Content Marketing for Lawyers: Commodity Content vs. Non-Commodity Content
Commodity Content vs. Non-Commodity Content: What's the Difference and Why Does It Matter?
Not all legal content is created equal — and in the age of AI-driven search, the gap between generic and original content is the gap between getting cited and getting ignored.
The Short Answer
Commodity content answers a question the same way every other law firm's website already has — it's interchangeable, easy to paraphrase, and easy for AI search engines to summarize without ever naming your firm. Non-commodity content brings something only your firm can offer: original case-based insight, jurisdiction-specific procedural detail, proprietary data, or a genuinely new angle on a familiar question. As AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and other answer engines increasingly synthesize the open web instead of sending clicks to it, non-commodity content is what earns citations and referral traffic. Commodity content just becomes raw material for someone else's answer.
What Is "Commodity Content," Exactly?
Commodity content is any piece of content that could have been written by almost any firm, in almost any city, about almost any client, without losing much accuracy. Think of the thousands of near-identical posts titled "What to Do After a Car Accident" or "Steps to File for Divorce in [State]." The underlying information isn't wrong — it's just not distinct. Swap out the firm name and city, and the page still reads the same.
That doesn't mean this content is useless. Every firm needs baseline pages that answer the basic questions clients search for, and those pages often anchor a broader content cluster built around a practice area. The problem is treating those baseline pages as the whole strategy, rather than the floor a cluster is built on.
Common signs a page is commodity content
- It restates general legal process or procedure available on dozens of competitor sites and government resources
- It could be republished under a different firm's name with only the contact information changed
- It contains no case examples, firm-specific data, or attorney commentary tied to actual experience
- It reads like a summary of other articles rather than a firsthand account of how the firm handles matters
What Makes Content "Non-Commodity"?
Non-commodity content is built from something the firm has that competitors don't: real casework, local courthouse experience, original research, or a specific point of view an attorney is willing to put their name on. It's the difference between explaining what a deposition is in general terms and explaining how a specific local judge tends to handle motions to compel in a particular county's family court.
Google's own guidance on people-first content asks creators whether a page draws on other sources without simply copying or rewriting them. It should provide real value beyond what a reader could find anywhere else (Google Search Central). Non-commodity content is the practical answer to that test. It typically includes:
- Firsthand case outcomes or settlement patterns the firm has actually handled (described without violating client confidentiality or ethics rules)
- Jurisdiction-specific procedural detail — local court rules, filing quirks, or judge tendencies a national competitor wouldn't know
- Original data or analysis the firm compiled itself, rather than restating a stat everyone else already cites
- A clearly attributed attorney point of view on a question where reasonable practitioners disagree
Why Does This Distinction Matter More Now Than It Used To?
Commodity content has always underperformed in traditional search, but AI search raises the stakes further. When a generative answer engine needs to summarize "what happens at a DUI arraignment," it can pull that answer from any of a thousand nearly identical pages. There's no reason for it to single out your firm's version, because your version isn't distinguishable from the rest.
Non-commodity content works differently. When a page contains something genuinely unique — a data point, a firsthand account, a specific answer no one else has published — it becomes the source an AI system has to point back to. There's nowhere else to get that particular piece of information. That's the mechanism behind earning a citation in an AI Overview or a named mention in a ChatGPT answer, rather than simply being folded anonymously into the summary.
Google's people-first content guidance explicitly flags "mainly summarizing what others have to say without adding much value" as a warning sign of search engine-first content rather than content built for readers (Google Search Central). Commodity content is, almost by definition, that kind of summarizing. It's written to check a keyword box, not to say something only this firm could say.
How Can You Tell Which Type You're Publishing?
Run a simple test on any page already live on your site: could a competing firm in a different city publish this exact page, word for word, and have it be just as accurate? If yes, it's commodity content. If the page would need to be rewritten from scratch because it depends on your firm's specific cases, local courts, or attorneys, it's non-commodity.
A second test comes straight from Google's self-assessment questions: does the content provide original information, reporting, research, or analysis, or is it primarily a comprehensive-sounding restatement of information available elsewhere (Google Search Central)? Most law firm content libraries, when run through that filter, turn out to be almost entirely commodity content with a handful of non-commodity pages carrying the weight.
