Meet Sarah, a 32-year-old accountant… at least she used to be.
Sadly, Sarah just got fired, and she's not thrilled about it.
Disgruntled, she wants to know if her severance package is fair before signing.
But, she doesn't open Google.
No, she opens YouTube and searches "severance negotiation."
She watches a video from an employment lawyer.
He seems knowledgeable, so she follows him.
A week later, she’s browsing LinkedIn when she sees one of his posts.
She clicks his bio and books a consult.
Across the city, another storyline is playing out.
Chad, an employment lawyer ranking #1 on Google for "severance lawyer Chicago," looks down at his phone.
It doesn't ring.
Sarah never called Chad. Neither knew the other existed.
The Shift Is Real, and It's Happening Now
Law firm discovery used to happen in one place. Google.
Now it happens everywhere, all at once.
Showing up at the top of Google's search results is no longer a silver bullet.
It's just one arrow in your quiver.
Consider these stats:
70% of consumers use more than one platform to research law firms. (source)
70% engage with online content before contacting an attorney. (source)
40% of Gen Z uses TikTok or Instagram for search before Google. (source)
The average consumer uses 6+ different touchpoints when researching a purchase, and 50% regularly use more than 4. (source)
Content marketing isn't dying, but SEO traffic is.
Your blog post about "What to do after a DUI" used to drive clicks.
Now it trains the AI models that answer the user directly in the search results.
We've all seen the AI Overviews.
They're eating Google search traffic for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Case in point:
You have to hand it to the robots, at least they're honest.
AI Overviews. AI search. Social discovery. Content everywhere.
It's all happening right now, and it’s rewiring how clients find their next lawyer.
The New Playbook: How to Show Up Everywhere
Now that you hopefully see that the shift is real, let's discuss what you can do about it.
Here’re my two cents posted to LinkedIn.
Not my best writing, I was in a hurry.
Here's the point…
Information still has value, but how users discover that information has changed.
Here are some tips to increase your chances of being the firm that gets discovered.
1. Create the source material
Video content is the bee's knees.
Google, YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, these platforms all need to be fed. And their favourite snack is authoritative video content.
Start with a video. Cover one topic in detail. Answer the questions your clients are actually asking. Go deep!
Here’s an example from my client Michael Oykhman at Strategic Criminal Defence.
2. Create child assets
This is where it gets fun.
Your interview can spin out a world of child assets.
A thirty-minute video and its transcript can be used to create:
2-4 long-form blog articles, built on a hub-and-spoke structure.
1 newsletter, curated from the strongest insights.
8-12 LinkedIn posts pulled from the best quotes.
1 long-form YouTube video.
8-16 short-form reels, cross-posted to LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok.
Check out this blog article.
3. Follow the platform’s rules and distribute everywhere
A LinkedIn post isn't a TikTok script.
A YouTube video isn't a Reel.
The same insight gets reformatted for each platform's rules.
Just like Michael’s YouTube reel.
Same source. Every channel. Published consistently.
That's the engine.
Let's wrap this thing up
Sarah found her lawyer on YouTube.
Chad ranked #1 on Google and never knew she existed.
The firms winning over the next three years won't be the ones ranking highest on a single channel.
They'll be the ones showing up everywhere their future clients are paying attention.
Search Everywhere Optimization isn't a buzzword. It's the future of law firm discovery.
Ciao for now,
C
