Multimodal search is quietly changing the way your customers find businesses like yours. Not long ago, finding a local company meant one thing: typing a few words into Google and scrolling through the results. That world is disappearing fast. Today, people point their phone camera at something they like, ask their smart speaker a question out loud, or head straight to TikTok and Instagram to see a product in action before they ever visit a website.
For small business owners across the Black Country, this shift matters more than you might think. It is no longer enough to rank well for a handful of typed keywords. Your business now needs to be recognisable whether someone finds you through a photo, a video, a voice query or a social feed. And the thread that ties all of those together? Your brand.
Multimodal search simply means people searching in more than one way. Text is still part of the mix, but it now sits alongside images, voice and video. Someone might snap a photo of a kitchen worktop they like and use Google Lens to find a local supplier. Someone else might search TikTok for “hairdressers near Dudley” to see real results before booking. Both are searching. Neither is typing into a traditional search bar.
The numbers behind this shift are striking. Google Lens now handles around 20 billion visual searches every month, a figure Google itself has confirmed, and one that has grown roughly sixfold since 2021. Meanwhile, research covered by Forbes found that Google has slipped to third place for local search among 18 to 24 year olds, behind Instagram and TikTok. Younger customers are not waiting for a list of blue links. They want to see who you are before they get in touch.
It can be tempting to dismiss all this as something for big national brands to worry about. In our experience, the opposite is true. When someone searches visually, they are often looking for something nearby: a product they can pick up, a service they can book, a place they can visit. Local businesses are exactly what these searches surface.
Here in the Black Country, we see brilliant businesses every week that are practically invisible in this new landscape. Their work is excellent, but their photos are inconsistent, their logo appears in three different versions across the web, and their social profiles look nothing like their website. When a potential customer finds them through an image or a video, there is nothing recognisable to hold on to. The result? They scroll straight past, often to a competitor who simply looks more put together.
If people are finding you through photos, videos, voice assistants and social feeds, the one thing that connects every route to your door is visual identity. A strong, consistent brand means that whether a customer spots your van on the A461, sees your work in a TikTok video, or finds your product through a Google Lens search, they instantly know it is you.
That consistency is built on a few foundations. A distinctive logo that works everywhere, from a shopfront sign to a tiny social media avatar. A defined colour palette and typography that never change from one platform to the next. Photography with a recognisable style, because in multimodal search your images are doing the searching for you. And a tone of voice that sounds the same whether it is a website page or an Instagram caption.
Get these right and something powerful happens. Every photo a happy customer shares becomes a searchable advert for your business. Every video you post reinforces who you are. You stop relying on people typing your name correctly and start being found simply because you look like yourself, everywhere.
The good news is that preparing for multimodal search does not mean starting from scratch. Start with an honest audit: pull up your website, your Google Business Profile and your social channels side by side. Do they look like the same business? If a stranger saw your Instagram grid next to your homepage, would they connect the two?
Next, tidy up your visual assets. One master logo, used properly. High quality, well lit photos of your actual work, your actual team and your actual premises, because generic stock imagery is invisible in visual search and forgettable everywhere else. Then make sure the basics are covered: descriptive image file names and alt text on your website help search engines understand exactly what they are looking at.
If that sounds like a lot to juggle alongside running a business, that is exactly where we come in. Our branding and logo design services give you a sharp, consistent identity built to be recognised across every platform, and we can help you roll it out properly across your website and social channels. Search is changing quickly, but businesses that look the part will always stand out. If you would like an honest chat about how your brand stacks up, get in touch with the team and we will happily take a look.
