Boom! You’ve bought a gorgeous new theme and you’re ready to makeover your website. You dive straight in, uploading your own images to your website and suddenly…it just doesn’t look ‘quite’ as sexy as the theme demo website. 

As a theme designer myself, I can tell you that images are EVERYTHING. I spend ages hand-picking every single image because I know that the right collection of images can make or break a theme. 

Over this week I’m going to share my tips for creating and selecting images that are going to enhance your website, rather than holding it back.

But before we get stuck in, let me give you a solid piece of advice. No matter how awkward you feel, you need to get a professional personal branding shoot.

I’m speaking as a serial photoshoot-dodger, because I used to be incredibly uncomfortable in front of a camera. 

But listen up – professional personal branding photographers are magicians! They know how to pose you (what on earth do you do with your hands?!) and they know how to make you feel relaxed and be the best version of yourself that you can be.

Not only will you get some killer headshots that you feel proud of, a good branding photographer will shoot a variety of images that can be used throughout your website.

1. What type of images do you need for your website?

RELATIONSHIP-BUILDING IMAGES

If you deliver any kind of service or personally create a product, your audience needs to see you in front of the camera. They need a polished head shot that feels accessible and true to your brand. A phone selfie, no matter how good, rarely does the trick.

PROCESS IMAGES

If you’re having a photoshoot, make sure you get images of you ‘in action’. This might be you at your desk, or working with a product or client. You may also want to capture ‘details’ shots – maybe of your desk, workspace or tools. 

PRODUCT IMAGES

If you’re producing a physical product then having images of your product is a no-brainer. But many online shopping websites don’t have GREAT product images. Commissioning half a dozen styled images of your product will give your website a huge boost, even if you can’t afford to have every product professionally shot. 

You can also learn to fill in the gaps with a small tabletop lightbox and a decent phone camera.

If you don’t produce a physical product (graphic or web design for example), learn how to create mock-ups of your finished projects as a potential end user might see them. Eg. websites on a laptop, business cards etc. (I love Artboard Studio for this).

CONTEXT IMAGES

Context images are the end-user images which help tell your product story and help potential clients visualise buying from you.

Ideally, you’ll be able to capture some images of someone using your product. If you want to keep the professional look and feel, again, it’s worth investing in a photoshoot which showcases your products and purchasers in action.

If you’re a photographer, images of albums and mock-ups of wall art can work really well too. 

What about user-generated content, you ask? Yes, it’s great when your customers love your products so much that they send in images of themselves using it, but personally, I keep those images for review areas and social media tags.

2. How do you select images for your website?

When I’m working with a client, I usually ask for no more than a dozen of their ‘signature’ images and I always ask for a mixture of landscape and portrait-oriented images. I’ll usually also be looking for images that I can crop square to create contrast. 

If you’re a photographer, for example, you might even find you need to shoot specifically for your website to fill in some gaps. I find most clients are lacking images with negative space which we can use to overlay text, so make sure you add that to your image wishlist.

Here are the three questions you need to ask yourself when selecting an image. 

• What space does it need to fill?

Does it need to be portrait-oriented (often needed alongside columns of text) or landscape (used as a banner image). 

• What job does it need to do?

Does it need to position you as the expert? (relationship or process image)

Or show off your product? (product or context image)

• How does it support the website design?

Does it need to contrast with the website design or complement it? (ie. Is the image the point because you need it to stand out or it is there to play a supporting role in the storytelling?)

3. What size should your images be?

There are lots of differing opinions about absolute values when it comes to image size, but it always comes down to the trade-off between image quality and site speed, so you’ll need to decide what you personally feel is ‘good enough’ for you.

Tips and tools:

• Don’t put a larger image into a smaller space. Resize the image to fit the maximum pixel dimensions it needs. (There are plenty of good browser pixel rulers that do this.) 

• Compress ALL images to the point you feel comfortable. I use ShortPixel on the Glossy setting to crunch down all images before upload and then I use it to convert all images to the newer format of WebP (which Google is starting to favour)

You really want to know actual sizes, don’t you? 

OK! You got it. But remember, this is a personal choice and these are simply the pixel dimensions that I feel are a good compromise between quality and speed.

• Full width images – 1,920 pixels on the longest edge
• Lightbox gallery images – 1,200 pixels
• On page / blog images – 1080pixels (because that’s the full width size of an average iPad.)

For any other use cases, I use a pixel ruler to measure to order.

4. Don’t forget to cull!

Reviewing your website imagery regularly is crucial and it’s easy to get lazy. My top tip is to get into the habit of creating images for your website or portfolio with every job you do. 

Keep a folder handy so you can stash potential website favourites until you need them. 

Above all things, if you are a photographer or have a portfolio of images on your website, be selective and don’t let your images get stale. 

I know it’s tempting to show three different angles of the same bouquet or scene, but viewers quickly switch off and leave. Be brutal and make the choice. 

And finally, remember that you’ll outgrow your images regularly. Your creative style, personal appearance and product range are constantly changing and so will the images that represent you and your brand. 

If you’d like to join an inspiring online community, you can find out more about Melissa’s online membership, The Marketing Fix, at www.themarketingfix.co.