Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
The AI landscape is shifting.
ChatGPT just releasedits first browser called Atlas,
and it is going to change the gamefor family law firms.
You are not going to want to miss thisepisode.
Welcome back to the Sterling FamilyLaw Show.
We have a very special episodefor you today.
Very timely.
(00:21):
If you've been following along yesterday,which was Thursday, October 23rd,
ChatGPT released its Atlas browser.
I have a few experts in the roomTony Karls and Casey Shea, both who are,
deep diving into our AI experience hereat our agency, along with our law firm.
(00:43):
Casey, give us the rundown.
What what is this new browser?
How is it impacting, daily usage today?
Yeah.
So the new one is going to be ChatGPTAtlas.
Earlier this month, perplexityreleased their own version of it as well.
I think it was around like October 2nd.
So now it's like now we got two of themthat are in the playing field.
(01:05):
It's going to be completely changing.
Not necessarily search altogether,but how people are searching
and how they're finding your stuff.
It's just completely changing the game.
This is something that's been talkedabout for a couple of years now.
We're more so predicting this would be launched next year, but a little bit early.
And so if you have ChatGPT Atlasand you go to the search bar,
(01:30):
like in Chrome, for example,you search for, Nike Air
Force ones, you're going to get linksto Amazon and Nike and everything else.
Well now an atlas, it's going to give youa rundown of the particular item
with, with different optionsto buy, for example.
So basically eliminating the list,the ads, the maps.
(01:52):
You're seeing the same thing, right?
Oh, absolutely.
I mean, it's turning intothey keep calling it the zero click
because it's like you're gettingall your answers, you getting all your
your citations.
You know, a lot of people are gettingevery all the information that they need.
And what we're already starting to seeis like a lot of people,
their directtraffic will start to come up.
So they're utilizing this as liketheir agent to do all of their research.
(02:15):
I mean, you can pop up 20 browsersand then just like within one of those
browsers, can you compareall of these services that I'm looking at?
It'll look at all of your tabs, analyzeit all, break it
down, simplify it, and give youwhat the best pick is out of that.
Tony, let's thinkabout this from a family law perspective.
I know you and I were doing somesome testing yesterday.
You know, searching for our own firm,searching for some other competitive firms
(02:36):
in the marketplace.
You know, specifically if you search,like, divorce attorney near me,
it kind of auto selecteda firm, preemptively.
It didn't didn't give you options.
How do you how do you foreseethat happening in the future
and even today, as as this rolls out.
(02:57):
Well, it's not going to be.
It's not going to be a ton different than.
Historically.
Search because it's going to.
It knows where you're located.
So it's going to basically proxythe results based on your location.
And then it's going to display resultsbased on a couple of different
factors.
(03:18):
The things that we we feel likewe are seeing consistently is
kind of relevant to the topic.
So we're we've coachedclients historically.
You need to be in one vertical.
They're biased towards expertise.
The AI results are very biasedtowards expertise.
So like what does that mean?
If you say you do criminal API,you're not going to show up in
(03:40):
AI search results because it doesn'tsee you as an expert of anything.
So it's looking for specialtyand expertise.
Secondly it's looking for quality.
So it's going to aggregate your reviewsacross the internet
in terms of its termsof your quality of service.
So if you're not, if you're, if you'rethe smartest lawyer in the world,
(04:03):
but you don't deliver good qualityservice, you are going to see your,
you're going to see your visibilityonline go down
because service is going to becomemore and more important.
Third is, reputablelike certifications, badges
or recognition.
So, it's not just what you say andthe quality of the service that you give.
(04:26):
So basically, it'snot just what you say on your site
and the reviews that you've gotten.
If you are also not mentionedon other sites that validate
your expression of expertise.
You're likely not to show up inAI search results,
because what AI is doing is it's lookingat all of the information online.
(04:46):
It's looking at your siteand cross-referencing all of that
review information and placeswhere you can get badges, certifications
or mentions on industry specific blogs.
And then they're aggregating thatall together,
and then they're displaying itin in order of priority.
And those three are probablythe most important ones that we've seen.
(05:07):
Pretty consistent.
So, I think it changes the spacepretty considerably because it's
it doesn't change the need to do SEO.
It actually enhances the offsiteSEO that a lot of lot of SEOs
actually ignore.
