S03E145 Video Testimonials for AI Search Visibility with Jonathan Schüßler

Trust is no longer a five-star number, it’s a face, a name, and a story. We sit down with marketing strategist and filmmaker Jonathan Schüßler to break down how authentic video testimonials turn strangers into confident clients, and why they now outperform written reviews for credibility, conversion, and search.

We start with the psychology: seeing and hearing a real client conveys sincerity you can’t fake. Jonathan explains how to structure a testimonial like a mini-case study, lead with the strongest line in the first five seconds, surface the common doubts, and resolve them with clear outcomes. That arc doesn’t just persuade; it mirrors the questions prospects bring to a consultation and removes objections before the first email is sent.

Then we go tactical. Discover how YouTube, Shorts, TikTok, and LinkedIn work together to expand your “review footprint,” and why pasting full transcripts into descriptions helps Google and AI overviews understand your services. We share keyword and title tips for lawyers and other service businesses, simple shooting setups that look great on a phone, and the ideal runtime that keeps viewers watching through the close. You’ll learn when to film (the last client meeting), where to place testimonials on your website (prominent, just below the hero), and how to coach clients to say your firm name and service so LLMs and search engines can index what matters.

If you’ve hesitated to start with video because it seems complex, Jonathan’s blueprint makes it simple: two or three clients, a doorframe for flattering light, 10 smart questions, and a crisp edit under two minutes. Repurpose each story across platforms to convert followers into inquiries and control more of the results page for “[Your Firm] reviews.” 

Reach Jonathan here: 
Marketing: chuzlaire.com 
Weddings jonathanschuessler.com

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Leadership In Law Podcast with host, Marilyn Jenkins 
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:52

The Leadership in the Law Podcast is here to equip you with the knowledge and tools you need to build a successful and fulfilling legal practice.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Welcome to another episode of the Leadership in Law Podcast. I'm your host, Marilyn Jenkins. Please join me in welcoming my guest, Jonathan Schuschler, to the show today. Johnny is a marketing strategist, photographer, and videographer focusing on marketing for Soberspace Businesses. I'm excited to have you here, Johnny. Welcome.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

Thank you for having me. Yeah.

Johnny’s Path From Weddings To Marketing

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Absolutely. Tell us a little bit about your journey.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

Yeah, so I started in photography basically as a when I was still in school, I built this photo machine for weddings with my dad, and then took my first wedding pictures 2016, so nearly 10 years ago. Started my journey in photography then, and end of 2019, I started taking it way more serious, went full-time in 2020, also started doing marketing for local businesses at the time, joined an agency, and then moved to Heidelberg 2023, and that's the time when I really started focusing more on testimonial videos, and still kept building up the wedding photography side. So I'm still a service-based business myself, but really started seeing the impact that testimonial videos have.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Absolutely. Reviews are the lifeblood of a business, and video testimonials will just be even more powerful.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Yeah, I saw loads of statistics that they're showing up in overviews in Gemini. I even tested it before this because I was like, if I'm gonna say this and I really want this backed up, so I even uh asked Gemini about reviews of myself. The first thing it showed wasn't Google reviews, it wasn't TrustPod, but it was showing off the testimonial videos on my website as the source. So yeah.

Why Video Testimonials Outperform Text

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Oh nice. Okay. So why do you feel like uh testimonial videos are becoming more powerful than written reviews to building trust with the potential clients?

SPEAKER_02 3:20

Yeah, we definitely see that there's a lot of fake reviews, even a review spamming going on. And sometimes you don't feel like if this maybe a smaller business that is like a boutique business, maybe a high-end law firm that only takes on very few clients, sometimes they don't have the huge amount of reviews. And if you get reviewed and you have 20 reviews, but you have three fake reviews, some people feel like, okay, maybe those other 17 reviews are fake. They just ask their friends to review them. So I feel like having people sit in front of the camera really changes. Oh, these people actually take time out of their day, they show their face, they show their name, they tell all about the experience that they had with the business. And I feel like that's way more important. And we see sales processes really change because you have either set them up on your website or you can even put them in your sales process as well.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

And of course, your YouTube channel, you always want to. Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

100% YouTube shows up in Google, as I said in Gemini earlier, ChatGPT, it's all picked up. And what's really important, if you put them on Google, put the description, take the whole text that they said. If you're using DScript, that's pretty easy. And then just put the text that the people are saying, put it in the description, and Google will pick it up and surface it to the customers as well.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

So that's interesting. Take the transcript and put that in the description on YouTube.

