Images make a huge difference to the appearance of your website. When developing your business website design consider the type of images you would like to feature and where you will source them from.
Current website trends include extra-large or full screen images, image slideshows, and large images with overlying text. Not all images will suit your design – e.g. you may need an image to be a particular aspect ratio (shape and orientation), or the point of interest may be best suited to a particular position within the image.
Options for sourcing website images include:
Taking them yourself
If you or someone you know is a good photographer.
Professional photography
If you would like images to feature prominently on your website this is really worth considering. Interiors can be particularly difficult to photograph well.
Stock images
Stock images can be purchased online. They can sometimes look artificial or staged but if the right images are selected they can work well. It can be difficult to obtain good images for niche industries (e.g. photos of specialised equipment).
Website images and Copyright
Images on the web are subject to copyright. Never copy an image from Google or another website. This includes all types of brand logos and advertising images, even if you sell the product. Always contact your reps/the company advertising for permission – some will provide you with free images that you can legally use.
Editing and resizing images
Selecting the perfect images for a website can be challenging. Some use of Photoshop (0r a similar program) is often required to get the image just right.
All images should be resized for the web prior to use on a website. This minimises the image file size and makes your website load faster. When using a professional, this is generally all done as part of your website design and development process.
If you will add images to your website yourself it is important to resize any image prior to uploading it. Try a program such as Irfanview if you don’t have Photoshop. For WordPress sites, the plugin Smush will do a lot of the work for you.
