Salt Lake City Criminal Defense Firm Cited by ChatGPT
How a Salt Lake City Criminal Defense Firm Got Cited by ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews
Six years ago, this firm's search position was buried past page 50. Here's exactly what changed, and what it took to get named directly inside AI-generated answers.
Brown Bradshaw & Moffat, a Salt Lake City criminal defense firm, is now cited by name in Google AI Overviews, Gemini, ChatGPT, and Perplexity when people ask AI tools who the best criminal defense attorneys in Salt Lake City are. That didn't happen because of a quick AEO trick. It happened because six years of building a structured, 308-page content architecture — 20 pillar practice-area pages supported by 288 additional pages — gave AI platforms exactly the kind of comprehensive, well-organized source material they look for when deciding who to cite.
The same work that took the firm's average search position from beyond page 50 to 9.4, and grew organic clicks 154.5% year-over-year, is what made it citable once AI search arrived. The lesson generalizes: content built to rank well also turns out to be content built to be cited. Firms treating AI visibility as a separate initiative are missing that the foundation is the same.
Why Was This Salt Lake City Firm Invisible in Search?
When Dashing Digital began working with Brown Bradshaw & Moffat six years ago, the firm had real strengths — skilled attorneys, a strong courtroom reputation — but a digital presence that didn't reflect any of it. Average search position sat beyond page 50, effectively invisible to anyone searching for criminal defense help in Salt Lake City. The competitive set was steep: bigger-budget firms, national legal directories, and aggregator sites occupied the top results for nearly every valuable criminal defense search term in the state.
The mandate from the outset was to build search authority that couldn't simply be outspent — authority earned through content depth and consistency rather than ad budget.
How Did the Firm Build 308 Pages of Content Authority?
The foundation is a deliberate, layered content structure: 20 pillar pages, each serving as the authoritative hub for a major criminal defense topic — DUI, drug crimes, domestic violence, sex crimes, federal charges, expungement, and more — each supported by roughly 14 additional pages covering specific charges, procedural questions, and long-tail searches.
This hub-and-spoke approach does more than help individual pages rank. It builds cumulative topical authority that search engines, and eventually AI platforms, recognize as evidence that a site is the most comprehensive resource available on a subject — which is exactly the kind of signal both systems reward. This structure is the practical application of what we call the Dashing Digital Authority Framework™: building depth and structure first, so ranking and AI citation follow as a result rather than a separate project.
What Were the Results, by the Numbers?
Six years of that content strategy now produces roughly 6 million annual search impressions and 56,000 annual organic clicks. Year-over-year, impressions grew 319% and clicks grew 154.5%, alongside a 34.9% improvement in average search position — a 15.1-point gain that held through multiple Google algorithm updates and the broader shift toward AI-mediated search that has eroded traffic for many firms relying on rankings alone.
The firm now holds top-three rankings on eight competitive Utah criminal defense search terms, including broad, high-volume queries like "Criminal Defense Lawyers Utah" alongside narrower terms like "Domestic Violence Attorney Salt Lake City" and "Sex Crimes Defense Lawyer Utah."
Why rankings held through the AI search transition
Most firms saw real traffic erosion as AI Overviews and AI-powered search began displacing a share of traditional organic results. Brown Bradshaw & Moffat's content, built around comprehensively answering specific legal questions rather than thin service-page copy, translated directly into the kind of structured authority AEO depends on. The transition didn't cost the firm visibility; it extended it into a new channel.
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Get a Free AEO/SEO ConsultationHow Did the Firm Get Named Inside AI Answers?
Over the past year, an Answer Engine Optimization layer was added on top of the existing SEO foundation, with the goal of getting Brown Bradshaw & Moffat cited as an authoritative source rather than just ranked as a link. The firm is now referenced directly across Google AI Overviews, Gemini, ChatGPT, and Perplexity for Salt Lake City criminal defense queries — including a Gemini response that named the firm specifically under a list of "Established Full-Service Firms" when asked about top criminal defense attorneys in Utah.
That kind of direct citation matters because of how AI search behaves. Pew Research Center's analysis of actual browsing data found that users click a traditional search result only 8% of the time once an AI-generated summary appears, compared with 15% when no summary is present. When an AI tool answers a question directly rather than returning a list of links, being the cited source is often the only visibility a firm gets at all.
Why Did the Same Content Work for Both SEO and AEO?
The firm's experience reflects something broader about how AI search actually evaluates sources: it favors content that answers questions directly, is structured in ways that are easy to parse, and demonstrates depth and accuracy across a topic rather than a single well-optimized page. None of that is unique to AI search — it's also what traditional SEO has rewarded for years. The difference is that AI platforms make the payoff for that depth visible in a new way: instead of one ranking among ten, a firm can become the answer itself.
This is also why six years matters. Salt Lake City led Utah's cities in population growth for three consecutive years through 2024, and Salt Lake County added another 8,281 residents in 2025 alone, according to the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute. The competitive set for criminal defense search terms has grown right along with it. Content authority built over years compounds in a market that keeps adding new residents and new competing firms at the same time.
Which Search Rankings Did the Firm Win?
