The Importance of Good Quality Images On Your Website

Images are so very important. It’s my belief that a website can only be as good as your weakest image. A beautiful image is memorable, it can tell a whole story within a quick glimpse and capture (see what I did there!) your audiences’ attention.

There are tonnes of images on the internet for you to use as content on your site, but they can come at a cost, and the pricing structure can be thoroughly confusing. Some sites offer ‘free to do as you wish’ images and these are brilliant, and getting better all the time. For more information about free stock photography and what to look for in terms of copyright licenses, please check out my blog post dedicated to the topic.

Ideally, I recommend that you have your own images shot by a professional photographer so that they are unique and personal to your business. This can be costly, and not everyone has the funds (especially at the start of their journey), so how about taking your own? I do love a lot of the images found on stock photography sites, but it does pain me a little to use them. If I can, I will take my own images, and on my site, I wanted original images, so I got creative.

Initially I took photos on my iPhone (did you know there is such a thing as iPhoneography??), I then progressed onto using whatever camera I could beg, borrow, or steal, used some basic photo and graphics editing tools and had a go myself (there are so many resources online such as e-courses and articles showing you how to use the various software and applications).

Nowadays, after taking many online courses, I’ve developed my skillset so much so, that I offer content photography. I no longer beg, borrow and steal cameras either… I have a very fancy Nikon D810!

Below are a few links to stock image sites, some graphic/image editing applications and software, and also links to some pretty informative and inspiring articles and blogs.

TOOLS

• canva

• gimp

• pixlr

If you would like to discuss bespoke photography options, then get in touch.

ps. Yes! I know some of my blog posts have stock photography on at the moment… I am working on it! Sheesh!