The first step to optimizing images for your website is choosing the images. When it comes to choosing imagery for a website, people often overlook the time and energy that goes in and push this task off to the end of the project. However, choosing images for your site plays a huge role in your overall design as well as content. You don’t want to give the wrong impression, so how do you choose the right images?
3 Things to Think About
When you’re looking through your website and deciding where you will need to place images, consider these 3 factors:
- Information
Images are more than just visual support for your content; they are content. Make sure your images are saying something and that what they’re saying supports your overall message. - Professionalism
Placing any old image on your site can really affect the way your site comes across. If you use a poor quality photo, visitors will find your site unprofessional, which will reflect on your business. The wrong image can even make a website feel sketchy and un-secure, leading visitors to question whether they should even be on your site.
- Subject Matter
What do you want to communicate with your images? Are you going to be displaying products and services, people, your employees? Think about what you want your photos to “say” before you begin searching. This will make the process go much more smoothly.
What is the Right Image?
So, is there such a thing as the “right image”? Well as a matter of fact there is. You may not always be able to find the perfect image but you can certainly find an image that is right for your vision and goals. Ask yourself these four questions when deciding on an image:
- Does this image add the right feeling to the page?
- What do you want that feeling to be?
- Ask others at your company how they feel when they see the image
- Does the image add information?
- The image should support the content on the page
- The image should provide its own supplemental information to the page
- What’s the focal point of the image?
- Is there too much focus on people when your product is the park in the background?
- Are the people out of focus even though you’re trying to provoke feelings of belonging?
- Does it have a point of interest?
- Take a look at what your eye is drawn to
- Crop the image to direct the visitor’s eye exactly where you want it
As the old saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Remember that it all starts with choosing the right image that gives off the right feeling and reinforces your message. If you need assistance with choosing or optimizing images for your website, contact Informatics. Also, stay tuned for the next step in optimizing images for the web: The Importance of Faces.
Photo credit: o5com via Flickr; cc
