Posted by Charlotte Lamb, Designer at I to Eye

If you have just started your company or if you work with services rather than products you may struggle to find images to use on your website, your brochure and flyers. This is where the growing number of companies that provide stock photography can be very useful.

Stock images are literally catalogues full of photographs grouped by theme, most of them are easy to find online. They are simple to use and the cost of using the images has fallen because there is lots of competition.

I have used iStock for many projects (www.istockphoto.com) it is a site that has members creating libraries of their images for sale (using a licence system) to customers of the site.

The site has a fairly good keyword search facility where a little dropdown menu of the kind of words it thinks you are interested in will appear after your first few letters. Once you select a keyword it will search for matching images and display 24 per page. There are also bits of film and flash files available that could be useful for multimedia projects.

The site uses a payment system where you buy credits and pay according to how large you want the image you require, for example on website design only you can often use the smallest version of the image (usually costing 1-3 credits) but on a poster or banner you may need a larger version to ensure good reproduction when it is printed. Do remember to read the small print about how the images may be used, if you want to reproduce the images on items that will be sold (like a book-jacket) then the licence may be different from the standard one.

Trying to think around the subject you are trying to illustrate, can be helpful with abstract concepts like ‘coaching’ or ‘advice’ and it may be useful to brain-storm some words to describe your subject to see what results you get by searching with them.

If you need to find the perfect images for your business but don’t have time, I to Eye provide a photo searching service, call us on 01962 737989.

Posted by Charlotte Lamb

Free information about websites and making best use of yours, design for print and tips for helping your business such as how to start networking are all covered in our new newsletter. If you would like a copy sign up here.

We need your email address but we won’t share it with anyone else. If you decide you don’t want to receive it anymore just tell us and it won’t trouble you again. Oh, and if there are subjects you would like to see us cover tell us by contacting us here.

Posted by Charlotte Lamb

If you want to meet up with other local businesses to make contacts then networking is a really effective way find customers and suppliers. I to Eye have been using networking for the last few years and we think it’s really effective, so here is a round up of some networking clubs in Hampshire:

BRX Hart – www.brx-hart.co.uk- Networking group based in Hook, Hampshire
Alton4Business – www.alton4business.org.uk – Chairman: Andy Manning
MBG Andover – www.andovermbg.com – Chairman: Darren Crannis
NHCCI – www.nhcci.co.uk – Basingstoke Area Office 01256 352275
Ecademy – www.ecademy.com – Online networking club

If you would like an introduction to any of the networking clubs listed above get in touch and we will introduce you as a guest.

Posted by Charlotte Lamb

Blogs are a useful tool for any business because they enable you to publish information online quickly with no costs.

With a blog you (and your colleagues) can inform customers about your company’s services and help them understand what you can do for them by proving that you know your subject.

Writing on a blog will give your website a more personal and friendly voice than may be appropriate elsewhere and build trust with your customers as you provide them with relevant news and views on issues that matter in your industry. You may also find your blog acts as a magnet to draw in new readers who then move on to your company website after searching the web and finding their search term covered in your blog.

 Some large companies also use blogs to encourage their employees to share information and expertise with each other and build a shared knowledge resource.

Finally, blog posts update your website and will cost you nothing. This will boost your search engine rankings as websites that are updated regularly are ranked higher than those that aren’t.

If you would like to start blogging call I to Eye on 01962 737989 we can set one up in minutes and have you writing your first post straight away!

Posted by Charlotte Lamb, Designer at Create Design Studio.

Create Design Studio have produced a new website for a local landscaping company owned by Sam Blackwell. The site gives him plenty of space to display testimonials from satisfied customers and images of the driveways, paths, patios, pergolas and fences designed and built by Sam and his team. Sam wanted to make his photos the centerpiece of the website to show customers the huge difference that having the features properly constructed makes to the final result.

The company already had a distinctive logo and it was important for Sam that the logo was prominently displayed so that customers could associate it with the company vans, shirts and stationery. The site design is simple to help visitors navigate through the pages. The use of neutral colours lets the photographs stand out, showing off the standard of the company’s building projects. Visit: www.geminilandscapes.com/.

If you don’t know where to begin with your website we can use our expertise to design one to meet the needs of your business. Your site will be there 24/7 to help find new customers and inform them about your services. Call us on 01962 737989 to get started today.