Are you a business or individual who is wondering how professional your website looks?
You’ve probably spent a vast amount of time working on the right words for your company homepage. Have you considered that you should be picture perfect too?
You might think it’s the wording of your site copy that matters most, but if you want your brand remembered, it’s both. A study by Georgia State University found that using imagery enhances memory. If you want to stand out from the competition and stay in the minds of your target audience, you need to use the perfect pictures.
We’re going to explain why pictures are important and how to take them. We’ll also tell you why filling in the details is a must and talk about using stock photography. Read on!
Why Use Pictures?
Picking perfect pictures is essential if you want your website to pop rather than flop. Blocks of unbroken text are intimidating, off-putting, and can send away your site visitors fast.
It doesn’t matter what your topic or industry is, images give readers a welcome breather. More importantly, images can illustrate a point quickly and work together with your copy for fast and efficient communication.
Ensure that every image has context within the copy, and don’t slap in a photo for the sake of variety alone. Every image should serve a purpose or goal and not exist as eye candy. Unless there’s a reason to look at it, such as a reference to what it depicts in the text, it will go unnoticed.
You need to pay the same level of care and attention when selecting your images as you do when crafting great copy. Low-quality images work against you, and unsuitable pictures will confuse your audience and dilute your message.
Every picture should resonate with the tone of your brand. A theme or mood board might help you plan out your website’s visual appearance more effectively.
Taking Pictures
The photographic aspects of your pictures must be top-notch. Visual storytelling is at the heart of the photographer’s craft.
A professional photographer is the number one option because perfect pictures should be real and inspire trust. When your team and business are depicted in action, website visitors will form a better connection to your brand. These shots will inform so much about your company, and you get to set the tone.
Product shots are great too, which should sell the goods in the best possible light – literally.
Shooting in-house with a smartphone rather than a DSLR camera isn’t recommended. Unless you are willing to learn the art of lighting, composition, and image editing, DIY is likely not the best approach.
Remember to get the maximum mileage out of any commissioned photography. Use these shots on visual social media platforms too, like Instagram, to appeal to younger audiences.
Effective infographics may be created easily in-house and explain ideas better than words. Use these when appropriate as a free or inexpensive alternative to photos.
Never use an image that you’ve found online without the written consent of the author. You might be tempted to think that no one will know, but some services crawl the web to find unauthorised use. Fines can be extremely stiff for the illegal use of a copyrighted photo, so don’t do it.
Image Details
You need to name every image file and alt attribute (alternative text) appropriately within your HTML code.
These elements explain what the image looks like and its purpose for sight-impaired users. More importantly, these descriptions contextualise your images for search engines, leading to correct indexing.
Accurate alt text can also boost your website SEO, so ensure that you establish a good naming and description convention. It’s okay to slip a keyword in the description, but don’t get too carried away. Keyword stuffing is a practice that will hurt your SEO rather than help it.
Poor resolution is one way that photos can let your brand down. You should always make sure you size your images at the appropriate dimensions in pixels per inch (PPI). For web images, optimise to 72ppi at the pixel height and width that it will appear on the screen.
When resizing an image, make sure you always scale it with the correct proportions. Nothing looks as amateur as an unnaturally narrow or wide photo.
Stock Photography
If you can’t afford to hire a professional photographer for the perfect picture, consider licensing from a good stock image library.
Be careful to steer clear of generic cookie-cutter images that have been done to death all over the web. If a photo looks stereotypical, even if it works contextually, it’s not going to help your brand have a unique voice.
For authenticity, your ideal scenario is to have your perfect picture match your brand. If you were a plumbing service and couldn’t afford to hire a photographer, you could customise a stock photo of a van with your logo.
When browsing for stock photos, keep an eye out for anything that might be out of date. Fashion and technology move fast, and if these are on display in your image, they may already be old. By picking timeless evergreen photos, you future-proof your site from looking out-of-date.
Another option is to use an image library that offers free commercial-use licenses.
Using a non-premium stock photo site is a mixed bag. You might find one or two shots that fit the bill, but you’ll spend a lot of time trawling through mediocre images. Even an untrained eye can tell when an image isn’t sharp, tonally balanced, and well-composed.
If you’re lost in your search for the perfect pictures, let us help by defining your advertising and marketing strategy.
Picture Perfect
We’ve shown that to be picture perfect, it’s best to keep shots real and stick with your brand’s voice. Don’t let low-quality royalty-free photos shatter the confidence of your website visitors.
If you’re a business or individual, we can help you with your website. We are a marketing agency based in St. Albans and provide advertising services nationwide. Our full-service agency provides SEO, web development, graphic design, print, and 3D virtual tours.
Contact us today for a free website audit.