The importance of great photography on your website

They say a photo can speak 1000 words, while you can invest in a beautiful website design, with carefully written content and seamless usability, if your photography isn’t good enough you might have wasted plenty of time and lots of money. 

Your photography is one of the most powerful elements of your website, allowing you to visually communicate with your audience to show off your products, your team, your services and even your location. With so many benefits of great photography, it’s surprising how often photography is an afterthought for most.

Your website is the home of your business, failing to include stimulating, attractive and enticing photos on your website can have a huge impact on how your customers see your website and ultimately your business.

Why is good photography so important?  

When is comes to communicating, generally humans are visual, looking at images first and reading content later, meaning it’s likely that visitors to your website will look at your images first before they read any content that goes alongside it. 

With only a few seconds to make the best first impression, many will judge a website initially on it’s images and graphics before they decide to stay on the site or not, another important reason as to why you need great imagery, which will entice your visitors to stay rather than scare them away to your competition. 

Photography can be used for many reasons, by showing off your products, services or team, to reinforce a point or to simply evoke some kind of emotion can all be great ways of using photos on your website, not only can it build trust with your brand but can also be an important part of the customer navigation process.  

Tips for great photography  

Good quality 

No matter what any images you feature on your website should be high quality, uploading low quality images to your website can leave your site looking unprofessional and can deter many from even considering your business. If your images are low quality then it’s a large possibility that many will assume your business is of a low quality also. You want your website to look as professional as possible, if you’ve paid to have your website professionally created, you don’t want to ruin it with low quality images.  

Invest in a photographer 

If you have limited knowledge or insufficient tools to shoot your images then it’s a good idea to hire a professional to help with your photography. Whilst it might be a pricey option for those will limited budgets, having the best images possible is an investment. If your images are looking good, you’re likely to increase your traffic and leads, making your photos a long term investment.  

Be careful with stock photography 

When using stock photography you need to be careful, it might be tempting to choose the first image relevant to your business, however it’s a good idea to dig a little deeper and find something that suits your business and your services more than the first generic image you find. You don’t want to use cheesy stock photography that doesn’t suit the mood of your business, work out what your style is and look for images that match this, nobody want to be left with boring, generic stock photography that’s been done to death.  

Use relevant images 

This goes without saying but it’s important you feature relevant images on your website, there’s no point including an image if it doesn’t relate to your copy, your business or even your industry. If your customers see an image which looks to random or doesn’t seem to match your website then they may be confused and decide to look to a different website, which is less confusing. 

Whether you go for your own photography or choose to use stock images be sure to use relevant, high quality images which relate to your brand, your audience and convey the message you’re trying to get across. Remember if you’re looking to make a great impression then your images are everything, make sure you get it right!