How To Choose The Right Website Photography

From the images you use to engage visitors on your homepage to the photos of your staff  - a picture speaks a thousand words. Make sure your photos are giving the right impression of your business.

Stock Images Vs Your Own Photography

As much as we love a good stock photo, having your own professional photography is definitely a better choice for the key areas of your website.

If your entire website is filled with stock photography, especially ones which are easy to recognise as stock, it gives an overall spammy feel to your site. We use original photography on the main pages of our site, and stock photos and illustrations on our blog, as this isn't a visually key area for us.

Using your own, original images really adds to the customer or clients belief in your content. If you have a shop front, even just one header image on the homepage of your physical location will lend authenticity to your business.

If you sell online and do not advertise a physical location, the products images should be original and not copied from the manufacturer or other online stores. Quality product photographs need to be high resolution, taken from several angles and accurate to the items that you have in stock.

If you find an image that you love online, but don't know where it came from, you can perform an image search to find out where else it's placed online and work out who you need to ask/pay for permission to use it - here's the best image search tools online. They're also handy if you like the look and feel of an image, and want to find images with a similar look.

Types of Imagery

We don't want to teach you to suck eggs, but here are a few image types you might not have considered and the best practice for using them.

Images for Website Backgrounds

A quick word of warning, if you intend to use images as the background of your website it's important to consider the effect that will have on the content you display over it.

We have a video as the header for our homepage and display just our logo, two lines of text and a button with a background over it. To make these more visible we've added a blue overlay. Keep in mind the blander the background the more you and display over it, and vice versa.

Our CMS allows you to add multiple blocks, which can feature a background image. This way you can add visual interest by displaying text over the top of some images, but have other blocks with no background image to display the majority of your content. It's also really easy to set up and change whenever you want.

Team photos

An image of you as the business owner, and your team if you have one, will add to the credibility of the website for your customers. The feeling that there is a human behind it all that will care about their customer experience will make them more likely to take on your services.

Probably most important for professional services, people want to catch a glimpse of the real human being they'll be employing before they sign up for anything, even if that service never requires you to meet.

Your staff imagery needs to endorse all the values of the business, for example, our team photos, videos and individual shots all look professional, but also friendly and approachable. We do not deal in overly confusing marketing jargon and bamboozling people into parting with their hard-earned cash, so our values as a company are reflected in our photography.

It's also important to keep these photos up to date, to give an accurate reflection of your business.

Not Sure What To Do Next?

Whether you're stuck on the vibe you'd like for the photos or you are struggling to find a photographer with experience in the style of photography that you know you want, just get in touch and we can help. 

Back to All Resources