They don't do a lot of offsite SEO.
They typically just focuson the content of the site.
(05:30):
They don't think about whatis also represented about them offsite.
So typically that, you know, inold school world that's that's called PR.
Like how is yourhow is your brand being represented
in the world in reputable places?
And there's,you know, there's a lot of evidence
that, that those types of strategiesare, are really winning.
(05:50):
So if you're not doing SEO currently,well, you're not serving your clients
well, you're not explaining expertise,and you're not actually going out
to the marketplace to get referencesto other places that are reputable.
You're likely to not be part of thisshift that's occurring online
because, you know, the main thingit's doing is it's removing the research.
(06:14):
It's removing the need to do researchbecause it's doing it
for you and just displaying you.
The results.
And it's just a lot easierfrom a user perspective.
I think what's going to bereally interesting,
particularly in the family spaceand something that we know
is that, you know, if you'reif you're thinking about getting
a divorce, you're going to be doinga lot of incognito search,
(06:35):
you're going to be doing researchon your own that you don't particularly
want people to to find or,you don't want your spouse to find it.
But the Atlas Perpendicularis is a personalized search, right.
Who knows your search history and,and is going to personalize
those results to you.
And so does that.
(06:56):
Compound your point abouthaving to have your law firm's website
be that much more authoritativeand that much more specific?
In some ways, in some ways I'd say yes.
Like it's going to be preferentialto things that you've,
you've looked at consistently in the past.
(07:17):
So like, you know, just this morning,I was doing some testing with,
one of our team members and,they were seeing consistently
the firm that they work on show upand I results
when I went and did itin a couple of my different instances,
and I've never looked at that categoryor that firm before through the islands.
They were non-existent.
(07:39):
So, there's very much the personalizationthing that is included.
But that's going tobe that's going to be more.
I don't know how likeit's kind of a chicken
and egg scenario there because likeyour personalized results are going to be
based on what you've interacted withand you're going to interact
with what they show you.
So it's just going to be a continuouscycle.
(08:00):
There.
Yeah,I just I think overall it's
going to be really important thatfirms do a good job of,
putting themselves in a positionwhere they're seen as experts
and not jack of all trades,because those are
those won't show in results.
(08:21):
I just had this thought,for agencies like ours,
reporting is going to become interesting.
And attribution is people are gettingpersonalized results,
being able to communicate that to clientsand to help them understand
where the searches and users are comingfrom might pose a challenge in the future.
(08:43):
I don't thinkany different than today because Google
does personalized search currently.
And you can see like whattraffic's coming from,
you know, the different, chat platformsas well as different browsers
to your website through analytics.
So like that's not hidden currently.
And but like I said, if you'reif you're a consumer in the space
especially like ourin the more space like that
(09:05):
we're in thethe likelihood that you're going to have
a highly personalizedsearch results in a divorce space
unless you're getting divorcedevery month,
which is not the case of how it works.
It's going to be like, it'syou're not going to get
a whole lot of personalization there.
Because like, there's you areyou are this is your first instance
(09:26):
into the marketplace.
So it's just going to give you here'swhat the year of the naked results are.
And then based on your interactionwith them
and you continue to research, then it's going to personalize just like Google does.
I think that in the future though, too,it'll get even more personalized
just with the way that it's it's headed.
So right now,like there's so many behavioral elements,
(09:49):
you know, Googlewhen the leaked documents came out,
like how Google like what they,what signals they really look for
is like long clicks, you know,stopping on pages, things like that.
Well, now it's just takes itto a whole different level
because now, like if you've used any kindof, you know,
AI interface, it starts to like learnyour habits and understand
like this is the type of thingit wants you to to see and hear.
(10:11):
So evenif someone is just looking at divorce
for the first time in their entire life,they still understand, like,
is this a compassionate person?
Is this a personthat just wants to get stuff done?
Like do they just want,you know, the best of the best
and they don't care how much they spend,you know,
and they're looking at like historicallylike the things that they purchase
and where they're lookingand they really like develop a persona
for each individual.
(10:33):
So it's like,that's really where I see it heading,
especially like next year as this evolves.
Well said.
I want to pivot a little bit and talkabout what family law firms can do today.
What do they need to be thinking about?
