Website imagery encompasses a variety of visual elements that bring your website to life – from professional photos and videos to vector art and more. It’s the first impression you’ll make on your potential customers, so you need to make it a good one.
At Artonic, we’ve empowered numerous businesses to enhance their websites and online marketing campaigns with stunning professional photography. In this comprehensive guide, we explore the different types of visual content that can transform your business website.
We’ve also sprinkled in some (really cool) examples to showcase exactly what we’re talking about.
Keep reading to discover how to elevate your website’s visual appeal!
The Importance of Website Imagery
Having images on your website isn’t just important – it’s a requirement when it comes to achieving success online, no matter what services or products you offer.
Statistics reveal that about 65% of the population are visual learners, and in addition to that, consumers highly value visual elements in website design.
Here are just a few of the many benefits of adding images to your website:
- Images and photos are a versatile asset and can be used in a variety of online channels
- Images can attract traffic from search engines when optimized properly
- High-quality images of your products and services can help increase conversions
- Professional photos of your team and facility help build trust and credibility in your brand
Types of Website Imagery
Here are the different types of website imagery.
Photography
Photography can be divided into two different categories, stock photos, and custom photos.
Stock Photos
Stock photos are one of the most popular types of images used in business websites. These types of photos are very accessible as they are affordable and easy to get. They feature scenes or models that fit almost any common business or personal scenario, making them helpful for visually representing your business when you have no photography on hand.
Some platforms to get free and paid stock photos include:
Professional Photography
Professional photography offers many benefits for pretty much any business. These types of photos are on a different level of quality when compared to stock photos as they are produced by experts, and are tailored to your needs and specifications.
Stock Photos vs Professional Photography
When you build a website for your business, at some point you will have to decide whether to use stock photos or professional photography services. The decision is more important than you think!
Here are some of their main differences.
- Professional photography can be customized to meet your exact requirements while stock photos offer a generic feel.
- Stock photos can be affordable and are quickly accessible compared to professional photography.
- Stock photos will not represent your specific services, products, people, or location, just the general concept of what you offer.
- Professional photos offer a higher level of quality due to the technical expertise involved in their production.
In summary:
Use stock photos if: You are starting online marketing or a website and have a very limited budget.
Use professional photography if: You want to give a unique and professional look to your brand to differentiate yourself from the competition, which will allow you to generate more trust with your customers, and therefore, increase sales.
Professional photography will always generate better outcomes in the long term. In fact, stock photos are one of the worst-performing types of visual content in online marketing according to statistics.
As an example, here’s a professional photo taken by Artonic for one of our clients. In the photo, you can clearly see the real name of the company along with a real person. This helps reinforce branding, while also increasing trust and credibility. Seeing the company’s real staff at work, and putting faces to the brand name, lends authority to their digital presence.
Learn more about this Artonic case study: DIY Pole Barns Photography Case Study.
Video
Apart from traditional photography, online businesses can also take advantage of video content. Did you know that 84% of consumers reported that watching videos convinced them to make a purchase? That’s impressive, isn’t it?
Pushing users past the finish line is one of the most challenging aspects of converting online, so taking advantage of unique tools like videos is a must for businesses that want to drive sales and rocket past their competition.
Traditional Video Player
A traditional video player is generally video embedded in a landing page. You can use it to show the background of your company, the details of a specific service, or the features of a product.
For example, if you are a dentist, you can insert a video on your home page. You can use this video to talk about your services, tell your visitors a little bit about your background, and maybe show some real testimonials.
Here’s an example from the Artonic website:
Transparent Video
Transparent videos, featuring an invisible background, allow for dynamic effects on your website.
By stacking these videos, you can create captivating visuals that grab visitors’ attention. They offer customization in behavior, colors, and design to fit your needs, enhancing user engagement and providing an interactive, enjoyable experience for your audience.
Capturing videos for this purpose is tricky and requires skilled professional videographers and editors. But the results can be stunning, giving animation and life to your website or digital ads that let you layer elements together to maximize value from your advertising space.
