Images on your website

Firstly I think I should introduce myself. My name is Jan Broderick and I am Alan’s partner in our web design business. I work mostly on the design and page creation side of things.

To this end I thought I’d say a bit about images and the effective use of these on your website.

We all know the adage: “a picture paints a thousand words” (although only some of us will remember the Telly Savalas version of the song) and it is very true. You can capture in a single well-chosen image what would take pages to explain. Pages that most website visitors would not read. If you are trying to capture the attention of a casual visitor to your site or persuade someone to part with their cash for your products, then please think carefully about the images you use. We have all seen sites with badly composed, out-of-focus images – many sellers on eBay seem incapable of taking a decent photo – and don’t they detract from the experience?

I won’t try to teach you how to take a picture – there are plenty of experts who will explain the workings of your camera to you. Nor will I explain how you can improve on your picture using software. And yes you can make an indifferent picture better, but you cannot make a bad picture into a good one. And yes I am more than happy to work on the images you provide to make the best of them.

What I will do here is point out that for a small fee you can buy well-structured images that will do the job for you beautifully. I am not here to advertise a particular provider, there are many, but a good search around within their stock will give you all kinds of images you can incorporate within your design. These can be specifically of your type of product or service, or they can be a more general image that is pleasing to the eye. There are literally millions of images in the likes of iStockPhoto.

These providers also have a facility on their sites to set up a ‘lightbox’ this is a collection of images that can be viewed all at once. A link to the lightbox can be emailed to anyone for their comment and a selection purchased. This is the method I use for clients who wish to source images without paying a professional photographer.