SPEAKER_02 4:51

Here's really good with shorts as well. Because the shorts obviously get more views than normal YouTube videos most of the time. And things that have more views also get surfaced more in AO overviews.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

True.

SPEAKER_02 5:07

Yeah.

Getting Found: YouTube, AI, And Transcripts

SPEAKER_01 5:07

And suggested more. Yeah, exactly. You said that real humans sharing real results on camera is one of the strongest trust signals today. What makes videos so much more persuasive?

SPEAKER_02 5:17

Yeah, so what you can do in a video is you can lead the story, right? So video testimonials, I don't I really despise people that put actors in front of the camera there. But if you're actually using your real clients, you can ask them maybe 10 questions, and it's definitely stuff that they'd actually said, and you don't want to cut words to to make sure that it's saying what you want it to say, but you can put the most important quote of what they said in the beginning, because that's what most people will see. Most people will still leave the video after maybe five seconds, but at least they heard the most important sentence. And people in a review, if there's if they're happy, they will only talk about that they were happy if they type it into Google Maps. But if you have a video, you can ask them, did you have any doubts working together with us beforehand? And if you address those doubts, maybe someone who has the same thinking process, they're like, hey, maybe someone says, Okay, we didn't know if this law firm could help us in this and that situation, right? So if someone else is saying the same thing in the beginning of the video, being like, We have this doubt, but actually they helped us a lot, they showed us through the process, and that's really powerful as well.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

I agree. It's that is interesting that in a lot of podcasts, they'll take the sound bite, the most important sound bite, from the podcast, and that's your intro. That's interesting to do that.

SPEAKER_02 7:01

It's also something that is really popular with websites as well right now, that you want to give like basically the info that people are looking for in the top section as well. Because people will still keep reading if they're already satisfied. If they can't see what they're looking for, they'll bounce.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:20

If you have something that really resonates with you, you will stick and keep on going.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Very good. I agree. And what separates like a high-quality testimonial video from one that feels really generic or forced?

SPEAKER_02 7:33

The people, I think it's definitely mainly about how the people feel in the moment. So if you make them feel comfortable and they sound like this from the heart and they don't feel on edge, you can see that some people, especially if you're filming your clients, most of them are not models. So they're not comfortable in front of the camera themselves. So the main thing that separates a good from a not so good testimony video, I would say, is if it feels natural and authentic. It doesn't really need to it doesn't really need to be professionally recorded like what I'm doing. You can do it yourself. And it can still be effective, maybe even sometimes more effective, but you need to know how to make people feel comfortable in front of the camera.

Crafting Persuasive Story Arcs In Video

SPEAKER_01 8:26

And the assumption is if they were a customer, then obviously they're comfortable with you. I've seen quite a few of these like product review videos that were done by user-generated content. So they're paying somebody to do this big fancy review, and I think that's pretty obvious. They're trying to make it look amateur, but you can pretty much tell that that's not a real authentic review.

SPEAKER_02 8:46

But there's some really good influencers that can make it pretty well, they say that they're getting paid, but they still feel like they're actually making a good review.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

So how do you choose the right clients to feature in video testimonials?

SPEAKER_02 9:00

Yeah. So what you really need to focus on is was this client if you had let's say this client you only had once a year, what if you had 20 of those clients every year? Would you still enjoy working with them? And is the case something that you feel like you have good knowledge in that area? And is that something that you really want to focus on more? Because everything that you're showing is stuff that you'll get in the future as well. Choose some people that maybe even struggled in the beginning as well. So for my wedding photography business, I feel like my strongest testimonial is the one where they start off saying, We didn't want a wedding photographer in the first place. And my mum kept searching because she said, You're not allowed to leave those memories without having any pictures of it. And then she showed us Jonathan, and he really took us by the hand, he made us feel comfortable, we had a trial shoot beforehand, and we felt like he cares about us from the first minute. So, this is what I said when you take something that they had doubts about, and probably the strongest doubt possible, and then come back to but actually we had a great time, and we ended up booking a video as well last minute, and the pictures showed our day, and it we were so satisfied that our best man and maid of honour they're getting married this year, and he is actually shooting their wedding as well. So I don't even know, but it'd be so powerful. It is, and then everything else I just cut behind this, but I knew that this was gonna come. Probably, yeah, I'll probably talk about that later as well, anyways. But that question was towards I would say towards like the two-thirds mark of the interview, because I knew that this was gonna be the strongest thing they're gonna say. Sometimes you don't know that, but you definitely want to have a warm-up phase, so it's authentic from the beginning.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

Excellent. I love that starting with a doubt, and then they walk right through it, tell their story, and come right through it. And so thinking about okay, what's the best setting or the format for filming these testimonials to make them obviously feel authentic, but still good, or as much as you can be, try to be professional about.