Website Backgrounds
The background of your site is the foundation on which everything is visually constructed. A good background supports the elements you put on top, and a bad background can act as a distraction that drives users away.
Solid colors or vibrant images can serve as good backgrounds to complement other visual assets on your website. It all depends on what will go on the page – and the trained eye of a designer can make the difference in choosing backgrounds that fit and those that look out of place.
Image Backgrounds
Image backgrounds consist of using high-resolution graphics or photos as the background of a specific section or the entire website. They can incorporate modern effects, layers, and filters to enhance visual appeal.
Here’s an example from the Artonic website.
Video Background
Video backgrounds consist of using looping videos as a background to create an immersive experience for the user. They give you the opportunity to share real moments with your business, staff, or service. This can give users a greater sense of familiarity with your business just in a few seconds on your website.
Video backgrounds can be great for businesses promoting experiences, like in the travel or hospitality industry. That said, with the right idea, they can be beneficial for any industry.
Gradient Background
A gradient background is a design element where colors smoothly transition from one to another. This can create a visually appealing effect. Gradient backgrounds are perfect for areas of your website where the elements on top will be simple and straight forward, like text. This gives some additional depth and style to a section that otherwise might be boring with a solid color and text on top.
A good example would be the home page of Cardinal.
Other Types of Website Imagery
Other types of website imagery include Vector Art, Infographics, Animations, and GIFs.
Vector Art
Vector art consists of illustrations created using mathematical formulas. This method produces high-quality artwork with clean lines and shapes that can be scaled to any size without losing quality.
Most images you’re familiar with are raster images. These use tiny pixels of color to create an image. When you scale them up, those pixels become more noticeable, leading to an effect that makes them look low quality and lacking detail.
While vector images are trickier to make in great detail, they work well for things like logos, icons, or other conceptual designs. Whether you need your logo on a website, coffee cup, or billboard, a vector design will give you that flexibility with no loss of quality.
Source: Pixabay
Infographics
Infographics are designed to present complex information quickly and clearly. They combine text, images, and design elements to convey data in an engaging and easily understandable way.
Not only do infographics help consolidate a lot of information into a digestible image, they’re extremely sharable. If you’re looking to “go viral”, an infographic is a great way to do it!
Here is an example of an infographic from Artonic: Website Cost Breakdown Infographic.
Animations
Animations involve adding movement and different effects to website elements like navigation bars, backgrounds, and page transitions. This approach keeps websites engaging and interactive.
Animations can range from simple to extensive. Like backgrounds, it’s all about purpose and what elements go around them. Even a small amount of animation on your website can give it a feeling of liveliness that helps keep users from navigating away.
In more extensive uses, animations can even guide your users along your website, helping to ensure they experience your content in a more curated way.
Here’s an example from the Artonic homepage.
Here’s a loading animation from Eonix.
GIFs
GIFs are short, looping animations or video clips. They are widely used for their small file size and ability to convey emotions or share short bits of information quickly and effectively.
GIFs are popular in more casual content, like blogs or social media. On your website, adding GIFs to long form content can fight against the natural inclination for users to get overwhelmed, especially when your articles are long and detailed.
Here’s an example:
Source: GIPHY
Expert Tips for Choosing Images For Your Website
Here are some expert tips for choosing the best images for your website.
1. Avoid Using “Cliché” Stock Photos When Possible
Avoid using “cliché” stock photos when possible to maintain originality and authenticity on your website. Overused stock images can make your site appear generic and less trustworthy.
Instead, opt for unique, high-quality photos that align with your brand’s message and aesthetic, helping to create a more genuine and engaging user experience.
For example, if you are a doctor and want to write a Blog Post about a client testimonial, adding unique images of yourself with that particular client can greatly enhance your credibility.
2. Use Relevant Images
Use relevant images to ensure your website’s visuals align with your content and audience’s expectations. Relevant images enhance comprehension and engagement by directly supporting your message.
If you’re selling a product, include pictures of that product. If you’re promoting your team, add pictures of your staff! Supporting your sales efforts by showing instead of just telling makes a big difference.
