In storytelling, there’s an old rule that reminds us how important it is to “show, not tell.” That is to say, when you make a claim about what you can do or what separates you from everyone else, people aren’t just going to take your word for it. They want to see with their own two eyes that this is true – they want to know beyond the shadow of a doubt.
This is especially true in an industry like the legal profession, where competition is fierce. When people go searching for “lawyers near me” in Google, they’re going to return a practically endless list of results. What will separate you from so many other firms is both the quality of your story and how well you can tell that story visually.
This is why it’s so important to have optimized images and videos on not just your website but also on your social media profiles and other directory listings. It gives your law firm a new level of customer engagement and empowers your ability to attract and retain the loyal and local client base you’ll need to thrive over time.
In terms of effective visual local SEO strategies for lawyers in particular, there are a few key things to keep in mind that will help make sure you’re utilizing every resource available to you as effectively as you can.
Understanding the Role of Visuals on Local SEO
Visual content helps with local SEO, in large part, because it’s so engaging. A compelling visual can establish your law firm as a local service provider better than text alone can. Oftentimes, people can grasp complicated subjects more easily when that information is presented visually as opposed to when they’re just reading about it. The list goes on and on.
The more visual your website is, the more likely people are to engage with it. This creates a better customer experience, which reflects positively on your law firm as a whole.
Visual Local SEO Tactics
Website & Blog Optimization Strategies
In a general sense, there are a variety of steps you should take on a daily basis to make sure that your law firm ranks as highly as possible in search engines like Google. None of these are tips that you “do once and forget about.” They’re things that should be firmly in mind with every new piece of content you create. They include taking steps like:
- Use as many high-resolution, relevant images on your website as possible. Don’t just focus all your attention on your law firm’s home page. Remember your appointment and consultation booking pages, your “About the Firm” page, and all your service pages.
- Create a general website design that is both visually appealing and relevant to your local area.
- Incorporate local landmarks whenever possible, and show photos of local events and even faces.
- Integrate local imagery (especially video) into the blog posts that you’re creating.
- Create as much visual content as you can around local stories and community events that your firm may have participated in.
- Leverage videos whenever possible to enhance your ability to tell a legitimate story and to give your law firm a personality that stands out in a crowd.
- All the while, optimize file naming and meta descriptions with location-specific keywords to give your local SEO strategy that extra boost it needs.
Directory Listings
Whenever you set up a new listing on a legal directory, upload visually engaging images whenever you can. Be sure to show off not just your services, but your customer support and the quality of your skill, through photos and videos.
Maintain consistent branding in visual elements across all directories to give the entire effort a much-needed sense of continuity.
Google Business Profile
When setting up your law firm’s Google Business Profile, be sure to add a variety of high-quality photos that show off your law firm and what makes it special. Upload videos that feature your business and local events for that extra bit of context. Encourage your clients to include photos in their reviews as well.
Social Media
Like most law firms, yours probably has an active presence on sites like Facebook and LinkedIn. Be sure to create visually appealing posts that are tailored not just to your industry, but your local community.
Lean into the strengths of platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and even YouTube and TikTok for compelling visual storytelling. Encourage your clients – and your community as a whole – to engage by sharing photos and videos that happen to feature your firm, your lawyers, and activities that you’re up to.
Online Advertising
As you develop various online advertising campaigns, be sure to show off your location whenever possible. Don’t just make it clear that you’re a law firm. Utilize local lingo, landmarks, and other things that are specific to your area. This is a great way to localize the imagery in those ads.
Once designed, run those ads on Google, Facebook, and other platforms for maximum engagement and exposure.
Measure and Track Success
Finally, never underestimate the importance of measuring and tracking your success moving forward. Track engagement metrics on all visual content so that you understand what people like and what you need to create as much of as possible.
Analyze the impact that your visual content has on your client journey, as well as on the behaviors of your existing clients. You might quickly find that a well-executed campaign doesn’t just generate more prospects, but “hotter” ones as well – or at least ones that come into the situation more educated about what you do.
Over time, adjust your visual content strategies based on the performance data that you’re seeing. To put it simply: whatever is working, do more of that. Whatever isn’t working, stop doing it and focus that time, energy, and money on everything else.
Surefire Local: Tell Your Firm’s Story in a Bold New Way
Overall, remember that it won’t be any one particular move that will help effectively localize your online presence as a law firm and legal professional. It will be a series of smaller and more strategic ones that all work together. Don’t just include high-resolution, relevant images on your website.
Create a visually appealing and locally relevant website design. Incorporate local landmarks whenever you can. Create visual content around local stories. Do all this and more, all at the exact same time. Do it when you’re launching your online presence and let it inform every decision you’re making from that point forward.
At Surefire Local, we pride ourselves on our ability to help small businesses like yours with all their localized online marketing efforts. In a broad sense, we assist in establishing your law firm’s online presence by creating local signals across all the platforms and profiles that matter most to you. They all come together to make it as easy as possible for new clients to find you whenever they go searching for a firm like yours.
There are a few key features of our all-in-one marketing platform that do this, including but not limited to ones like:
- Website and local SEO optimizations. Our platform can help you create geo-tagged content that is published on your website, on your blog, and on social media profiles like Twitter, Instagram, and more.
- Content marketing. We give you the tools you need to create locally targeted, relevant content for your blog, your law firm’s Google Business profile, various legal business directories, and so much more.
- Local online advertising. Surefire Local can help you create visually compelling ads that are designed to attract only the attention of potential clients who live and work within your service area.
We also offer robust features like directory management, which allows you to claim, edit, and publish new content like photos or special offers for your law firm across more than 80 online directory listing platforms. We help you take all the effort out of social media management via tools for scheduling posts, tracking engagement metrics, and even responding to comments.
All the while, you’ll get to tap into our innovative analytics and reporting capabilities. Unlock a bold new level of transparency into the performance of your campaign so that you understand precisely how much revenue your marketing dollars are generating. You can also get AI-powered recommendations to underline specific actions you can take to achieve the results and improvements that matter most to you.
Last but not least, all of our clients get access to webinars, blogs, and other helpful educational resources that help small businesses learn (and master) all things local online marketing.
By design, Surefire Local was built to be your one-stop shop for all things visual and local. Click here to attend a Surefire Local demo to see exactly how true that is and what a difference it can make for your law firm and its digital marketing efforts. If you have any additional questions you’d like to discuss, or any concerns that you’d like to see addressed in a bit more detail, please don’t hesitate to contact us today.