Photos will never go out of style. While so much has changed in the world of photography over the past decade or so, there’s no question that nothing quite captures attention like photographs. The popularity of Instagram is proof of that. Gone are the days when we needed to take our camera’s film into a shop for development. Today, we click buttons on our smartphones and in no time, we have as many high-definition photos as we want.
This isn’t to say, of course, that smartphones are the only devices used for digital photography. Professional photographers continue to be in high demand – just as they should be. Getting the right lighting, angles and ultimately the perfect shots are specialties of talented photographers. As a business owner, it’s wise for you to invest in a professional photo session. It’s one of the most important things you can do for your company website.
Why does your website require professional photography?
What would you rather view when visiting a company website? Text alone or text accompanied by vivid images? The choice is easy. To set your brand apart from its competitors and truly impress all of your website’s visitors, you need high-quality photos. According to Natalie Russo of Yellow Pages for Business, websites with images get nearly double the views of websites without images. She stresses the importance of taking professional photos of your products.
“Images on your website act as storytellers, allowing website visitors to visualize your product or service – and themselves using your offering,” writes Russo, “As well, research has found that the human brain can correctly identify images in as little as 100 milliseconds, making carefully-chosen images that reflect your product and values an important opportunity to quickly capture visitors’ attention – even before they’ve read a word of text.”
Your website’s images will help to boost SEO.
Over the past couple of days, we’ve been stressing that content is king. Arguably, photography is queen. Much the same way regularly updated content helps for your website to rank highly in search engines, an image-rich website has greater potential to be found in Google searches. Russo explains that if you label images with search-friendly metadata and captions, you will create more content for search engines to index.
“Your content will then show up within both web search results and images searches – that’s double the opportunity for discoverability,” she details, “If you own original photography (vs. stock images), you may also want to consider allowing local blogs and websites to use your images free of charge in exchange for a link back to your website. Called inbound links, these are another great way to boost your search ranking.”
Take pictures of your team!
What is the first thing you see when you visit MeloTel’s website? It’s our team! It’s wise to put the friendly faces of your team members on your site to showcase the humanness of your brand. Jen Hawkyard of Treefrog believes that team photos convey culture and consistency. “Your face is part of your brand, so a professional head shot will not only look flattering, but will also make your customer see you as more trustworthy, sincere, and well-practiced,” she writes.
Let’s work together on improving the imagery on your company website! For information about our Website Maintenance Services, please don’t hesitate to contact us at 1-888-MELOTEL or use the Live Chat feature on our website!
