Is “Strategic Text Sequence” the new SEO for LLMs, and How will Legal Marketing be Impacted?
A new paper published in April 2024 could radically influence the recommendations generated from Large Language Models such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, etc….
Just as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) revolutionized how webpages are customized to rank higher in search engine results, influencing LLM-driven recommendations could profoundly impact content optimization for AI-driven search services @hima_lakkaraju
The implications for any product on the internet, including legal services is massive. SEO is currently a $60 billion industry and is expected to grow to over $200 billion in 2030, unless Generative AI models destroy the current concept of Search itself.
SEOs’ impact on the way we find products and services on the internet is well documented. 76% of products are selected from the first page of a search. These positions are coveted by companies and product marketers and billions of dollars have been invested in an organic hierarchy of search.
ChatGPT, Claude, and other LLMs destroy the status quo and the reckoning is coming. Much attention has been given to the big companies innovating in Generative AI. But, there are literally 10s of thousands of developers creating applications worldwide that will displace the current Search hierarchy.
As of February 2024 there were 80,763 “Custom GPT” models that were built on the OpenAI Platform. None of these models care about your company’s organic search ranking. None of these models care about your sponsored search position.
On November 16, 2023 we reviewed, “Searching for Doctors and Lawyers with GenAI.” We tried to pin down the type of content that ChatGPT was looking at in order to find the best Doctors and Lawyers in Philadelphia. Comparisons with Google Search results and sponsored ads didn’t come close to coinciding with the GenAI recommendations.
If your Morgan and Morgan, Personal Injury Attorneys, and your spending millions every month to acquire new clients, none of that money will help you in the current state of Generative AI. Yeah, all of that money will be wasted in the digital realm for any potential clients that are looking for recommendations from any applications using GenAI.
Aounon Kumar and Himabindu Lakkaraju are researchers at Harvard, and there recent study may point to a possible solution to this problem faced by Legal Marketers and the SEO industry in general. They demonstrated that a carefully crafted message or “Strategic Text Sequence” could increase the chances of a product being found by a LLM. The work is compelling and could represent a foundational feature for integrating future product marketing into SEO and LLM strategies. Everyone that considers themselves a marketer should review the research at this Github. This work could be to SEO as Satoshi Nakamoto was to Bitcoin.
Edward Bukstel and Gerard Foti
giupedi.com
