Helping you become image savvy

You’ve all heard the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words”. If this is true, then shouldn’t you be paying a bit more attention to each and every image you display on your website?

Simply put, good images and photos communicate your products value and help you sell more. But whilst images can work well at changing visitors into buyers, they can also prevent this from occurring.

To help convert more site browsers into customers, try these basic tips:

• Don’t use images at all where they aren’t needed - Too often, images are added to web pages to simply embellish or fill space. This simply adds ‘noise’ to a page, and can be a major detractor for would-be customers. Ask yourself; does this image really add anything? Or is it just in the way? If it’s not adding anything, then take it away and fill the space with something useful. For example, you could use a ‘pull quote’ from a previous testimonial, or provide a ‘handy tip’ to help prospective customers use your site with more ease.

• Product photos must be well presented - As obvious as this may seem, it’s amazing how many websites feature blurry, poor quality product images. These can be a major turn off for visitors. Product photos that sell need to be sharp, clear, well lit, and appropriately ‘staged’. It’s also important to try to ensure that all your product images have a similar style and format. For example, if you were selling shoes online, make sure all photos are taken with the same composition and lighting, so the customer can easily scan and compare. Good product images taken by a professional photographer prove to be a sound investment.

• Display your product imagery in context - When ‘staging’ a product, i.e. on a model or in a setting, you need to help the customer ‘relate’ to it. Displaying the latest Ben Sherman’s on pot-bellied, middle-aged men won’t help sell anything. Your staging needs to be relevant for the target market so that shoppers can visualise themselves using the product. The key here is to completely understand who the product user really is.

• Use images to answer key questions - For example: how big is it? What does it look like up close? What does the back look like? Try to think of some key questions prospective customers may have about the product and, if it’s appropriate, answer with an image. The good thing about doing this is that you can answer sub-conscious questions that are not front-of-mind, but would have otherwise hindered the buying decision.

• Images need to be optimised properly for web - Shoppers are busy people who won’t hang around too long if your web pages are taking too long to download. Poorly optimised images cause your pages to slow down considerably and will lose you customers. For starters, choose the right format. As a rule of thumb, photographic images nearly always result in smaller file sizes, and look a lot better using the JPEG format. Diagrams and computer-generated drawings are usually smaller in the GIF or PNG formats (unless there are extensive colour gradients). For most product imagery, JPEG will be the best choice. Use a tool like Photoshop to reduce the file size to a bare minimum, without degrading aesthetic quality. Too often, product photos are poorly optimised, and result in loss of detail and clarity, which then becomes a big deterrent for shoppers.