Not sure how much of your content is commodity vs. non-commodity? A free audit will show you exactly where you stand.
Get Your Free SEO and AI Visibility AuditHow Do You Turn a Commodity Topic Into a Non-Commodity Asset?
You rarely need to abandon commodity topics — clients are still searching "what to do after a car accident," and the firm still needs a page that answers it. The goal is layering something non-commodity into that same page rather than leaving it as a generic restatement.
- Add local specificity. Reference the actual courthouse, filing office, or local rule that applies, not just the general statute.
- Attribute a point of view. Have the attorney weigh in on a genuinely debatable question, with their name attached.
- Include original numbers. If the firm has handled enough matters to spot a pattern — typical timelines, common pitfalls — describe it, sourced to the firm's own experience rather than a competitor's blog.
- Answer the question no one else answers. Every commodity topic has an adjacent, more specific question that competitors skip because it's harder to answer generically. That's usually the non-commodity opportunity.
This is the core logic behind the Dashing Digital Authority Framework™. Build the baseline commodity pages every firm needs, then deliberately invest the firm's actual expertise into a smaller set of pages designed to be irreplaceable rather than interchangeable.
The Bottom Line
Commodity content keeps a law firm's website functional, but it rarely earns anything extra — not rankings, not AI citations, not client trust. Non-commodity content, built from real casework, local knowledge, and an attorney's actual point of view, is what makes a firm's content worth citing instead of paraphrasing. The firms that win visibility in an AI-driven search landscape won't be the ones publishing the most content. They'll be the ones publishing the content no one else could have written.
Related DDM Resources
- SEO for Law Firms — the foundation non-commodity content sits on top of
- AEO & AI Search Optimization — positioning content to be cited by AI answer engines
- Online Reputation Management — another signal that separates a firm from the pack
- Local SEO for Law Firms — where jurisdiction-specific content pays off most
- Fractional CMO Services — strategic oversight for firms building a content library
- Website Design for Law Firms — the platform non-commodity content needs to live on
- Marketing Strategy Beyond SEO — how content strategy fits the bigger picture
- Proven AEO & SEO Results — case studies from firms that made this shift
- Criminal Defense Marketing
- Personal Injury Marketing
- Family Law Marketing
- Bankruptcy Attorney Marketing
- Estate Planning & Probate Attorney Marketing
- Talk to an SEO Expert about auditing your firm's content mix
Frequently Asked Questions
Is commodity content bad for a law firm's SEO?
Not inherently. Commodity content still serves a purpose — it covers the basic questions clients expect a firm's website to answer, and it supports internal linking and site structure. The problem is relying on commodity content alone, since it rarely differentiates a firm from competitors or earns citations in AI-generated answers.
How much of a firm's content should be non-commodity?
There's no fixed ratio, but most firms benefit from treating non-commodity pages as the priority investment even though they'll be a smaller share of total published content. A handful of genuinely original, well-cited pages typically outperforms a large volume of generic ones.
Can a city-specific or practice-area page still be commodity content?
Yes. Adding a city name or practice area to a generic template doesn't automatically make the content non-commodity. It only becomes non-commodity when the page includes information specific to that location or case type that a firm in a different city couldn't accurately reuse — such as local court procedure or firm-specific case experience.
Does AI search ever cite commodity content?
It can, particularly when a page happens to be well-structured or authoritative on a general topic. But when many pages say essentially the same thing, an AI system has no reason to prefer one over another, which makes any single citation less likely and less durable over time.
What's the fastest way to upgrade existing commodity content?
Start with the firm's highest-traffic commodity pages and add one clearly non-commodity element to each — a local procedural detail, an attorney's attributed opinion, or a pattern drawn from the firm's own case experience — rather than rewriting the entire page from scratch.
April Atwater is the President and founder of Dashing Digital Marketing, a Salt Lake City-based agency that has worked exclusively with law firms on SEO, AEO, and digital marketing since 2007. She writes and speaks nationally on AI search visibility for attorneys.