How should they bereorienting their agency
or their internal marketing staffto get their website in a position to be
(10:54):
able to dominate for the next few yearsas this, revolution continues?
So, Casey, why don't we start with you?
I know we came up with a few itemsfor this podcast,
the first one being like, content.
How can family law firms reallydouble down
on, on content to help their sitesbe authoritative?
(11:15):
Yeah.
So, you know, as Tony touched onfoundationally, you know, those citations,
all that linking, all that offsite stuffis that's your foundation.
But then it's like, okay, you haveall of these I always call them neighbors.
You know, your Yelp,your directory, stuff like that.
You want your neighborssaying good things about you,
but when they come to your house,is your house in order?
Like, do they understand,like how to get to the bathroom?
(11:37):
So like with when it comes to content,especially like this is what I'm always
passionate about is just,you know, get reached out by, clients
constantly where they're just like,are we ready for AI?
It's like, oh, we've been writing.
That's why we've been optimizingyour content this way.
It's like developing your contentin a way that I understands it,
and specifically what it wants to see,which is a huge shift
(11:59):
compared to where things used to be,even like two years ago.
The way you wrote content is like pack inas much keywords, phrases,
as much information as possible sothat you can get authority in that area.
Now they want it.
So it's like you're having a conversationwith the person.
So if you're reading a page and it doesn'tsound like you're having a conversation
about divorce with like a friendor someone you're not going to rank on,
(12:22):
I so like the way you develop contentis going to be very different.
It's going to be very skippable.
And it's less about the keywordsand all about the intent of the page.
Like the content is king nowrather than keywords.
Days are gone.
And the keyword stuffing landingpage with bullet points.
I want to pull my hair outevery time I hear, like, keyword,
(12:42):
this keyword that no matter the intentof the page, is what's aligning.
And this is a lot of like,what I've been discovering early on
because that I'll test out a pageand I'll be like, well,
why did this page pop up?
And they're like, well,because the intent of this
and that and whatever, like it gives mea list of reasoning behind it.
And I'm like, well, that keyword wasn'teven present on that page.
Why did you give me that page?
(13:03):
And they'll give me five other pagesthat link into it.
So it's like structure.
Is that another piecethat that people don't really focus on?
Tony, our second point is, is real timesearch engine, results
pages and schema checks.
What? What a familylaw firms need to think about here.
I mean, the I was justback up on the topic that we were
(13:24):
just talking about with Casey.
I think the other another relevant piecehere is,
I think we're building content forand this is just this applies
to any sites, not just family law, butit's it's pretty bad in the legal space
because at some point, in the past,like just jamming lawyer
(13:48):
into every title tag and H1 worked.
It doesn't work anymore.
It hasn't worked for a while.
And you're really set up poorly to win.
Like, your site needs to be a book.
Like one of your pages should be aboutwhat you do, which is like your a lawyer
or divorce or criminal defense or whateverthe topic is.
(14:09):
That's one page the rest of your siteshould be describing what you do
as that thing.
And like that is like,honestly, that is just basically missing
in the whole industry.
But but a few sites and those sitesdominate the SERPs.
So like Sterling Lawyers,we have about 3000 pages on our website.
(14:31):
There are very fewthat have lawyer in the title tag.
We don't just have a whole bunchof spammed up content.
That's just lawyer, lawyer, lawyer,lawyer, lawyer, lawyer, lawyer.
That's not how it works,because that's not how you rank
in, you know, the testing that we've donesince the the Atlas browser came out
like we're firstin almost every search that we search for.
(14:51):
And it's not because we did anythingunique or special.
It's just like we've been playing by theintent of the rules for a very long time,
not trying to spam our way to the topand like,
so let's just really importantbecause, you know, just to add some,
Weight to what Casey was saying,you know, a lot of, a lot of the sites
(15:13):
we work with, they don't even have, like,basic things like how to get a divorce in
the state that you're, you're working at.
It's a process.
Like is itit's slightly different in every state.
Like what is the process?
Oh, you don't have that page. Okay.
How about filing.
How about filing.
How do you file on the different countiesthat you operate in.
Because like thatis actually the procedure.
(15:33):
All the proceduresin different counties are different.
They're not the same.
So like those are two very,very specific things that are easy wins.
That will set you apartfrom a lot of different places.