Authenticity, Comfort, And On-Camera Nerves

SPEAKER_02 11:37

So if you do it yourself, I would say the best timing would be if you're in the last meeting with a client. That way they wouldn't have to come out again. They have a fresh memory of how you just work together. And to make it look decent if you're recording it on your phone, and then you can still outsource it, obviously, if you have uh capacity and money, and yeah. But if you do it yourself, you're in the last meeting with a client, put them in a door frame, because in a door frame, most times the lighting is good. Also, you have less echoes. So if they're just standing just behind the door frame, they'll have sunlight from the front, barely any light from the sides, and sunlight from the back. So you'll have some nice shadows, and shadows are what makes it look nice. And then I would have 10 questions set up. I can wait, I can pull this up. What my like the questions that I usually ask that I work off. Obviously, different clients need different questions depending on what they're offering. But the first one is what did you book for? Second one is how was the overall process working with the client, the company? Can you remember what your first contact was with the company? How was the communication? If they're from further away, how was it that they were not in the same city, that they used the service that sometimes has a bigger problem, sometimes not? And then I'll go deeper. Did you have any doubts when you inquired? How did it end up playing out with the doubts? How did the company help with the service? How did other people react to when you told them about how they worked? Because sometimes there are other people involved, as saying if you're like a lawn care business and other people reacted to how the lawn's looking. And if you had to choose again, would you book them again or maybe even recommend them to a friend?

SPEAKER_01 14:27

I love that. So you covered all the bases, and I gotta say, the doubt is a question I don't often ask in my testimonial videos. I think that I love the point you're making with that, because everybody has kind of built-in objections when they're choosing someone. Yeah. And I love that once you've got a happy client, turn around and say, What were your doubts and how did it work out?

SPEAKER_02 14:46

Because I think the doubts is what testimonial goodies are. Firstly, what makes the storyline the strongest, and also if you had any objections to yourself, this could take them away. And that's probably one of the most important things in a sales project process. What you learn in every sales coaching is take objections away by having set answers, but if clients answer this for you, that's even better.

Picking Clients And Using Objections

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Exactly. I mean, reviews, whether they're written or video, they are for your future clients, they're for your prospective clients, not yeah. And you want to make sure that they feel comfortable reaching out to you. Yeah, I love that list of questions. So definitely. So say once you have the strong testimonial videos, where should businesses be posting them for the greatest impact? Now, I know we talked about our website. I start mine on YouTube and then link to my website. What other places do you suggest posting the videos?

SPEAKER_02 15:49

Yeah, I would suggest posting them everywhere and put the description as the text as well everywhere. Sometimes you can rank with the same testimonial if it's really strong and it's like doing well on all the platforms. You could have someone typing in Jonathan Schuzzler reviews, and it could be the YouTube video, the TikTok video, the LinkedIn video, then Trustpilot, and maybe Google on the side. Sometimes they all show up, and that's something that I think is really good. And also, obviously, in all channels that you're using, testimonial videos can be they usually don't get the reach, but what they do is they convert followers to be clients. So I would have them up in a prominent place on your profile everywhere. So if it's on Instagram, have it as like a story highlight that shows off. Because if people follow you and they come to your profile, that's the first thing they see on your website. I would not have it in the top section, but maybe in the second section, very prominently, because it's something that converts really fast if they're already following their journey.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

And LinkedIn, obviously. Yeah, all your social medias. I love that. The Instagram story, though, the story highlight that's interesting. I haven't done something like that. You're right. Those are the circles at the top of your Instagram profile when you go visit someone's profile, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:20

Have a sleeper pick as well. Put it on your WhatsApp story. Because everyone who hasn't a number, they will be reminded of what you're doing and also see the testimonial video about it. And because there's barely any people doing those stories, and most of them are not business related. So people just click through them and there's people that watch them every day. Whereas in Instagram stories, you sometimes don't even get surfaced because you're in the end of people's story scroll.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

It's yeah, like the Facebook reels, that sort of thing as well.

unknown 18:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

But definitely post them everywhere. I'm always for posting this. If you have the content, place it on all social media.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

Love it. And of course, link back to your website. Oh yeah. Absolutely. And so do you should they be different when they're used on websites or social media or YouTube? Are you taking the same video and once you get it edited with your what you want at the very beginning, are you posting that same video or are you making different formats, or what are you doing with that?

