Finding Engaging Images For Your Business Website

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Written by Jarrod Partridge•12 Apr 2024•10 minutes

finding engaging images for your business website

Almost everyone instantly thinks of the visual elements when creating engaging websites: full-colour photos, illustrations, graphics and videos.

As we have addressed in our Prospect Experience Design Series, the true heart of creating an engaging business website is in:

  • Consistent, high-quality content
  • Information that has a crystal clear message
  • An experience or product that solves a specific problem
  • Backing up everything you say with work and social proof

Our detailed guide explains that guiding your users along a specific path with action steps will get excellent results for you and your prospects.

Of course, the visual elements are still essential, so once you have created that incredible user experience, it’s time to invest some time and money into making that valuable content look amazing, too.

More prominent companies can commission a photographer to build a unique photo collection for product promotions, brand initiatives and marketing campaigns across several platforms, including websites, printed material, online materials like newsletters, and social media.

Professional photographer hire is not an approach readily available to most small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Luckily, stock photography is a rapidly growing enterprise. More and more images are available across a wide range of media and file formats that cover an ever-increasing number of situations and cultures.

the benefits of stock photography

If You Are Using Stock Photos, You’re Not Alone

Most small businesses and startups won’t have the budget to hire a professional photographer to create a portfolio of unique images, at least not for all pages; however, we recommend this for your parent pages as much as possible. That will leave you with the next best thing for fillers and articles: Stock images. 

For 42% of online businesses, most of their marketing campaigns and visual content is sourced from stock photographs.

The Benefits Of Stock Photography

Using stock images on your website has multiple benefits, such as…

  • High-quality photographs
  • Wide range of subjects, from nature and pets to people and objects
  • Low-cost or free
  • Instantly available 

Stock photos are an affordable way to get professional quality photos for your online marketing content.

With stock images becoming highly prized, we can expect that the availability and depth of ideas will continue growing to meet consumer needs. 

The stock photo market is expected to increase as much as 5% annually, with an expected forecast of reaching $4 Billion by 2023.

The Science Behind Image Effectiveness

I’m sure you prefer to see images with your text while browsing online or reading articles. 

It provides a welcome break in the information, makes reading more accessible and is more appealing, but there is more to it than just appearing better. There are also many scientific reasons behind image effectiveness.

We process images faster than text.

Images are essential assistants to your web content because they are processed by our brains much faster than words. That’s because we are hard-wired to process what we see from birth; no training or schooling is required, so images are processed internally 60,000 times faster than text.

Images help us retain information for longer.

As well as being absorbed quickly, it also allows our brain to retain information for longer. When reading or hearing news, test subjects could only recall 10% of the content when asked to identify it three days later. However, when the same information was presented with a relevant image, additional test subjects could remember as much as 65% of the data when asked about it three days later.

By using relevant images with your online quality content, more information is retained by your users for longer.

Users are more likely to click.

A report by BuzzSumo found that including images between paragraphs (roughly after 75-100 words) returned over twice the engagement level compared to fewer or no photos. Facebook posts with a high frequency of images received 2.3x shares, and Twitter posts containing images received 150% more retweets than text-only offerings.

the traps of picking pics

The Traps Of Picking Pics

The problem with stock photos is not all images are created equal. Finding the right image that is appealing and matches your content ideally can be challenging. 

Some image sites have more user-friendly searches with intelligent library listings, making searches quick and easy. Typically, you can expect paid sites to offer better synergy between your search and the images shown.

Finding something unique

Many free images are duplicated across multiple sites, meaning other people will download and use them frequently. Using an image already seen on another website, even if it has nothing to do with your brand or industry, creates an unpleasant effect. While less likely, this can also be an issue on paid sites.

Very few stock photo sites offer you exclusive usage. 

Even the images that haven’t been used as widely already online typically have the same look and feel as other photos, making it hard for you to create a unique look for your brand.

Many stock photo sites have photo ratings and popularity ratings, which will help you steer clear of the most favoured pics. The downside is that you will exclude the best and most vibrant photos from your shortlist.

We have provided a stock photo list to help you cast a wider net and hopefully find more unique images; however, be careful not to spend too many hours searching and downloading stock images.

