How to Choose the Right Photography for Your Website
It cannot be stressed enough how important good photography is for the look and feel of a brand’s website. A good design can only do so much when presenting your company’s brand and personality; the right photography is what brings it all together.
The first step is sourcing these high-quality images. Here are three common ways of obtaining photography for your website:
1. Hire a Professional Photographer
Hiring a professional will usually yield high-quality results, while maintaining the ability to have a say in what photos are taken and how. With a professional photographer, you can also guarantee that you will be using images unique to you and your business.
2. Use Stock Photography
You can choose from thousands of available images at a decent price on sites such as istockphoto.com or shutterstock.com. From time to time, you may get lucky and find free images from websites such as stockvault.net that will work well with your site.
While stock photography may be a simpler and cheaper solution, it’s important to remember that the images you choose influence your credibility. Using photography that isn’t personal or unique to your company can diminish the sense of trust someone feels when visiting your site.
3. Take Your Own Pictures
With today’s easy access to digital cameras and equipment, many people chose to take their own pictures. While in some cases this works out wonderfully, often less-than-desirable results are achieved.
According to a study done by Carleton University, visitors to your website form an opinion about your business in 1/20th of a second. That near-instantaneous reaction continues to weigh on your audience as they view the rest of your site. It’s crucial that you make a great first impression — and you can do so with something as simple as choosing the right images.
Here’s how to pick the right photos that will prevent visitors from hitting that back button:
Keep Your Design in Mind
The look and feel of your website should match the look and feel of your images. You want your images to look like they belong on the page.
Size and Orientation
Again, you want your images to look like they belong there, not like they were stretched or cropped to fit. If you hire a professional photographer, it is a great idea to provide them with the dimensions of images on the site. Pay attention as well to any text or rollovers that may appear on top of the image. You want the text to be readable, but you don’t want it to cover up the main focus of your image.
Ask Around
Ask others, such as coworkers or friends and family, what they think of images before you come to a final conclusion. Hearing the opinion of a few others may change the way you feel about an image.
Effort
Lastly, and most importantly, put time and effort into your photography. If visitors feel like you’ve slacked off when it came to choosing images for your website, they will begin to feel the same about your content, products, or services.
In conclusion, the photography you choose can either make or break the trust a visitor feels towards your site. The time, effort, and money you put into this decision will be directly reflected in the happiness of your site visitors, and the success your website achieves.
Contact us today to talk about your website design!