DIY Setup: Lighting, Framing, And Questions

SPEAKER_02 18:30

Obviously on phones I would go 9x16 and on YouTube 16x9. So I would record it in 4K 16x9, but leave enough space that you can crop out 9x16. Interesting that you asked this. Yesterday, my brother, he uploaded a testimony video that I did for him in different trial reels on Instagram. The version that I originally cut, the long version, did by far the best out of all the ones that we did. So he did a few shorter cuts, like 20-30 seconds, but the version still converted the most. The long version is only under two minutes, like a minute and 50 or something. I would never do anything longer than this because people are not gonna watch it anyways. If they hover over it and see, oh, it's only a minute and a half, I might as well finish watching it already at 40 seconds. That gives you another 40 seconds to make sure that they convert.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

I'm glad you mentioned the time frame as well, because I think that's where some people get stuck. It's like, how long is this gonna take, or how long should it be? And I agree, I have five questions I like to ask, but if you're talking about 10 questions, five questions you'll talk in two minutes. So it it's never gonna be a very long video. Yeah. Plus, once you edit it and take out the filler words and any blank spaces, it's then like you said, D script is a great job for that.

SPEAKER_02 20:01

Yeah. It usually my interviews take about 15 minutes max, and then I cut it down to a minute and a half. Just make sure that you obviously the questions that are asked overlapping, so I'll have two shots at the same info. Start with when they said it good, and then see from there.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Yeah, I think letting you know people are visibly uncomfortable, letting them warm up a little bit. And then so I do a lot on Zoom. What you thought about that? If you're not in the same location, that way you've got both people on the screen.

SPEAKER_02 20:37

I usually don't have both people on the screen. I've done them over Zoom just for myself. Obviously, for clients, I drive wherever. But what I did was I was on Zoom and I had them set up their iPhone to record them just for a bit of better quality. It's definitely possible. And what's tough about this is making sure that they don't say you the whole time. Because you want the starting sentence, not if they slip up, that's fine. Like they're not actors, it's alright. But if you're talking to them over Zoom, that's even more challenging sometimes. That's why I have them flip over the laptop usually so that it's not facing me, so they don't see me, and then it's easier for them to reply. And I have but it's it's tough letting them set up the camera. It scared me a little, but it worked out fine.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Nice. So instead of them saying, Well, working with you, you want to say working with the name of your farm. Yeah. Name of your business.

SPEAKER_02 21:43

Especially for the script that you're putting in the description as well. Because that's what's going to show up in all the searches.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

I love that. Now, you mentioned that the LLMs and AI systems are increasingly prioritizing video content. How can businesses optimize testimonial videos so the AI tools are more likely to index them?

Distribution Strategy Across Platforms

SPEAKER_02 22:04

Yeah, so that's definitely the first tip that I would give is make sure that they say the company name and also what they booked for. Because especially in the LLMs, we know that it's not like a keyword anymore. The query fan outs, they depend on the whole conversation. They take in way more things into consideration that the Google algorithms didn't they don't really take in too much. So if it has all the data that it needs, like what they booked for, happy they were with the outcome, this might come out only to people that are looking for the same service. So that's something that's really important to mention. Putting it on all the socials gives you more chances of it picking up. I expect the LLMs also, I'm not sure how much they're doing it right now, but we see with younger people a lot of people are searching stuff on TikTok. The algorithm in TikTok as a search engine is really good. So probably the LLMs will start searching them as well instead of only finding the TikTok videos on Google. So yeah, post everywhere, put in description, make sure that they mention your brand name and what the service was. I think that's the main things.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Now are do the LLN models actually re-re-listening to the videos at this point? Because my understanding is you have to give them a transcript, otherwise they're really not delving into the content. Is that changing?