3. Use Faces
Real human faces make your content more relatable and engaging. This human element can possibly encourage visitors to connect with and remember your brand.
Using photos of real people is helpful in almost any circumstance where it’s relevant. Show your sales team off so people know who they’ll be talking to. Did you get professional testimonies? Add the photos of the person to lend authority to their review.
Even a photo of just one person from your support team can make a support page feel more personable and approachable for users who need assistance.
4. Use The Right Resolution
Using the right resolution is crucial for both aesthetics and performance. High-resolution images look sharp and professional. However, files that are too large can slow down your site, which negatively affects user experience and SEO.
On the other hand, if the file is too small, users will not be able to understand the message of the image, and it will make your website look less professional.
New uses for AI in this space have been helpful for businesses trying to retool older photos. AI upscaling gives you more wiggle room to turn photos that are just a bit too small into perfectly usable options – but even then, it’s often better to plan a new photoshoot than trying to repurpose years-old photography when updating your online presence.
5. Be Consistent
Be consistent when it comes to styles, animations, colors, and tone across your website to create a cohesive and professional appearance. Consistency helps establish your brand identity, making your site more recognizable and trustworthy.
Photography elements like composition, lighting, camera settings, backgrounds and more are critical to keep consistent. Professional photographers are experts at this, and it’s why their work can produce such stunningly high-quality results even you used the same cameras and setup they have.
How to Optimize Your Images for SEO & UX
Here are some professional tips to optimize your images for SEO and UX, ensuring that your website is appealing to both search engines and users.
1. Add Relevant Alt Text
Adding relevant alt text to your images provides several benefits:
- They increase organic traffic by showing your unique images on Image Search
- They improve UX by helping visually impaired users using screen readers
- For government websites and similar, alt text requirements exist for accessibility, making them critical to get right
2. Add Relevant Filenames
Adding relevant filenames not only helps you or your web developers find specific images on your website when editing it but also helps search engines better understand your images.
3. Compress Your Images
A compressed image will be lighter and load faster, which is beneficial for avoiding user frustration and having a fast website, which, as we mentioned earlier, is important for SEO.
Did you know that page load speed is a confirmed ranking factor? (Yes, it is that important to have a fast website).
4. Use a CDN
Using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) can significantly enhance the performance and efficiency of a website, especially when it comes to imagery.
A CDN is a group of servers distributed across various locations worldwide, working together to deliver content faster and more reliably. CDNs are not limited to just images, they are also effective for delivering HTML, JavaScript, video, and other types of content.
One of the primary benefits of a CDN is the reduction in load times. Websites that utilize CDNs have experienced up to a 50% decrease in load times.
5. Keep Your Images Mobile-Friendly
Today, it is very important that your images are mobile-friendly, not only to improve your organic presence in search engines but also to improve the user experience on your website.
Did you know that Google predominantly uses the mobile version of a site’s content for indexing and ranking?
Source: GIPHY
Professional Photography With Artonic
Website imagery is a crucial element in web design to improve user experience, attract traffic from search engines, and most importantly, increase online sales.
At Artonic, we offer professional photography and videography services in the state of Michigan. We’ve helped a wide variety of clients improve the results of their online marketing campaigns through unique, high-quality photos that meet the specific requirements of their business.
Not sure if professional photography is right for you? Check our Ebook on: 10 Stats about the Value of Photography.
Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently asked questions about website imagery.
What is Website Imagery?
Website imagery refers to all the visual elements used on a website to enhance its appearance, convey information, and engage visitors. This includes professional photos, videos, infographics, and other types of visual content.
What is The Best Format for Website Images?
There are different types of image formats such as JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP, and AVIF. The best format will depend on the type of image and file size you need.
How to Make Images Look Good On a Website?
The best way to make images look good on a website is to choose the proper resolution and format. If it is a custom photo, the skill of the photographer is also involved in the overall quality of the photo.
This is one of the reasons why hiring a professional photographer like Artonic is so important.