The bread and butter of your website is the carefully crafted content that feeds Google with vital information about your business. So when customers do click through to your site it’s so important that they are given a lasting first impression that sums up your business in one simple click, consider it the icing on the cake! This is your opportunity to show your customers, who you are, a master of your trade, an expert in your field, providing a quality, trustworthy service.
So how can it be done?
Choose relevant pictures…
It’s important that you select not only eye catching pictures, but images that are relevant to your services, fine tuning and selecting a just a few can really do wonders for your site. As the saying goes ‘a picture speaks a thousand words’ so let your photos speak for your brand.
For example, if you’re in search of a builder to take charge of your extension, you would want to see images of their handiwork, something that demonstrates their skills and abilities. A before and after image that shows the end result and the transformation would not only show the craftsmanship, the quality and the finish; but it’s giving you an instant endorsement of the services on offer. You will probably feel that you can put more trust in the builder to do a good job; whereas if you are greeted by images of a dusty building site with no pictures of the end result, would you feel the same way?
Water leak in roof caused massive drywall damage in a garage.
This standalone image doesn’t summarise a building service as such, on its own this image could be seen as a homeowner’s worst nightmare. The image is quite small and dark too.
Whereas this image shows the end result, a fresh, bright plastered room, the image itself is large in size and helps to showcase the services, the skills and the craftsmanship too!
You don’t need to be David Bailey…
Firstly, we can’t stress enough the importance of using high-resolution images, what may look good on your mobile screen may not look so great blown up onto a computer screen. The average screen measures in at around 1366 x 768 pixels, so consider this as your minimum size guide for your business’ photos.
And remember, you can always reduce the size of your images, but you can’t enlarge the size of the photo and keep the quality.
Before adding a photo onto your website, check the size and quality of your image. It’s really important that you avoid blurred or pixilated images, because this can really distract customer’s focus away from the point that you are trying to put across.
Adding a little brightness to your images, or cropping and straightening your images can make all the difference to help make your images more eye catching. This doesn’t mean that you need to be a Photoshop whiz kid, there are plenty of great, simple editing tools online or on your pc that can help improve your photography. Just remember a little bit goes a long way, make sure you don’t take your editing too far otherwise you could distort things like colours.
This image is fairly grainy and slightly wonky too! Whereas the following image, even though it’s the same photo looks entirely different, it’s bright clear and crisp and also it’s fairly big in size so it will fit well into the background of a website and not lose its quality.
Make it relatable….
By using images of people, you can help make your services appear more personal and relatable, maybe you’re online clothes shopping, the description of the coat sounds appealing, but there is only one image, the size of a stamp, the image is dark and blurred.
Would you part with your hard earned cash? Or would you feel concerned about the quality of the product, or even the site itself?
If you see an image of the coat on a model, you will have an instant connection with the product, you can picture how this will look on and have an idea about the length and the cut. This will be as close as you will get to trying on the coat yourself.
The close up photo of the leather jacket would be a great addition to a product listing, as it shows more detailed view of the product itself. The photo of the model wearing the jacket is a fantastic opportunity to not only show what it looks like when worn, but gives an idea of what to wear with it, or even showcase further products that might be for sale too!