Impressions and clicks tell the volume story; rankings tell the competitive one. Brown Bradshaw & Moffat now holds top-three positions on eight of Utah's most contested criminal defense search terms, spanning both broad, high-volume queries and narrower, high-intent ones:
- Criminal Defense Lawyers Utah — the broadest, most competitive criminal defense term in the state
- Drug Crimes Criminal Defense Attorney Utah — top-of-page dominance in one of the most contested categories
- Marijuana Crime Lawyer Utah — first-position visibility statewide
- Domestic Violence Attorney Salt Lake City — top ranking for one of the highest-volume local practice areas
- Sex Crimes Defense Lawyer Utah — first-page authority in a high-stakes, highly competitive category
- Drug Possession Attorney Salt Lake City — consistent qualified intake from a high-intent local query
- Domestic Abuse Lawyer Salt Lake City — top-three visibility on a closely related high-volume term
- Top Criminal Defense Attorneys in Salt Lake City — also cited directly across multiple AI platforms
That last term is the clearest bridge between the two worlds this case study is about: the same query that earns a strong traditional ranking is the one most likely to also surface the firm by name inside an AI-generated answer.
What Part of This Playbook Can Other Firms Replicate?
No agency can promise an identical outcome for every firm, since starting position, practice area competitiveness, and market size all vary. But the underlying mechanics behind Brown Bradshaw & Moffat's results aren't a one-off; they're a repeatable sequence:
- Map the full topic, not just the obvious pages. A pillar-and-supporting-page structure covering every charge type, procedural question, and long-tail variation builds the comprehensive coverage both Google and AI platforms reward.
- Write for the specific question, not the practice area in general. Pages that answer "what happens after a domestic violence arrest in Salt Lake City" outperform generic "domestic violence defense" service pages, in both rankings and AI citations.
- Layer AEO on top of an existing foundation, not in place of one. The AEO work added over the past year built directly on six years of accumulated content; it didn't start from nothing.
- Track AI citations as a distinct metric. Rankings reports alone won't show whether a firm is actually being named inside Gemini, ChatGPT, or AI Overviews; that requires checking the platforms directly and tracking it over time.
- Expect years, not weeks. The firms that show up confidently in AI search today are mostly the ones who built deep content years before AI search existed as a channel.
For a closer look at how this applies across practice areas, our blog covers the same approach for criminal defense, personal injury, and family law firms working in competitive markets nationwide.
What Does This Mean for Other Salt Lake City Firms?
Brown Bradshaw & Moffat didn't get here by outspending competitors on ads. They got here by investing in a content authority strategy that compounds over time, with a marketing partner that anticipated the shift to AI-mediated search before most of the market noticed it happening.
The firms that adapt well to AI search aren't reacting to it after the fact. They're the ones who already built the kind of structured, answer-first content that AI platforms want to cite, before competitors realized the shift was underway. That's the same approach we bring to criminal defense, personal injury, and family law firms in competitive markets across the country.
What does it mean for a law firm to be cited by AI search?
AI tools like Google's Gemini, ChatGPT, and Perplexity don't return a list of links; they synthesize information and name specific sources directly in their answer. When a potential client asks which firm to hire and an AI tool names a specific firm, that's an AI citation, and it functions like a number-one ranking did in traditional search, except the searcher never sees a list of competitors to compare against.
How did Brown Bradshaw & Moffat get cited by AI search platforms?
Over six years, the firm built a structured content architecture of 308 pages, organized as 20 pillar practice-area pages supported by 288 additional pages covering specific charges, procedures, and long-tail questions. That same depth and structure, originally built to earn traditional search rankings, turned out to be exactly what AI platforms look for when deciding which sources to cite by name. See the full case study and results.
How long does it take to build AI search visibility for a law firm?
Brown Bradshaw & Moffat's results took six years of sustained content building to reach an average search position of 9.4, up from beyond page 50. AI citation visibility was layered on top of that existing foundation more recently and built on years of accumulated topical authority, which is why firms starting from zero should expect a multi-year timeline, not a quick win.
Can other Salt Lake City law firms expect similar results?
Results depend on practice area competitiveness, starting point, and consistency of execution over time, so no agency can promise identical numbers. What is repeatable is the underlying approach: building deep, structured, question-answering content across a practice area, then layering AEO and reputation management on top of that foundation rather than treating AI visibility as a separate project. Learn more about our AEO services.
Does ranking well in Google still matter if AI search is growing?
Yes. Brown Bradshaw & Moffat's AI citations grew directly out of content built for traditional SEO; the two were not separate efforts. The majority of searches still return traditional ranked results rather than an AI summary, so the firms with the strongest classic SEO foundation are also best positioned to be cited as AI search continues to grow. See our law firm SEO pillar page.
Sources
- Dashing Digital Marketing, Brown Bradshaw & Moffat Case Study and Results
- Pew Research Center, Google Users Are Less Likely to Click on Links When an AI Summary Appears in the Results
- Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, Utah's Population Reaches 3.55 Million in 2025
- Axios Salt Lake City, Salt Lake City Leads Utah in Population Growth Again, on the city's three-year growth streak through 2024
Brown Bradshaw & Moffat's AI citations aren't a separate achievement from their search rankings — they're the same six years of content authority, showing up in a new channel. Firms chasing AI visibility as a quick add-on are missing what actually earns it: the same structured, comprehensive content that's always built durable search authority, now compounding into a second form of visibility most competitors haven't built yet.
April Atwater
April leads Dashing Digital Marketing, a legal-exclusive SEO and AEO agency helping law firms build sustainable, search-first client pipelines. Explore more:
