Reading a recent article by Sarah Perez at TechCrunch makes it clear: law firms are about to face the same challenge news publishers already are—a steep decline in traffic to their website’s legal publishing–better labeled content marketing–if they haven’t already.
According to TechCrunch, Similarweb data shows that since Google launched AI Overviews in May 2024, the percentage of news-related searches resulting in no clicks jumped to nearly 69%. Readers get what they need from AI-generated summaries—often without visiting the original site. News sites need the web traffic for ad revenue and paid prescription revenue.
It’s tempting for lawyers and law firms to panic over lost traffic to their website which firms attempted to get through content marketing on their websites. But here’s the point to remember:
**Authority and thought leadership status aren’t built on traffic. They’re built on being cited—over and over—by the people and systems others trust.**
In a world where AI is becoming the primary information gateway, what matters most is whether your insights are included as part of answers in AI answer engines and you are consistently cited as their source of such answers — the authority.
This is why lawyers—not firms—must publish as themselves and off of their law firm marketing websites in credible and authority driven niche focused publications and legal libraries. Such author-driven commentary builds lasting authority in a way that firm-branded copy and law firm website placed content cannot.
The goal isn’t clicks through to your publishing but to be cited again and again on relevant queries in your niche.
This concept has lived on in legal publishing for more than a century. Citations count for authority, building a name and growing business, though I don’t go read the entire sourced piece.
Traffic might come, often from curiosity, a deeper interest or to subscribe. But it’s not required to build a name, drive referrals, or grow a strong book of business.