While we’ll be the first to say that “content is king”, the right words aren’t the only on-site feature you can use to represent your brand, engage your audience and improve your SEO. As the famous saying goes “a picture paints a thousand words”, a fact that makes image use and optimisation a vital part of the recipe for online success.
In this blog post, we take a closer look at the benefits of finding and using high quality images, and the crucial role beautiful, on-brand imagery plays in both user experience and search engine optimisation.
When it comes to the look and feel of your website, the words ‘bland’ and ‘uninteresting’ shouldn’t be in your vocabulary. Whether you’re proudly hosting a platform that sells industrial parts or are rocking a cutting-edge brand with a focus on high fashion, your use of imagery can make your content and wider website more interesting.
Your choice of imagery can help you to tell the story of your brand, and the products or services at its centre, succinctly. Attractive, interesting and on-brand imagery that complements the content will also make your site more memorable to encourage repeat custom.
The use of high quality imagery has become more and more important in recent years, with the increasing popularity of image search – an advanced tool that allows browsers to search the web by image instead of text – upping the ante for websites everywhere.
With this in mind, brushing up your image optimisation matters and can work wonders for your SEO. Adding high quality, unique images to your website is just the beginning however. To optimise them even more, you can link images to content, add alt text descriptions and captions, and alter the image filename to unlock yet more SEO benefits.
Image optimisation can increase page loading speeds (and enhance the user experience as a result) and boost your rankings in the search results to name but two advantages.
The big goal for most businesses is to sell more and your use of imagery can help you do just that. High quality imagery that directly correlates with your products or services and is consistent across your website enables you to build the trust that is integral to winning more business. It also influences browsers to buy turning them into fully fledged customers!