You know, we thought we'd one of the otherthings we focus on is calculators.
Like we inform the publicon how child support is calculated
in such different scenarios,how alimony is calculated
(15:54):
and a bunch of different scenarios,how property division works and like what
what are the rulesaround property division?
We're not giving legal advice.
We're basically making the statutesthat are visible on all of the state
government sitesaccessible to the public from a
language perspective, instead of writtenin legalese like, that's our job as,
(16:17):
you know, managers of these websitesand those, those sites that we get to do
those with, they rank really wellfrom an SEO perspective.
They rank them and they'rethey are ranking really well in
AI search results.
Well, sad.
Big time. This is a big.
Yeah.
The second topic here like it's going to,you know, the
(16:39):
with whether you're using chator you're using the browser.
It really gives you the abilityto analyze what you're doing and
what's what you have and what's missing.
So like it's it's really smart.
Like you can ask you can prompt,you can prompt a, ChatGPT
chat instance about a pageand ask it like, what?
(17:01):
What could I do to optimize this pagebetter for whatever its intent is?
And like it's going to tell you, it'sgoing to give you a whole bunch
of different things,like including topics that you're missing.
It's going to talk to youabout different things like
schema markup and how you're how you'rejust thinking about the page.
It's going to analyzeyour overall structured data and like
give you feedback on that.
So like there'sso much potential information
(17:23):
that you can get to leverage to implementso like there's there's
a lot of benefit there if you're in the,in the space to try to optimize this
and kind of do the DIY, DIY thing.
Well, sad.
How about competitors?
How, how is this goingto change the competitive landscape?
(17:47):
Who are you asking?
Yeah.
I mean for me, thethe competitive landscape,
you know,my background is is heavily into SEO.
So a lot of our clients,it's always a shock to them
when they come from another agencybecause they're like, well, nope.
Nobody has ever doneour SEO this way before.
And that's really the competitive edge,especially the
(18:10):
that we do over here is like,we keep up with the changes.
You know, the way that we're structuringcontent that we're we're writing things.
And then with the competition,like a lot of the competition is still,
you know, 3 or 4 years behindwhere it's like it's very salesy, like,
you go on every page and it's like,let's just talk about us,
you know, let's talk about our brand on,you know, all ten
(18:30):
of our main navigation pages.
So it's like, that's one aspect.
But then the other aspect,that I constantly harp on my team to,
to like, further educate themselvesin this the sphere with, with AI searches,
if we're not on top of it,and if we're not utilizing this
every single day, we're going to be gonein two years or less.
(18:53):
The way that the ratethat this is evolving,
like you have to get itintegrated into your team,
you have to get itintegrated into your business now,
or you'rejust going to be left in the dust.
So and it'll do a good job to like doinglike helping you compare
what you're doing versuswhat your competitors in the marketplace
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might be doing in terms oflike what topics are they talking about?
Which onesare you not like? Where are your,
where are your gaps from an informationperspective that will help?
Sure.
Shore up your abilityto be visible in the results.
So it's, you know, like Casey said,if you're using it, you're using it
(19:36):
prudently, like you're going to seesee gains here because it's it.
It will tell youexactly what the problem is.
And then you have an opportunityto just execute and fix it.
And if you can do the execution,you'll have a good chance of winning.
Okay, we know that 42% of all familylaw leads come from the maps
(19:59):
that come from local searches.
Right? Divorce attorney near me.
Divorce attorney. Milwaukee.
How is this evolution going to change?
Local results.
And what can firms do about it?
Tony, I'll start with you.
(20:19):
I don't I don't know what percentageit'll change, but I actually think
it'll make it more important.
But it's going to be different.
So if you do, you currentlygo to an Atlas browser and you search for,
you know, I need a lawyer.
I need a lawyer in my area for divorce.
You're not going to geta whole search results page
displayed to you with, like, 20 options.
(20:41):
You're you're gonna.
I'm I'm currently what I'm receivingis three
getting three options that are all free,but it so some instances
like I was seeing this morningwith one of our team members,
he was getting sixevery time he did a search results.
So like they're they're obviously testing.
They're going to continueto test on how they return the data.
But it's going to be ait's actually going to aggregate
this more intensely, not less.
