Photos are a vital ingrediant in most websites because they act as a visual foil to all that text that tells visitors what you do. Getting your website images the right  size, resolution and style will give your website a professional look. Here is the Create Design Studio guide to using photographs on your website.

The techy part
The web doesn’t need the same resolution for your photographs as you need in order to get good printed photographs. Using some photo editing software change the resolution of your photos to 72dpi and save a copy of them so your original file remains untouched.

The web also uses RGB colour, not CMYK as printers do, check your photograph is in RGB colour using your photo software.

Size your photos to fit the space available on the webpage, big photos take longer to download (worth considering if your customers are unlikely to have broadband, work on a shared connection in an office or are viewing the site on a mobile device) and getting your photos to fit snugly alongside your text makes the page look more considered and professional in design. You’ll use pixels rather than centimetres or inches to size photos for your web pages. as a rough guide most web pages will be from 900-1200 pixels across and considering you’ll want to have text to fit in then you may want to aim for  300-600 pixels in width for your photos.

Representing yourself and your business in photographs
Whether you want to have a picture of yourself on the site or not depends on how useful you think it will be to be recognised by customers or site visitors. If you are self-employed and have a personalised business it might be part of your branding to feature your photo on your website and on your other marketing materials.

Feature your office or premises on your website to help customers recognise it when they visit. If you work in a prestigious building or character office showing it on your website can help give visitors an idea of the personality of your business.

If you have company branded vehicles these may also feature on your website and will help customers recognise your employees when they are out delivering or providing services. Your vans can also feature your website address so they can help new customers to find you online.

Product photographs
If you sell products then photographs of what you stock are vital to help sell them online. Make sure these photographs are on a white or black background to isolate them where possible and make sure they are clear and sharp. Include thumbnail sized versions as well as larger ones so that visitors can see details of each product. If it isn’t clear from the photograph what size the item is try including a scale to help visitors see the size of their product. Some products may also need to have more than one image to show different aspects of the item or how it is used. The more information the better where selling online is concerned because visitors cannot handle and explore the item as they would in a shop.

Creating a mood with photographs
It can be useful to use photographs a part of your website to illustrate what kind of company you are, what kind of customers you have or to visually explain an idea central to your business. These ‘mood and style’ photographs may form part of your corporate branding and reflect the personality of your business. It can be worth taking time to choose them carefully and try running them past a neutral third party to see if they spot anything that you don’t. These photographs can be sourced from online photography websites, although prices can vary widely, and consider buying a higher-resolution version just in case you want to use the image later on printed marketing materials.

Choosing a photographer
A professional photographer will give you great results and images that are sharp, well lit and well composed but they may cost more than using stock phtography or taking the photographs yourself. If you choose to take photographs yourself think about not just your subject but what appears in the background of each photo: plug sockets, piles of paperwork, rubbish, unattractive views and so on. Take some test photos and look at the light on your subject, is it flattering? It is possible to get useful photographs by taking them yourself but always be aware that without care you could be giving your business ‘amateur’ looking photographs that do it no favours.

Create Design Studio can help to source and implement photographs into your website and design them into printed marketing materials too.

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We often talk about how blogs can benefit your business and your website by building up an archive of interesting articles for your customers to read, helping search engine optimisation by providing fresh content on a regular basis and showing how you are an expert in your industry.

But what if you find it more of a chore than a pleasure?

If you are part of a team try opening up the blog so that other members can also contribute to it, by sharing the load you might find that the task becomes more manageable and inspiration returns to your own blogging efforts. Your blog will also benefit from having more articles written by a diverse set of people with different perspectives and expertise.

Do a ‘blog swap’ with contacts who work in businesses complimentary to your own. Provide them with articles in return for content for your blog from them. So long as their expertise compliments the content of your blog and the services of your business it should be interesting to your blog visitors and will provide an opportunity to promote your blog with its special ‘guest writer’.

Brainstorm some fresh subject areas to write about. It may help to review your last few posts to see what you usually write about to see if you have exhausted the subject and need to find a fresh angle on your industry. Try looking through magazines, industry journals and newspapers to find new aspects of existing subjects but also to see where differences of approach or opinion exist and write about these areas too.

Use a calendar to plan your next postings, give your self time not only to research the subject but also to write the article and review it before making it live. By giving yourself a structure and a timescale writing can be less rushed and you’ll be under less pressure to deliver at the last moment.

Try asking your readers what subjects, issues or problems they would like you to write about. After all, that way you know you are writingabout exactly what your readers are interested in!

Want your own blog? Create Design Studio can design and build it for you and give you training on how to use the WordPress software. Call 01962 737989.

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