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44.6K Points
The Importance of Images on your Website
Websites are made up of many different elements. This includes text, contact forms, buttons, social links, and maps. While those are definitely important, few elements have as much of an impact on your site as an image does. Images on your site can come in many forms: logo, favicon, infographic, product photography, and graphs/charts just to name a few.
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Images are so important because most people are visual learners. This means we can decipher content from images much faster than we can decode text. In fact, it is said that images are processed 60,000 times faster than text by the human brain. [source] You can use this to your advantage by adding images like an infographic to convey information instead of just using text. If you have a store, you can capitalize on this fact by adding high quality images for your products, which will make them more memorable and draw people in. If someone can see a product, they are more likely to buy it. If you have statistics to teach people about, consider adding a graph or a chart instead of just listing the numbers. This will have a much higher impact.
Images can be used all over your website. One of the first images you might use is your logo. A logo is an integral part of the branding for your website. Branding is what helps a company stand out, be identifiable, and most importantly- memorable. Make sure that your logo is a clear, high quality image. Additionally, this logo can be used as your favicon. Having a favicon for your site looks more professional and helps people recognize your site if it is bookmarked, in a tab, or listed in the browser history. Remember, visual = memorable.
From the SEO perspective, having good images with alt tags help increase the amount that your site will show up in search engines and how often people will click on your site. First, having images means that you are able to show up in image searches, in addition to a regular web search. Second, images labeled with alt tags gives search engines more to index. Since people are more likely to click on search results with an image, websites with images get more views.
From the social media perspective, content with relevant images gets 94% more views than content without relevant images. Tweets with an image are retweeted 150% more than ones with just plain text. Visual content is 40 times more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content. Facebook posts with images see 2.3X more engagement than those without images. [source] These are huge, impacting numbers when it comes to social media marketing.
Images can have several different purposes on a website. For example,
We all know that media is important for a website. This includes images, videos, and audio. While all three are important, people can't always watch a video or listen to audio due to their environment. People will almost always be able to see an image, though.
DO
Optimize your images! This means providing your images in the proper format, dimension, size, and resolution in the smallest size possible. This should be done in a tool outside of the builder before images are uploaded. This prevents images from slowing down your site, which ultimately improves your site SEO and gives a better customer experience. The most common dimensions are 1:1 (example- 1080 x 1080 pixel image), 3:2 (example- 1080 x 720 pixel image), 4:3 (example- 1024 x 768 pixel image), and 16:9 (example- 1920 x 1080 pixel image).
Add high quality images to your site. Having polished photography on your site will make it look much more professional and instill trust in the quality of your content or products.
Make sure your images are relevant to your content. Having images on your site is important, but don’t just use ANY image. Make sure that the image goes along with your business and overall theme of your site. Make sure you know why you're adding this specific image and why you chose the location you placed it in.
DON’T
Put a large image at the top of your site that takes up the entire screen. This will cause the bounce rate on your site to increase because there is no call to action. Make sure you have something to indicate what the customer should do when they first land on your site, not just give them a huge picture to look at.
Add spammy looking graphics/ ad-like images. This will make people lose trust in your website. If your website looks like a billboard for ads, people will probably leave to find something more appealing.
Put blurry or low quality images on your site. Not only are blurry images hard to look at, they make a website instantly look less professional. This happens when an image is used that is too small and is scaled to be bigger, if the image is taken in bad lighting, or if the image is not properly optimized.
Now, since we at Homestead FULLY UNDERSTAND that images can convey information better than text:
Infographic by MDG Advertising
Images are so important because most people are visual learners. This means we can decipher content from images much faster than we can decode text. In fact, it is said that images are processed 60,000 times faster than text by the human brain. [source] You can use this to your advantage by adding images like an infographic to convey information instead of just using text. If you have a store, you can capitalize on this fact by adding high quality images for your products, which will make them more memorable and draw people in. If someone can see a product, they are more likely to buy it. If you have statistics to teach people about, consider adding a graph or a chart instead of just listing the numbers. This will have a much higher impact.
Images can be used all over your website. One of the first images you might use is your logo. A logo is an integral part of the branding for your website. Branding is what helps a company stand out, be identifiable, and most importantly- memorable. Make sure that your logo is a clear, high quality image. Additionally, this logo can be used as your favicon. Having a favicon for your site looks more professional and helps people recognize your site if it is bookmarked, in a tab, or listed in the browser history. Remember, visual = memorable.
From the SEO perspective, having good images with alt tags help increase the amount that your site will show up in search engines and how often people will click on your site. First, having images means that you are able to show up in image searches, in addition to a regular web search. Second, images labeled with alt tags gives search engines more to index. Since people are more likely to click on search results with an image, websites with images get more views.
From the social media perspective, content with relevant images gets 94% more views than content without relevant images. Tweets with an image are retweeted 150% more than ones with just plain text. Visual content is 40 times more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content. Facebook posts with images see 2.3X more engagement than those without images. [source] These are huge, impacting numbers when it comes to social media marketing.
Images can have several different purposes on a website. For example,
- They can help direct attention to important information on your website
- Images can create a sense of familiarity (product photography, “Meet the team!”, etc.)
- They also help provide information to everyone (breaks language barriers)
We all know that media is important for a website. This includes images, videos, and audio. While all three are important, people can't always watch a video or listen to audio due to their environment. People will almost always be able to see an image, though.
DO
Optimize your images! This means providing your images in the proper format, dimension, size, and resolution in the smallest size possible. This should be done in a tool outside of the builder before images are uploaded. This prevents images from slowing down your site, which ultimately improves your site SEO and gives a better customer experience. The most common dimensions are 1:1 (example- 1080 x 1080 pixel image), 3:2 (example- 1080 x 720 pixel image), 4:3 (example- 1024 x 768 pixel image), and 16:9 (example- 1920 x 1080 pixel image).
Add high quality images to your site. Having polished photography on your site will make it look much more professional and instill trust in the quality of your content or products.
Make sure your images are relevant to your content. Having images on your site is important, but don’t just use ANY image. Make sure that the image goes along with your business and overall theme of your site. Make sure you know why you're adding this specific image and why you chose the location you placed it in.
DON’T
Put a large image at the top of your site that takes up the entire screen. This will cause the bounce rate on your site to increase because there is no call to action. Make sure you have something to indicate what the customer should do when they first land on your site, not just give them a huge picture to look at.
Add spammy looking graphics/ ad-like images. This will make people lose trust in your website. If your website looks like a billboard for ads, people will probably leave to find something more appealing.
Put blurry or low quality images on your site. Not only are blurry images hard to look at, they make a website instantly look less professional. This happens when an image is used that is too small and is scaled to be bigger, if the image is taken in bad lighting, or if the image is not properly optimized.
Now, since we at Homestead FULLY UNDERSTAND that images can convey information better than text:
Infographic by MDG Advertising
contactbillionaires
9 Messages
•
326 Points
5 years ago
0
0
lisa4399
11 Messages
•
170 Points
4 years ago
Is there a time-out to download images? Several times while working on my site, nothing happens when I try to download an image from my computer. I am still able to edit my website and save changes, but can't download any images into image files. I have to close Website Builder and open it again before the problem goes away.
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