall Interactive, I’m John Maher, and with me today as our founder, John McDougall. Today we’re talking about AI keyword research for lawyers. Welcome, John.

John McDougall: Morning, John.

Defining AI Keyword Research for Law Firms

Maher: So John, what is AI keyword research and how is this process fundamentally different for law firms?

McDougall: Well, to step back to the early days of SEO, we had to explain to people that you can’t just come up in Google without thinking about the exact ways that people are searching and what is the monthly search volume on how they’re phrasing things. So you use keyword research tools. Semrush is a main one that we still use for that, but now you can use AI for that. And law firms, like really anyone doing SEO, but law firms need to be doing this type of keyword research, both with old school tools like Semrush or Ahrefs or whatever keyword tool and modern tools to find the questions that people are asking. So it’s evolved from short, quick keywords that you put into Google to also, not only, but also being long questions people are asking.

Using AI Tools and Forums to Find High-Intent Keywords

Maher: So beyond Google, what are some specific AI tools and methods, like maybe scanning forums, that we use to find those high intent pinpoint keywords?

McDougall: You can use ChatGPT to scan, come up with prompts to act like an SEO expert and scan Reddit and Quora and YouTube for the pain points and questions that people are asking in your industry. And you can get amazing both keyword research, not necessarily always with the right search volume. Keyword research tools are, I think, are better for that than AI sometimes. But you can certainly get loads of great data from, whether it’s ChatGPT or Google Gemini or various AI tools, simply saying, “Give me the keywords and questions people are asking for finding a law firm like mine on this topic.”

Combining Classic Keyword Tools with AI Question Research

Maher: Right. So when we’re looking at keyword, like standard keyword research tools, we might only be seeing these are the keywords that people are searching for on a search engine, like Google, but we’re not necessarily finding here are the questions that people are asking maybe on Google, maybe on ChatGPT, other AI tools and on forums and things like that. So we’re missing a lot of it, but if we’re only looking at standard keyword research, right?

McDougall: That’s right. And there are tools like AnswerThePublic and AlsoAsked that are great for that very specific new keyword research. For example, in prep for this podcast, I went to Semrush and we looked at AI keyword research. So “AI for keyword research”, I think it was, gets 260 monthly Google searches in the U.S. I have it set to the U.S. And then in AnswerThePublic, there was a good question, if we wanted to phrase it this way, “How to do AI SEO keyword research?” It was only like 20 people a month looking for that, but it’s still, if it’s even is finding that very long tail, that’s good. I mean, we would probably follow up this podcast with another one with step-by-step how to do AI SEO keyword research.

When you added “for law firms”, for our purposes of ranking, “AI SEO keyword research for law firms”, there was no discernible volume, monthly Google search volume, and the same in AnswerThePublic. But AnswerThePublic did have that more specific question, “How to do AI SEO keyword research?”

Now that doesn’t match the exact intent of this topic. Today, we’re talking about more of the broad strategy, not to how to go do it step-by-step, so I wouldn’t really want to use that. It was good to see that, but I wouldn’t really want to take that question and just jam it in here because our conversation today is a little more strategic and broad than that tactical thing. So I would reserve that for later. That’s good to have in my back pocket for a follow-up. But then I can say, okay, looking at both the organic SEO regular keyword research, you know the old school traditional keyword research and the question-based keyword research, we just came to our conclusions after that.

But going into it without that, if we just phrased it like, “What do clients really ask?” Actually, when I was coming up with ideas with AI brainstorming for this, that was one of the first headline for this podcast was, What Do Clients Really Ask: Finding Hidden Pain Point Keywords with AI. It wasn’t a bad headline for a podcast, but if you want to be found by people, you got to pick the right keywords and the right questions the way people are asking them, not just in a good way for an okay headline. So we’re pretty particular about that. And if you’re not, you might be blogging and blogging, why is this not doing anything? Because you’re not targeting the right things.

Writing Question-Based Headlines to Win AI Overviews

Maher: So do you recommend actually phrasing our headlines as direct natural questions like, “How long do I have to file,” or things like that? And why is that so crucial in ranking in AI overviews and voice search?

McDougall: AI is expecting or likes it when you ask a question and answer the question. That makes podcasts awesome, right?

Maher: Mm-hmm.

McDougall: Ask a bunch of questions and answer them, especially if you think about the keywords before you, not only the title of the podcast, but the questions that are getting asked. So it’s just AI is fairly literal like that. It likes to highlight people that actually literally said, “How do I do AI keyword research?” And then, answer. Not just broadly talk about that thing. You can make a really good article about that, but if you’re not literally saying a question and answering it, you’re less likely to show up in the featured AI overviews and things like that.

So yeah, it is critical. I saw the other day we might take over for a law firm SEO project. And they were paying 15 grand a month for SEO, and I was looking at the blog, and I did notice that the current law firm SEO agency was using really only questions in the blog headlines. It looks almost a little awkward compared to what you expect sometimes. Everything’s a question.

