There is so much exciting technology you can apply when building a website, but never forget the power of the right image in the right place at the right time.


Web designers are always looking for the best and newest technology to add to their web pages in an attempt to attract and hold the attention of media-saturated consumers. From interactive banners to drop-down lists, videos and quizzes, sometimes the web can feel like you’ve stumbled into a Las Vegas casino where all the exits are hidden and time loses all its meaning. Okay, maybe embellishing a bit... but you get the idea.


There’s no need to throw everything at a consumer in order to make your website effective. Sometimes we forget the power of a single image, paired with the right copy to convey everything you want to say. When a strong headline combines with a well-chosen photograph and a helpful introduction, readers know immediately what they’re getting and whether the product, service, or content is right for them.


Too often, we rush our selection of photographs for websites. We don’t take enough time to pick or take the right image, we forget to add the right meta-tags, and we bungle the placement of the picture so that it loses its power to add to a story. It’s worth slowing down and reminding yourself that text and images go hand in hand, and that one should serve and compliment the other.

 

Selecting Images for Your Website


When it comes time to select an image for a website or blog post, many of us turn to stock photography sites such as ShutterStock or iStock. These websites have excellent search engines that use keywords to pull up options for you to choose from. The way this works generally is that you select the size of the image you want, then pay a small fee and it downloads to your computer.


The other model is to pay a monthly subscription to the site that gives you access to a certain number of images per month. If you don’t have a budget to pay for images, there are a number of sites that offer free images you can choose from, although they will not be able to offer the same amount of choices.


Best Free Stock Image Libraries

  • Unsplash.com - Very large, high-quality library with over 1.5 million free images
  • Dreamstime.com - Offers a quality selection of images, video and audio
  • Pixabay.com - Includes a good selection of vector images as well as stock photography.
  • Pexels.com - Smaller, more curated selection but can offer unique results.


While these sites are all free, most of them offer you the option of making a small donation to the photographer if you should choose to, usually via Paypal. It’s also expected that you will credit the photographer with a link so that the photographer gets the credit for the work and helps draw more traffic to their portfolio of images on their website.

 

Don't Forget the Meta Data


One of your biggest goals for any blog post or website should be to attract new traffic from search engines like Google and Bing. Search engines will be responsible for driving traffic to your site and delivering the eyeballs and clicks that you crave. Using the images on your page correctly is well rewarded by the search engine algorithms and will help you get a higher ranking than other pages who simply upload a photo and think that’s good enough.


Every time you upload a picture don’t forget to

  • Write a caption that accompanies the photo and adds detail. Don’t simply describe the photograph; add some additional information that’s relevant to your product, service, or story.
  • Credit the photographer. Put a name and a link to the photographer’s website
  • Fill in the Alt image Text. Search engines are learning to recognize images, but mostly they still rely on website builders to describe the image using words.

    Another important element of SEO is page loading speed. Images that are too large often slow down the load times of a page, making a website difficult to navigate. Make sure you optimize your images for the web before you upload them.


Click here for more info on optimizing images.

 


There’s an old saying that is particularly relevant here… “A picture is worth a thousand words.” In an age when people are in a rush to consume information, you should use the power of a great image to tell your story quickly and effectively. It’s a great way to lift the quality of each and every web page on your site. When you put in the time and effort on the metadata of your images, you'll start to attract the attention of search engines that will bring you the customers and followers that you need to grow your brand.


When you use Folio Websites for building your website, you get full access to a suite of tools that make it easy to optimize the way you use the images on your site.