Whatever your industry, market or product. Having great looking images will not only look good on your website, but it will draw new customers and even increase the likelihood of a sale.
But aside from hiring photographers and taking the photos yourself, how can you source these photos, let alone make them fit your website? In this article we’re going to be highlighting a few tools which you might find helpful.
Firstly, let’s look at finding images.
If you don’t already have the image yourself, there are several things to consider. Where are you going to find a suitable image, is it good quality and perhaps once you’ve found an image online, the largest consideration would be whether or not you have permission to use this image. Generally speaking, the copyright to individual images is held by the photographer. Just because the image in online, it doesn’t mean that you’re allowed to use it. If you were to use an image without permission, it could result in all kinds of trouble.
Thankfully there are websites which offer great quality images for free. Sometimes you’ll need to subscribe to the library (for which there can be a fee), but once subscribed, you can access and have permission to use as many of the images within as you wished.
One example of the paid for libraries is Shutterstock: https://www.shutterstock.com/
There are also other libraries available which are completely free. Their images are still great quality, and all they ask is that you credit the photographer for the photo in some way. An example of this is Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/
Using royalty free ‘stock’ images is a great way to improve the look of your website. But if you’re offering a service, rather than a product, it would always be better to offer your own, original images of your service in action. Original images not only increase the authenticity of your website, but it also allows the customer a good view of what they may be buying.
So now you’ve got your images, how do you now make them fit your website?
Simply adding images to your site can sometimes make it look a bit strange. If the image isn’t scaled or sized correctly, it can pixelate, blur or even stretch the page. To prevent this, you need to make sure that your images match the right sizes required.
You can use tools such as Photoshop to resize and manipulate your images. However, if you’re simply wanting to change the size of an image, Photoshop might be a bit more than you need.
‘Canva’ is a great, free online tool which allows you to edit, resize and crop your images. You can then download the finished version, so that you can upload it directly to your website!
Another quick tip to consider when uploading your images to your website is the responsivity of the site. If your website is also mobile friendly, uploading images and scaling by pixel size can cause your website to be disfigured when viewed on a mobile phone or tablet. Instead, try scaling by percentage of screen. This way, it will always fit appropriately on your page view, whichever device you’re using! If you’re wanting the image to be full page width, just set the width to 100% if you’re wanting it to be smaller, try maybe 40% or less.
Using images on your website is a great move. However, you need to find the right balance for your website. If you’re using Business Edit for your website provider, you can get in touch with with our team and we’ll help with the process.