(21:06):
So because there's going to be lesswhen they do their research,
they're going to coalesce,you know, if you go to any search page
and search for one of those terms,there's probably 40 options there.
It's going to break them downinto like three to 5 to 10 maybe.
And then it'sgoing to ask you to prompt it.
They don't say at the endwould you like more options.
Would you like a, you know, more research.
(21:28):
And there be some peoplethat want to do that, but the vast
majority are going to be like,so you gave me three firms
that all have like a 4.8 star or higher,and you gave me reasons why they're good.
I'm going to just call that.
Here's my short list.
Like one thing that I always talked aboutwith the marketing team at Sterling is
we were billing the firm isour job is to get on the shortlist.
(21:49):
What the what that means to meis anytime you buy something,
you typically have 2 to 3 optionsthat you're considering.
And, a lotof firms, when you do good work,
those repeat businesses,those referrals, like that's one way
you get on the shortlist is referrals.
So you can do that over the long term.
But the other way is through marketing,like how do you get on the shortlist?
And like this, this is the I isessentially just giving you the shortlist.
(22:13):
You don't have to do research to godevelop it yourself.
It's speeding that up tremendously.
And that's what they're displaying.
And then if you want to seethe whole list,
you can go to the next tabover and click links.
And you can see the Google searchor the Google search results page
that you would have typically seen,if you were to
do the research on your own.
So it's just streamliningthe process tremendously.
(22:37):
I've even beenleveraging that a lot where it's like,
I'll do a search,you know, best, you know, attorney
in green Bay or whatever.
And then, you know, Sterlingdidn't pop up.
Why didn't Sterling pop up like asking it?
Why didn't you choose this?
Here are the reasonswhy I didn't choose that.
All right, team,we need to start doing this thing.
So, like, it gives you the cheat code.
You just have to ask it.
(22:58):
that's a great point.
I think that a really,really important point to
all of this is what we're sayingis you're going to get
more personalized, calibrated resultsand less of them.
And so step one, be in the shortlist.
But step two,if someone calls your firm, answer
the damn phone like this is your chance,and you.
(23:20):
Have.
serving them well,like make sure the person answering
it isn't annoyed with the factthat they got to answer the phone
like they should be a very warm,compassionate person,
especially in the family law space,because these people are now
telling a very personal storyfor the first time to a stranger.
And if that stranger seems annoyed,they are not going to remember you or
your firm, and they're going to be like,yeah, I'm going to just try
(23:41):
the next person that that ChatGPT gave me.
This is to me, this is anevolution of what we've been talking about
for the last few years.
But you have to double down on service.
That's the ante.
You know,I is never going to be able to replace
actual humanto human connection and service.
(24:03):
And so if you can be in that top threeand you can get your firm ranking
and have your site be authoritative,you still got to do the basics
really, really well.
All right.
As we're ending here,I'd like both of you to give me your
your five year outlook, you know?
Where is this going?
How's this?
This is our little tinfoilhat part of the episode.
(24:24):
What do you thinkthe actual evolution of this, plays out?
Casey going first.
Oh, man, my tinfoil hat.
I got a pretty big tinfoil hat.
I mean, when you lookaround, even just outside of limb
searches,you know, just just AI in general, it's
simplifying our life even more so.
So it's like it's making thingsmove ten times faster.
(24:48):
So if you start utilizing, you know,ChatGPT in your workload, you're going
to start producing 50% more work or 40%if you look at Harvard Studies.
But even that that's that's huge.
So then you look at search,I was just using Atlas
looking for motorcycle parts,and I wanted to find the best deal,
(25:09):
and then I wanted itto find promotion codes.
So I'm like, all right,this is going to take me forever
trying to find a promo code that works.
It was done in seconds.
So it's like there's so manydifferent things now that are just done.
Ten times faster.
And thenthe other thing that I look at too is like
the competition has this tool also.
So it's like making sure that I'm upto date is more crucial.
(25:32):
But I mean, five years out, I think thatthis is going to be
your complete digital assistant.
If you think about like when Siriwas first announced and I was like,
oh my God, this thing is going to bejust like out of a sci fi movie.
I'm going to just tell it what I want,and it's going to pull it up on my phone
and do all of these things.
And then you look at how many years laterand still doesn't do that,
(25:53):
but I think five years from now, that'swhat lambs are exactly going to do.
