When it comes to content, images are invaluable.
Images can inject some life into a text-heavy page and make
it much more engaging for the user.
Posts to social media rack up significantly more shares if
you just include a photo. In fact, in a recent study, 87% of shared Facebook posts have photos.
Image quality won’t affect your Google ranking. You could
choose the cheesiest stock imagery, or a really blurry photo for your website
and Google still won’t care. However, as one user points out in this Search Engine Land article, search is a means to an end. You may draw in users thanks
to your high search ranking, but that’s all for nothing if they’re turned off by
your poor quality images.
So what are your main options when it comes to images, and
what impact does it have on your customers?
1. Stock Imagery
The controversial option…
Stock images can be found online on various distribution
websites. Sometimes they’re free and sometimes you’ll be asked to pay a one-off
price. Either way, you’ll usually have permission to use them in any way you
want (although please check the website’s terms and conditions).
We use BigStockPhoto for our stock images, and would highly
recommend it.
Stock images have developed a poor reputation because a lot
of them are very fake looking, for example:
This is clearly not a genuine family. If you saw this photo
on a website, you wouldn’t for a second think they were genuine customers of
the business. And therein lies the problem.
Obvious stock
images are cringeworthy.
With no photos of genuine employees and customers, you also
run the risk of looking like a faceless online business. Customers will be less
likely to trust you because there is no visual proof that you exist offline and
are a friendly, trustworthy person! And if you’re pitching your business as a ‘family
business’, then you really need to reinforce that idea through photographs of
your fantastic family!
“The key to using stock photography is searching for unique
and compelling images that are relevant to your brand and your message without
looking cliché.” – Jen Hawkyard at Treefrog.
2. Professional Photography
This is obviously the best choice.
Which obviously makes it the most expensive!
Hiring a professional photographer to take photos for your website is a must if you are a high-end business. The quality of your photos must resonate with the high standard of your service/products.
Hiring a professional photographer to take photos for your website is a must if you are a high-end business. The quality of your photos must resonate with the high standard of your service/products.
Your clients will be reluctant to spend lavish amounts on your catering services if the photos are blurry, badly lined up, etc, because they aren’t selling the product for you.
Now, the need for these photos will largely depend on the
type of business you are, what service/products you offer, and how suited these
are to photographs.
Venues, catering, hairdressing, B&B’s would all benefit
from professional photos.
For an accountancy firm however, it won't make the same impact, so isn't worth it.There is no end-product in accountancy that would convey the skills of your business through photography; would pictures of tax returns impress you?
If your website isn’t very image-based, and you just need
one relevant shot, make sure that image is the best it can be so that it’s
working for you, not against you.
3. Photography by Yourself
If you fancy giving it a try yourself, go for it! You could
always hire someone afterwards if you’re not happy with the results.
Before embarking on your photography adventure, we would
recommend;
- Googling some quick tips on taking professional-looking photos, e.g. where the subject of the photo should be, lighting, effects.
- Finding out how to take images in the highest resolution, which will likely depend on the quality of your camera (and leaving it up to your web team to optimise it for the internet)
- Finding out how to save your images afterwards, e.g. what format, whether or not you should rotate them or crop them.
- Discussing with your web team what sizes of images are required. For example, in our responsive websites, the banner images are usually 1920 pixels wide; this is to make sure the website will look great even on larger screens. But it can be tricky to get images this large, unless they’re done by a professional!
Be sure to take lots of photos during your shoot to allow
for error. There will always be unusable images, so maximise the number of
potentially usable images by taking
an excessive amount!
Taking the photographs yourself means your vision for the
business will not be diluted by a third-party, and you should be able to get
exactly the look you want.
Our new website will be launching soon, where you will be
able to take a look at the type of images we’ve chosen.
We currently have a mix of professional photos and stock imagery, depending on the image that was required. As a website business, we don’t produce a physical end-product so there is nothing really to photograph, hence we’ve opted for photos of the staff, and stock images to convey our brand.
Let us know what kinds of images you've chosen for your business, and how they're working out for you!
 |
| http://www.vitalhike.co.uk |
We currently have a mix of professional photos and stock imagery, depending on the image that was required. As a website business, we don’t produce a physical end-product so there is nothing really to photograph, hence we’ve opted for photos of the staff, and stock images to convey our brand.
Let us know what kinds of images you've chosen for your business, and how they're working out for you!
Next Blog:
Previous Blog:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Got a question about what we talked about above? Or did we leave something out?
Pop your comment in the box below and hit Publish!