Picking good pictures for law firm online content can certainly be a chore, but it does not have to be. Here are a few tips that can help you choose the best photos to enhance your website or blog content.

Perhaps you may feel that it is not worth the time to find a good photo and then post it and decide to just run a blog post without a picture. While that is an option, it is important to understand that visual aids have the ability to improve learning by up to 400 percent and be processed at least 60,000 times faster than text alone.

Those are pretty convincing arguments for using well-chosen pictures. The higher rate of retention is due to the fact that most people are visual learners and retain visual images longer than just the written word. In short, pictures are much more likely to resonate with your readers over time.

Engaging your law firm website/blog audience

What can you do to get more engagement for your law firm website? After all, leads are the lifeblood of the firm. It’s all about attraction, attraction, attraction. Visuals provide a deeper, clearer understanding of the message and the message behind the message in an almost instantaneous manner, versus struggling with columns and paragraphs of words – a definite bonus for law firms.

On average, web content with pictures/videos gets up to 94 percent views. But did you also know that email-marketing campaigns with pictures have a higher click-through rate and that infographics can increase web traffic by 12 percent? This observation also applies to tweets where pictures/videos can average anywhere from 28 percent to 35 percent in retweets. And speaking of videos, it’s not much wonder that over half a billion people watch them daily, which mean more than 100 million hours of videos, are seen. Imagine that kind of exposure for your law firm and imagine the leads you could garner?

Choosing pictures for your law firm online content

Rule number one before choosing pictures is to plan your content, the message, the audience and what goals you have in mind. As you plan, see in your mind’s eye what types of animations, infographics, videos and/or images that may resonate with viewers.

What’s next? Generally speaking the more images you have the better, but it is best not to go overboard. Ideally, the number of pictures you use is related to the content, the audience and the topic. If you are aiming at an audience that does not understand or know much about the law, you may need more photos etc. to explain things. If you were writing to an audience very familiar with the law, you would need fewer pictures.

What to do and what not to do

There are some general rules to follow when choosing pictures for your law firm online content. They include:

Stay away from adding random stock photos in body content as often the pictures do not add value to the post and do not resonate with your audience because they are “too” generic.

 

An image is only as valuable as the value it communicates, so choose images because they say something about the value of your firm and its services.

 

Aim for memorable content with actionable snippets that are thought-provoking that may require a tutorial, screenshot or a guided walkthrough – it depends on your subject and audience. Bring your content to life with the pictures.

 

If it fits with your content, highlight/call-out specific sections of an image. Show the reader what is important.

 

Avoid using GIFs for niche audiences (such as other lawyers). While they can be funny, they are not always appropriate and do not work with every type of audience or every type of content.

 

Think your visuals are boring? Then have someone develop custom images for you. Custom visuals can be back linked to your website. The added benefit of custom visuals is that they break down complex information for readers into a format readily absorbed.

 

Content without images can and does fly, but not as well as content with images and those images greatly improve viewer recall and social sharing.

 
The right visuals create the opportunity for sharing and sharing leads to more exposure, and more exposure leads to leads that can result in converting a client for your law firm.