And it's going to be right in your,your handheld device too,
where it's just like, I need this thing.
Find me at, okay, here you go.
And then, you know, check out,do whatever you want to do.
Even with Atlas, I was seeing, like,if you have an online scheduler,
it will schedule for you.
It will.
You can integrate your calendarand it'll look at your calendar.
(26:15):
It'll be like, oh,you have an availability there. All right.
The schedule says there's availabilityhere. Done.
And then you get an email.
So it's crazy where it's at right now.
In five years it's going to be insane.
Tony, you agree? I would say the like.
The best corollary is if you've watchedany of the Iron Man movies,
where Tony Stark is talking to Jarvisin his headset, that's what I,
(26:36):
I think that's what it's going to be like,because men will do a lot like it already
displays,like, one of the prompts that I run
every morning isI ask it to give me the news, the U.S news
from the previous day, and then,give me the, the right wing perspective,
moderate right, moderate left and leftwing perspective and then put it
in, put all the stories into an audio fileso that I can listen to it as a podcast.
(27:04):
And it does all of that for me.
And I just have to like, open my ChatGPTand listen to listen to it.
And now I'mvery well informed on all sides of topics.
So it's going to them like thatthat already exists.
So like it's going toIt'll be there every day.
You don't even have to ask it every day.
It'll just be there.
(27:25):
of how this impacts Google,because I think that's the big question
here that we're talking aboutis I do believe in the next
like so ChatGPT has a massive user base.
I think it's 800 million active usersevery month.
In the United States,I think that's close to 200.
I think that's, in the United States,I believe that is, close
(27:46):
to 200 million active users every month.
Most of those are going to switch overand use Atlas
instead as their default browser,because the experience
is just so much better.
Especially the early adopters. So,the, you know,
in terms of percentage of the population,I believe that's still only 12 to 15% of
(28:06):
the population is actually actively usingChatGPT at the moment.
But those are all your early adopters.
If you've ever looked at an early adoptercurve curve graph, you kind of
have like four, or five six sections.
You have like the prepre adopters, the early adopters,
then you have like the free normaland then you kind of have everybody after
(28:28):
there's it's like a bell curve.
And we'rein that we're in that second
standard deviation now.
And we'rewe're about to move into the third
where we're still inkind of early adopter phase.
But they have a massivevolume of users already.
And this is going to impact Googlebecause once you're over in this space,
(28:49):
you're probably not going to switch backunless there's a really compelling reason.
I haven't switched browsersfrom Chrome in over ten years.
Right.
And like this is the first timeI've started using a different browser
in that ten year period.
So I'm going to have to havea really compelling reason to switch back
to Google,because the experience is better.
(29:10):
And like, I'm starting to loadall my crap into this browser
because it's a pain in the butt.
It's kind of like it'skind of like switching bank accounts.
Like nobody likes to switch bank accountsbecause you got to log in to everything
that you're possibly connected toso that you can pay your, your credit card
and your internet bill and yourso on and so forth.
They made it so easy to like.
You can just import your Chrome user Yeah.
(29:34):
all that.
Like when I saw itI was like, oh, all right, we're good.
Make it easy.
Yeah.
It's, next six months,I do believe, I think Google currently
has like an 80 or 81%search share in the United States.
I think that's going to dropto the low 70s.
Like it's not going to happen overnight.
Like this isn't going to be a death cliff.
At Google is one of thebest, most capitalized,
(29:54):
well, well-funded companies in the world.
Like, they're they're not going to belike, oh, well, we'll see what happens.
And hopefully nothing breaks.
Like they're going to aggressivelymake moves, obviously,
because they have tons of capital,tons of backing,
but they're also big and bureaucraticbecause they're a huge company where,
(30:15):
you know, I openI guess is a lot smaller and they can move
and they're more nimble.
And, you know, it's much easierto turn a speedboat than it is
to turn an aircraft carrier in Google'saircraft carrier in a circumstance.
Well said.
The world is changing around us, andwe are going to stay on the bleeding edge.
I think we have a littleAI podcast series coming out
(30:35):
so we can keep all of our FamilyAttorney listeners up to speed.
Gents, really appreciate your time today.
Appreciate your insights.
Looking forwardto watching this. Continue on.