For law firms
The law firm SEO playbook for Google and ChatGPT
10 law firms were on Google's first page when we searched car accident lawyer from New York. ChatGPT named 1 of them. This 12-page playbook shows why, and what to build first.
Personal injury is the worked example, from 11 top-ranking injury firms and 33 ChatGPT answers. The four steps apply to any practice area.
Where your next client is searching
Google
ChatGPT
Claude
Gemini
Perplexity
Data from October and November 2026. PDF, 12 pages.
What's inside
Four parts, 12 pages
Every number is from searches we ran ourselves, with the date and the method on the page.
The Google traffic that can hire you
Across 11 top-ranking injury firms, the share of Google traffic from people searching for a lawyer ran from 88% down to 5%. Where the winners' traffic lands, and why it matters more than the total.
Who ChatGPT names, and what it checks
98 sources cited across 32 answers in 4 cities. 62 were legal rankings, 12 were law firm websites. The 5 searches it ran before naming a New York lawyer.
The playbook, in four steps
Find out where you stand in an afternoon, build the pages people hire from, get onto the sources ChatGPT checks, and measure the four numbers that pay you.
The rules we work to
No paid spots on best-lawyer lists (ABA Model Rule 7.2(b)), no bought reviews, no specialist claims. What we won't do for any firm, and why.
A law firm we work with
Proof from a law firm
One Planet Migration Law, an Australian immigration firm competing with national brands. These are their Ahrefs numbers on November 4, 2026, the day we took the screenshots.
“Our website traffic was sitting at around 700 to 800 visits a month, and now we're at around 5,000.”
Tina Nematian, Founder and Principal Lawyer, One Planet Migration Law
Ahrefs figures are estimates. Most of the traffic is people searching the firm's name, which grew as the rankings did, and a visit isn't an inquiry. The full case study has the Search Console numbers.
Where the numbers come from
Real searches, real cities
Estimates and samples, not anyone's own analytics, so read them as a map. The method is in the PDF.
11 firms, 8 cities
Google's top 20 for personal injury and car accident lawyer searches in New York, Miami, Houston, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago and Philadelphia. Traffic estimates from DataForSEO, October 29, 2026.
33 ChatGPT answers, 5 cities
Who is the best lawyer in each city, asked with web search on. We counted every source it cited and every search it ran first.
Names only for strengths
Firms are named for what they do well. Where a number shows a weakness, the firm stays anonymous. None of them are our clients.
Who it's from
Want this run for your firm?
I'm Jhonty Barreto, co-founder of SEO Engico. We'll run step 1 for your city and main case types, then walk you through it on a call: where your traffic lands, who ChatGPT names, and the first pages and lists we'd go after.