As you browse the Internet, you may have noticed that the platforms you interface with consist mainly of a textual and a visual part. Both equally contribute to shaping the messages and values of companies.
When deciding to create the online presence of your business, carefully choosing images for websites helps define your brand’svisual identity, also known as visual identity.
Not only that, these, combined with effective copy, improve the user experience offered to those browsing, engaging them in your reality. In fact, the ultimate goal is always to excite your target audience to create a close bond between brand and consumer.
The experts at Isola have written a simple guide to make choosing images for your website easier. Read on!
3 aspects to consider for website images
Images on a website evoke feelings and emotions and determine the ease of use of the platform. In other words, they define the all-around experience that all users have between your pages, just as decor does for a physical store. Selecting them, therefore, is something to pay close attention to.
There are three key aspects to consider when choosing images for your website:
- The brand message you want to convey
- Optimal format and weight so as not to slow down navigation
- The SEO optimization of images
1. The brand message: choosing website images consistent with text and brand identity
We often hear about brand message and brand identity indiscriminately. However, it is necessary to better define what we are talking about:
- Brand Identity is the set of values that identify and characterize your company, without which it would no longer be recognizable. In other words, it is what allows people to recognize what you do (and how you do it), making you stand out from your competitors.
- The Brand Message is the fundamental message that allows you to communicate your Brand Identity to all current and potential customers. It is expressed through text, written with a tone of voice appropriate to the target audience, but also through visual content.
Therefore, it becomes essential to choose images for websites that translate Brand Identity into appropriate Brand Massage, backing up what is stated in words with consistency. To give a practical example: if your company sells organic food products, it would be unnecessary-and counterproductive-to show industrial plants in your digital spaces, including your website.
2. Format and weight of website images: which ones are the best
Images are files that are characterized by a certain weight and format.
Regarding format, the main distinction is between vector and bitmap:
- Vector images – These are those images that, even when enlarged to the maximum, do not lose quality. They are mostly used for logos, fonts and presentation graphics.
- Bitmap images – Unlike vector images, they work with pixels. They include formats such as.jpg, .gif and .png. The larger they are, the higher the quality. However, at the same time, the weight also increases; therefore, it is necessary to resize them so as not to slow down the site.
In fact, choosing the right image weight allows you to improve the user experience but not only that. The faster the navigation within your site, the more Google will reward you in terms of ranking on the search engine.
Given these two not insignificant advantages, our advice is therefore not to exceed 500 KB for large images (we are talking 1980 px wide).
3. Optimize website images for SEO: even the visual must please Google
Images must be chosen consistently with respect to the text, but they must also be optimized from an SEO perspective to contribute to the overall position the site has in the SERP (the results page returned by Google).
In this sense, in order not to give up good search engine rankings, it is necessary:
- Choose the file name consistently with the text, using hyphens between words
- Create alternative text, also known as an alt tag. This also increases the accessibility of the site since alt is used to describe the content to visually impaired people.
- Use a relevant title to add the description of the image within its context without creating unintelligible discrepancies.
Do you want to improve your Google ranking? Isola di Comunicazione is theSEO Agency that can help you!
Download stock images for your site
In order to be uploaded to the sites, images must not be copyrighted. In fact, posting unlicensed photos constitutes a crime.
However, if you do not have the ability to take the shots for your business yourself, you do not have to give up visual content today. There are several online platforms on the Internet with stock images that can be downloaded and used for your site without any problems.
In addition, the operation has now become very easy, given the large number of free and paid sites offering this service.
Free commercial use stock images
Among the major sites that allow you to obtain quality images for commercial use for free are:
- Unsplash
- Freepik
- Pixabay
- Pexels
The advantage of such tools is that they are very inexpensive. However, this makes them very common, and the risk of selecting photographs already used by others online is very high. In this way, you are unlikely to create a truly unique site that can make you stand out.
Where to find paid stock images
To get around the problem we just mentioned, it is possible to download paid stock images that guarantee licensing. These can be found in platforms such as:
- iStock
- Shutterstock
- Stock.adobe
Services of this type allow you to select less mundane images at a reasonable price, but they do not give a guarantee that the photographs have not already been used by others.
Entrust your website images to the communication agency Isola
As we have seen, downloading images for commercial use for free or for a fee has now become easy. Nevertheless, it is best to limit stock images to do-it-yourself sites since they are available to everyone and do not allow you to stand out and create a unique visual identity.
With thecreative agency Isola di Comunicazione you have the opportunity to customize your images. The our team consists of illustrators and graphic designers who tailor them from your ideas, as well as photographers who shoot them specifically for your site.
Want to create unique images that stand out from the rest?
Contact us and request your free quote!
