Are your website images good enough?

Underestimate the role that images play on your website at your peril!

An inspirational photo engages web visitors

Now that most web users are on broadband, their expectations about graphics have soared through the roof. If your site still has small, low resolution images optimised for the dial up age, they will immediately infer from the poor image quality a low expectation about your company.

What makes a great image?

For a service business, the images need to conjure up associations of professionalism and friendly customer service. It can definitely help to have pictures of professional, smiling people – but take care to avoid the cheesy business images that dominate on picture libraries. Why not put a picture of yourself and your team on the site rather than an obviously staged scene of idealised business people?

For a product oriented business, the quality of images is even more important and for an online store it’s a make or break issue. I am amazed at how many people put a lot of effort into setting up an online store and then populate it with small, scruffy images that don’t do their products justice. You can’t expect people to take the leap of faith to go through the checkout process if they can’t get a really good idea of what the product looks like. Particularly if you’re trading in a competitive sector, the image is one of your few effective weapons – use it to good advantage!

For other websites, such as those offering holidays, an entirely different approach to graphics is required. It pays to get a professional photographer to take pictures that will inspire the visitor to your website. They need to conjure up a feeling of wanting to be in that location. Rather like the photo at the top of this post.

Now when a business owner asks me whether I can promote their website it is often the quality of the images on this site that determines my answer. Your business can be listed right at the top of Google, attracting a lot of clicks. But if visitors click through to your site and are underwhelmed by what they see, you are on a hiding to nothing!

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