SPEAKER_02 23:36

I know some people say they are. I don't think it's yet reliable because if the processing power that would go into understanding it, I am very sure that AI overviews and Gemini, they don't need the transcript themselves, they just get it from YouTube captions. I'm not sure how the other LLMs, if they can API just into the captions. I have no info on that, but I definitely know that there's definitely stuff surfacing in Google, even though if it doesn't have the transcript in the captions, but it makes it easier. And everything that makes it easier gets surfaced easier because it's getting crawled way easier.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

And I love the fact that you say use the transcript in the description because I've tried to build a brand board with a tone for a client and using some of their interview videos, that sort of thing, and I'm immediately told that you need to upload the transcript because I can't read that. Yeah. So that's why I was wondering if you'd notice anything as the LLMs are growing. So you believe that YouTube is one of the best places to put the video for it to be discoverable across the board? 100%. I would agree. Absolutely. Now, how can short form video content support both trust building and SEO at the same time?

Format, Length, And Editing Choices

SPEAKER_02 24:54

Yeah, so if you manage to slip in some keywords into the transcript, I don't think if you ended up editing the transcript and changed you into your brand name and service area, whatever, I don't think it would be too far off a reach. And also putting in the title first thing in the transcript are, as far as I know right now, proven statistics that you can rank for those keywords as well. So if you're, let's say, personal injury lawyer, putting personal injury lawyer granada slash review by Huan. And then also putting that in the beginning of your title, putting your link to your website next, and then the transcript, that's something that could really help because it might show up earlier than other websites where you see. So I've definitely ranked some wedding venues for their own venue name with some videos about them. And I've seen some people do some crazy stuff with YouTube Shorts and also TikToks. I'm not sure if I still have the screenshot, but I definitely for this one wedding venue, it was hilarious. I had typed in the wedding venue's name, and it showed up like an overview page of different venues where it was listed as the number one. Then it had the YouTube pack, which was video pack, it was my YouTube video, someone else's YouTube video, my TikTok video, and then the website of the venue itself. And I was like, Oh my gosh, they were fourth. So I was like, if couples are going to get married there, which is one of the most prestigious 20 course, former national world cup winner, he got married there, played for Real Madrid. So it's close to me, and yeah, I really like that win. That was a good C or SEO win.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

That is a good win. I love that. Any little tip to make you rank whenever people are looking for it. So thinking about businesses that haven't m used video very much before, what's the smartest first step to leveraging testimonial videos for both marketing and search visibility that you would tell them to take?

SPEAKER_02 27:12

Yeah, so the first thing I would say get two or three clients that you're working with right now, make it easy, don't overcomplicate it. Just try it out first. As I said, place them in doorframe. Maybe start with five questions like you did, make it short, cut it short, use the script to cut it easily, even user-friendly if you're not a professional editor. If you have obviously, if you're already used to using edits or cap cut, do it in the program that you're used to. And just upload them, place them on your website, give it a try, see how people react to it, and then see from there. It's not that hard. I'm pretty sure if you take your time for 10-15 minutes, make up some questions, go into the next meeting where you're finished, have your last meeting with a client, take 10-15 minutes to ask them a few questions, talk to them beforehand so they feel comfortable before you ask them the questions, and then cut it for half an hour so you have less than an hour of work and give it a try.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

Just don't make it complicated. Our phones are so good now. It's like you don't need any fancy equipment. This has been very interesting. I love the tips and tricks that you've shared. And I know my listeners will probably want to reach out to you or connect with you. Where would be the best place for them to do that?

Remote Recording And Language Cues

SPEAKER_02 28:36

Yeah, so you can basically find me anywhere. My business-related stuff is Shizlea, which is C-H-U-Z-L-A-I-R-E. But it will probably be linked somewhere. But you can also just Google me. Give me a message on LinkedIn, give me a message on Instagram, and I'm happy if anyone has any questions, I'm really happy to answer them. And if I told something that you think was total crap, also let me know and I will go into the conversation. I'll love that.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

I love it. We'll make sure that those links are in the show notes as well as the correct spelling of your name. Thank you so much for your time today. This has been a very interesting conversation and I appreciate you.

SPEAKER_02 29:17

Thank you so much for having me. I had a blast.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

Thanks for joining me today for this episode. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode. And if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, you can connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. And if you're ready to take the next step with a digital strategist to help you grow your law firm, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to Law MarketingZone.com to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, thanks for listening to Leadership in Law Podcast, and be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Leadership in Law Podcast. Remember, you're not alone on this journey. There's a whole community of law promoters out there facing similar challenges and striving for the same success. Head over to our website at LMarketing.com. Access valuable resources. And stay up to date on the latest episode. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us to review on your favorite podcast platform. Until next time, keep going with visitors and keep growing fast.