IMPORTANT: Do not source any images from Google Images. Often, these images are not stock images, and you do not have the right to use them on your website.

It can be tempting to jump onto a search engine and collect images for free. Google Images, for example, has truckloads of unique and passionate ideas you can right-click, save and reload to your website in a matter of moments.

Let’s be clear: when you take images without permission, you are in danger of being fined for copyright infringement.

Just about every excellent image you see on Google Images has a copyright or trademark in place specifically, so you can’t reuse it. You can apply to the original owner, asking for written permission to use the image, but other than that, don’t risk taking it.

There are image search algorithms that make it easy for companies to find places where their images have been used without consent, and it can cost you.

When you are operating a business, it pays to know your responsibilities for smooth sailing and a professional approach.

By using the available stock photo sites, either for free, with acknowledgements or through paid subscriptions, you know you have the right to use an image for private and commercial use. All stock image photo sites list their licence agreements, so take the time to read what they have posted so you understand your legal obligations and freedoms. 

Finding something genuine

Photos that are staged don’t look or feel authentic. They come across as forced or cheesy. This has traditionally made up the bulk of stock photo image libraries, making the words ‘stock photo’ and ‘cheesy’ almost interchangeable. 

Searching for images that capture more genuine moments will take extra time.

Fortunately, this is changing as many new sites buck the forced and staged photo trend, opting for more natural and professional images. 

Photos of nature, animals, and objects tend to be safer as long as they are relevant. Look for images that capture an experience or action to avoid overloading on cheese.

The right match for your business

Every business has its own values and ideal markets to cover. There is no such thing as a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ value; the only right one is the one that is directly linked to your business offering.

For some brands, images that cover cultural and circumstantial diversity might be essential; for others, showing variety won’t be nearly as important as creating a sense of safety and security.

The key to success with your images is achieving instant, recognisable relevance.

The images you select must be directly and instantly recognised as related to your business or the topic to get outstanding results. 

Any associations that are abstract or involve detailed content reading to understand won’t create a strong enough link in your viewer’s mind, so you’ll miss out on the benefits of better content retention, quick information absorption and those happy extra clicks.

Uploading the correct file size

You will get various file sizes and format options when you download your chosen image. In some cases, different image sizes will reflect different prices. The difference is quality. Bigger files have more information behind them, meaning that going extra-large for printing and publishing makes for stunning, true-to-life images. The problem is these files can be weighty. 

This is a big problem for your website because the more significant the image size, the longer it will take to load when a prospect clicks from a search engine or moves between your web pages. As well as frustrating users, this impacts your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

To get the best quality (depending on your budget), get the bigger file sizes available, then compress them yourself to achieve a balance between file size and quality that will reflect well online.

The process of selective compression is known as image optimisation. We cover this in detail in another post, How To Optimise Images For Web. Click to catch up on how to do this yourself and get the tools you need to free up space online, improve your web load speed, and increase your SEO.

If you select the smallest file size, you cannot revert to a higher quality if needed. At the same time, compressing your images too much and making the file size too small may result in a loss of quality that leaves a negative impression of your online brand.

what is the best file format for web

Why Finding Engaging Images For Your Business Website Is Important

Photographs and visual imagery are essential aspects of your business website creation. They can enhance your message and increase information retention and understanding for your readers.

Creating a resource library from online stock images optimised and ready to go is well worth it. A handy hint is to create a detailed Stock Image Style Guide on what type of photos you are looking for and delegate the task to an assistant or virtual assistant to free up your time.

Once you have a wowing and relevant stock image library, you can use this as your go-to for a wide range of communications, marketing and advertising campaigns, online and offline promotions, as well as for use on your business website to enhance your quality content, blog posts as well as social media.

Be sure to take the time to find images that fit your business needs and reflect your business values and purpose to get maximum connection and see your message over the line with clarity and emotion.

Jarrod Partridge seated looking away from his MacBook

Jarrod Partridge

Jarrod is our digital marketing expert, who specialises in written content and Search Engine Optimisation. When he isn't going down the rabbit hole of SEO, you will find him watching Formula 1 or at an Indonesian football match. He also has a strange hobby of relaxing by watching car detailing videos.

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