Photography – Visually Engage for Increased Conversions

Photography provides a very simple way to increase the success of your website and develop your conversion rate.  How often have you visited a location website and seen a clutch of images that even your Granny could take better with her new digital camera (if of course she knew how to resize)? A quick glance at a poor photograph and we click ta-ta as we leave the site, under the impression that the retailer or hotel owner is trying to cram everything into one shot, in affect losing out the all important details which are what generally sells and keeps us on a page or a website.

In a world of super-tight purse strings, to try and sell online without investing in good photography is a way of kissing goodbye to potential customers. It undermines your brand’s image by either appearing amateurish and shoddy, or indicating a lack of genuine interest or investment. This is applicable to nearly all online sectors, but especially for hotels and holiday destinations, as well as regional product shots and similar.

Such investment in quality photography is crucial for those that want a sticky, content-rich site that has a high conversion rate. We find it almost tragic that this is the most neglected advice that we pass on to some of our clients.

Buy in Skills to Complement Your Brand

Unless you are a competent photographer, or excellent at post-capture manipulation of second-rate images to still engage the viewers’ imagination enough to convert & sell the product, we strongly recommend looking to bring someone in with the skills to properly complement your product/brand. A fresh eye and a professional perspective, and equally importantly an understanding of resizing & cropping images to the sizes you need without losing essential detail, can hugely boost your site’s appeal. A point & shoot camera, let alone approach, won’t do your brand any favours.

There are a number of choices available:

1. Employ experienced photographers like ourselves who do have DSLR cameras, tripods and a variety of lenses to make your product work from various angles & perspectives, and have a full understanding of image editing and production;
2. For those feeling cash-rich employ a freelance professional photographer, making sure that you look at their portfolio, agree a style and instructing them on the required sizes of the imagery for your website;
3. look on Flickr and other similar image hosting online services for local amateur photographers & networks -   everyone loves to see their work on other sites with a link, but always ask the owner of the image don’t just steal, the extra profit that good photography can bring to your website should be rewarded by the minimum of a link back to the ‘photographer’ who is helping create that for you.

Learn the Basics of Photo Editing

If you have a website that you are planning to update yourselves, you or a team member MUST learn how to crop and resize images.  Editing facilities are offered via : Picnik.com  & Picasa or alternatively, invest £47 and buy Photoshop Elements, and try some of the free online video tutorials offered on YouTube.  If you don’t like online training try a 1-day course, there are plenty out there and it’s an inexpensive skill to invest in yet with it can bring such high rewards.

webSEOlive Selected Photography Portfolio,

Here’s a few examples of our own photography and where we have been commissioned to improve point & shoot imagery in Photoshop.