Remember when you were a kid and you wouldn’t read a book unless it had pictures in it? Most people never really grew out of that phase. It’s the reason Instagram is so popular and movie producers keep turning books into movies. People like pictures. Imagery is easy for us to process and discern meaning from quickly.

And because of this, images are a vital tool when developing your website.

Did you know that websites with high-quality images get over twice the number of views as those that don’t? Yep, it’s a formula that websites have been using for a long time. And you need to use it too for a whole bunch of reasons.

Images can humanise your brand. It’s a lot easier to trust a company when it has a face. Preferably a dog but a human will do, I guess. People are more likely to empathise with your business if it comes across as human and there is nothing human about walls of text and hashtags.

Next, there’s the fact that images aren’t just popular with people. Search engines love them as well. Using metadata through images can be a great way to give your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) a shot in the arm and can make up for sparse content on small web pages.

Images can also be used outside of your website. It can help brand identity to use your website’s images on social media. It is all about getting your brand into people’s heads and making it stick. Keeping things uniform also looks much more professional.

But remember to always use good quality images. Blurry, pixelated images taken on your granddad’s Nokia brick aren’t going to cut it. Thankfully most modern phones have decent cameras, but it doesn’t hurt to upgrade to something good quality. Always remember that lightning and angles matter and if you really want to lift your photography game maybe consider a course.

Or you could always rely on the professionals…