Using good quality photos on your website is crucial, both for projecting your company’s professional image, and also for presenting your products attractively to your visitors. Sounds like plain old common sense doesn’t it? And yet, there are plenty of business websites that are using images that are not quite up to scratch – to put it very mildly.

Imagine you are your own prospective client and take a good look at your company’s website. Are your images striking enough? Do they really attract attention or are they just plain images of your products. Keep in mind the 5-second rule – catch your audience’s attention within five seconds or you’ll lose them. If your website’s photos are not truly effective, you’re losing business!

So, what if your budget does not stretch as far as professional photography? Or maybe, like many of our estate and travel agency clients, you use a special user interface to update your website with dozens of photos of new items each week – too many to commission from a professional. Well, the good news is that it takes relatively little effort to achieve a dramatic improvement in your website’s pictures. Here are a few ideas to get you going:

• Choose your photos carefully. A few great images will do a much better job than many mediocre ones. Think about the best points of your products and use images that convey these ideas strongly. (No trying to sell a property with a photo of Tiddles the cat taking a nap on the toilet seat – believe it or not, we’ve seen it done!)
• Brush up a bit on some basic photography tips and watch the quality of your images jump a few levels. You don’t need to become a pro – even small things could make a big difference. Take a look a these websites for starters:
  10 tips for great photos from picturesmatter.com
  More photography tips 
  or check out some of the links on this page for some more in-depth photography guides.
• Experiment with lighting and camera angles to find new and interesting ways of presenting your products. If you’re taking photos outdoors try different times of the day (usually early morning or late afternoon offer the best lighting conditions).
• Consider getting some basic photo editing software and learn some of its simpler functions (if you can wield a mouse, you can do it). Even simply twiddling the brightness and contrast settings can make a dramatic difference to a dull and boring image.
• Lastly, try to analyse any striking photos that catch your attention. What makes the image special? How can you apply your observations to improve your own pictures?

Remember that prospects might qualify a product as worthy of further investigation or exclude it completely based on an image – this is particularly true in the property market. So give the images on your website their rightful importance and you will definitely see better results from your website.

Now, while many would be quick to point out the old cliché of a picture being worth a thousand words, there are not many products (apart from fashion and cosmetics) where images have enough power to close the sale on their own. Whether you’re selling houses, holidays or hula-hoops the chances are that your prospective clients will want some detailed information about how your products compare with those of your competitors before they can decide to buy. This means that while your images are vital as attention grabbers, your product descriptions are extremely important when it comes to persuading your customers that you’ve got what they are looking for.

Writing to sell is a topic about which much can be said, but a good rule of thumb when in doubt is to keep things simple and to the point. Although using descriptive language to evoke images in the reader’s mind can work for certain products when done well, flowery writing just for the sake of it generally does more harm than good. Accompany your images with clear, concise text that makes your products sound attractive and you’re off to a good start.

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