Anatomy of an AI-optimised law firm website built in 14 days
This is a worked example, not a client story. It shows how we structure, build and launch an AI-optimised site for a typical UK law firm (5–10 pages, 2–3 practice areas) in 14 days. The build combines a clean React-based architecture, comprehensive Service and FAQPage schema, an llms.txt summary, and AI-crawler-ready robots.txt configuration so the firm is discoverable by Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews from day one.
The brief (worked example)
Imagine a typical regional UK firm with three practice areas (family, employment, conveyancing) and a 2018-vintage WordPress site: slow on mobile, cluttered, no schema, and zero AI visibility. The goal is to ship a faster, clearer, schema-rich replacement ready for both Google and AI search — without disrupting the practice.
Day 1–3: Audit and structure
Audit the current site (PageSpeed scores, ranked keywords, AI assistant query coverage). Map a new 10–12 page architecture: home, about, three practice-area hubs, sub-service pages, contact and a small AEO knowledge hub.
Write a SEO_STRUCTURE.md file as the single source of truth — every URL, H1, meta title, target keyword, and direct-answer paragraph defined upfront before a line of code is written.
Day 4–10: Build
Using the React/Vite stack, build mobile-first. Each page receives a direct-answer hero (2–3 sentences answering the core query), 5–10 conversational FAQs schema-marked as FAQPage, and Service schema describing the practice area, area served and provider organisation.
Add Organization and LegalService schema globally, configure robots.txt to explicitly allow GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Applebot, Googlebot-Extended and CCBot, and publish a /llms.txt file summarising the firm and its specialisms.
Day 11–14: QA and launch
Run Lighthouse audits on every page (target 90+ across the board). Validate schema with Google Rich Results Test (target zero errors). Run manual citation tests in Perplexity for each practice-area query.
Launch on day 14, with Search Console submitted, Google Business Profile updated to match new content, and a short internal training session on the admin.
What good looks like at 90 days
Discoverability: indexed in Google for every priority practice-area + location keyword.
AI citations: tested monthly in Perplexity, ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews against the firm's priority queries.
Enquiry quality: a triaged form that captures matter type and urgency, so partners spend less time on unqualified contacts.
Performance: sub-2-second mobile load times, 90+ Lighthouse Performance, zero schema errors.