There is no doubt that people are very visually oriented creatures. Since the beginning of their business, large organizations, from tech giants like Google, to retail brands like The Gap, have recognized the potential value of imagery since a single picture can evoke a wide variety of feelings in consumers.
What kinds of feelings are evoked when someone looks at the pictures on your website? Follow these golden rules to increase conversions and improve the look of your website as a whole.
Pick Pictures That Are of Good Quality
Check to see that the photographs you choose are of good quality. Images with high quality and huge individual pixels perform the best. Consider how the pages of your website are going to appear on a desktop computer as well as on a mobile device in terms of their size. The homepage of JFrog is a great illustration, and it’s one of my favorites.
Even though the page’s primary focus is highly technical (coding) style language is used for optimization in Google, be the user’s attention will naturally be drawn to the high-quality images used in the brands currently partnered with this up and coming tech brand. This lends credibility to the user and increases optimization for the free trial.
Check to See If They Are Relevant to Your Brand
It doesn’t matter what products or services your business offers or why you have a website; the pictures you choose for it need to be relevant to your brand and the function it serves.
For instance, if your company is in the business of selling jewelry, the pictures of your wares that are shown on your website need to be both aesthetically beautiful and inviting to potential buyers.
Pick Images That Have a “Call to Action”
You may want a client or website visitor to carry out a certain action, and use a picture that may also serve as a call to action. Typically, brands in the food business are quite successful in this regard. For instance, the menu at Starbucks, which is constantly being updated and revised, makes it simple for you to choose which type of espresso to get the next time you feel like you could benefit from an additional shot of caffeine.
Select the Image to Speak for Itself
Capture the attention of site visitors with an eye-catching picture. Choose a picture that conveys the meaning you want to convey rather than filling up your page with a lot of words. Even if the material is interesting to read, not all of your consumers are going to bother to read it or even take the time to care whether or not they do.
The webpage for Allbirds conveys the idea that the company’s goods are made from natural ingredients, but it does not immediately delve into detail regarding the components or the company’s history.
Display Real Life and Real People
Picking a picture for your website that incorporates real people is a fantastic way to increase that website’s conversion rate. Here is where you should avoid using stock photographs and utilize genuine photos of genuine individuals if possible. If you pursue the path of using stock photos, you may find that the picture you choose is already being used on hundreds of other websites across the world, and this is not what you want to happen.
Warby Parker not only features images of two different individuals on the homepage of their website, but they also show clients what their spectacles would look like when worn by real people, rather than simply displaying the glasses on their own as individual goods.
Optimize for SEO
It is worth your time optimizing each picture you post to your website, regardless of whether you run a blog, an online shop, or simply a standard website. If you want to improve the appearance of your website with high-quality photographs, you should do this.
First, as was just said, check to see that the photographs have a pleasing appearance. Then you need to make sure that search engines can easily find them by giving the picture file a good name and saving it with the right extension.
Have you ever saved a picture using a filename such as “Photo1.jpg” or “Screen Shot 2019-03-18 at 4.13.42 pm?” When it comes to the pictures that are hosted on your website, this is a major no-no.
Be consistent when naming things, and don’t use any punctuation or spaces in the names. Using hyphens rather than underscores when writing the name is also recommended.
After you have ensured that the picture file name is properly structured, you must not overlook the alt text since this also contributes to the image’s worth in terms of SEO.
Alt text is a short, typically 100-character description of what the image is showing. Although site users won’t be able to see this text, it provides search engines with a better understanding of the picture. This content will also make it easier for people who can’t see to get around on your website by using audio-based software.
Pick the Appropriate Photograph File Formats
Have trouble deciding which sort of picture file to work with? Let’s analyze them in more detail.
JPGs: This sort of file should be used for images as they can manage the colors while maintaining a compact and efficient file size. JPGs may be found online. The fact that you won’t have to worry about having a massive file when you utilize it will speed up the time it takes for this picture to load completely.
PNGs are the recommended file format for creating graphics, particularly those with vast or flat blocks of color. This encompasses the majority of designs, infographics, visuals that are rich in text and logos. PNG files also enable a translucent backdrop, which is an important feature for any logo you create. Save your PNG image in the “24-bit” format whenever possible for improved image quality and a more vibrant color presentation.
Conclusion
Images on your website are there for a far wider variety of reasons than just to make the design appear nicer.
Your business could get a lot more traffic and, as a result, increase its conversion rates, whether those rates are based on actual sales or just the number of inquiries it gets.