So I would say, like keyword stuffing, don’t overdo it either. I mean, you do need to do a good amount of asking and answering questions, but don’t make it awkward either, is just something I’d say. You can still use regular keyword research and phrase, have a nice headline that’s not a question sometimes. And when you have a really good question that you know there’s search volume on, like from AnswerThePublic type of research, then absolutely, that will be your blog title. You know?

Building SEO Topic Clusters for Law Firm Websites

Maher: So let’s talk a little bit about structure of websites. We’ve been building topic clusters for a long time, but what is that and what’s the new way for law firms to build topic clusters?

McDougall: So a topic cluster is when you have a pillar page or a hub page that is the central big, in-depth page about the subject that doesn’t go way in the weeds on each thing. If it’s personal injury in Massachusetts or something, you might have all of your different personal injury practice areas with a little paragraph, and then you would link to dog bite law, and then back to the pillar page. And then link to auto accidents and back to the pillar page. So if you have a pillar page, that is really critical because Google likes to see the structure of a lot of content around a central theme and those links to the subpages with links back. And unless you link back and forth, that’s not really forming a topic cluster.

But wait, there’s more — there’s the Ginsu knife — that’s what we’ve been doing for a long time. But to add to that, you need to send entity signals to make it easier for AI and search engines to understand your content better. So linking to your attorney bio, to a case study, to a local service page, that shows local relevance and more EEAT authority than just a very practical overview page about the topic with links back and forth. So to get to that next level of topic cluster concepts, you need to add in that entity optimization.

Finding Striking-Distance Keywords with Search Console

Maher: And so for some quick wins, how do we use tools, like Search Console and Semrush, to spot content that’s maybe just shy of ranking, and how do we help to push that over the finish line?

McDougall: We like to call it striking distance keywords from number two to number 15. It’s not arbitrary, but you could alter that a little bit. We used to do from five to 30, because hey, you’re already top five, that’s awesome. Let’s look at our six to 30.

But I don’t know. I feel like now, if you’re not number one, you got to keep going because the number one result in a regular Google rank is going to be way more likely to come up in an AI rank. Now that doesn’t mean if you’re number five in Google and you have good EEAT signals, you could still get featured in an AI overview. Per se, it’s not only number one ranks. But at the same time, the higher you are, the more likely you are to do in organic SEO. The more likely you are to do in AI.

So for both organic SEO and AI reasoning, look at position two to 15 and then really map out top keywords that are already there, and then do deeper things to make them go up that next level to top five or number one.

Next Steps to Boost Rankings for Legal Keywords

Maher: So once you’ve figured out what keywords are maybe coming up lower on the first page or on the second page, what’s the next step to try to get your site to rank better?

McDougall: One thing is to increase your click-through rate from the search result pages. You can go into Search Console and see pages that get impressions, but not a lot of clicks. And rethink your title tags and meta descriptions that show up when people search in Google. And think not just about what good keywords are there or questions to entice people, but maybe rethink making it a little more exciting or a stronger value proposition. So using, essentially, conversion optimization to make people, not to use clickbait, don’t go that far, but make it like people want to click more. Because if Google sees that they’re putting you at the top of Google, but people aren’t clicking it, that could send a signal that Google uses to keep you from going higher. So there’s a practical way to optimize for that.

And then if you only have articles, like just blogging with text, that’s good. Certainly you should be blogging, not just have practice area pages. But if you haven’t gone to that next level and really done podcasts and videos, images and infographics, different types of content, then Google will see you as more of an authority for that keyword, and that one decent page that might be ranking on that is going to go up. In fact, some people say, instead of a 20-page topic cluster, go for a 70 or 100-page topic cluster on a subject. So there’s not only stuff you can do on the page itself, the good heading structure, bullet points, scan and skim friendly, adding FAQs at the bottom of the page, but really just go in really deep on the subject with a lot…

Maher: Really expanding that topic cluster into more detail.

McDougall: Yeah, way more than you might think. We have a dog bite personal injury lawyer with a dog bite category that we suggested amping up 10, 15 years ago, and now they’re one of the dominant players for dog bite injury, certainly in Massachusetts. And to some degree, I mean, we have some national ranks for dog bite injury. But yeah, we have a couple hundred pages on, and that doesn’t mean just blog articles, pages with podcasts with transcripts, videos with transcripts, images, infographics. Actually, we wrote a book on it for the people watching this and holding up the Family’s Guide to Dog Bite Injury.

So the page itself is good, but it’s one small microcosm. When you connect it to that broader, deeper amount of content, then you can spike those good ranks to exceptional ranks.

Maher: All right, well that’s really great information, John. Thanks again for speaking with me today.

McDougall: Yeah, absolutely.

Maher: And thanks for joining us on AI SEO for Law Firms. If you’re ready to stop losing high value cases because of outdated SEO, subscribe and follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And for a deeper look at your firm’s current AI strategy, visit McDougallinteractive.com for a free audit.