In recent times, the adoption of content management systems has shown an increase ‘visual’ websites – but why?
A picture paints a thousand words
As Arthur Brisbane once said, “a picture paints a thousand words”. What an image can do for your website will be much more effective than text in most cases – this is often why we see large, rotating letter box style headers on websites. This is the first thing a website visitor will see, so make the most of that opportunity and use high quality, large images in the header which really show off the service or product you are offering.
Text is boring
Nine times out of ten, if someone sees a page FULL of text with nothing visual to look at, they won’t read it all.
The days of pages littered with text are now over – it’s now all about using images to replace copy and describe what you’re saying in an image. While text can be extremely descriptive and get across all of the points you want to, you would be lucky to find a person willing to read a page of 1,000 words – this is why images are such a good replacement. For example, if you run a bed and breakfast, instead of writing about the spacious and modern decor in the rooms in detail, why not briefly mention it and add some high quality, professional photographs? This way, the potential customer will get a good idea of what to expect when they arrive, and they can see for themselves the accommodation you are offering.
Lead the customer
Within pages is not the only place you can use images to your advantage. The home page will in most cases be the first point of contact for the website visitor, so from here you will want to direct the user to certain parts of your website where you feel they need to be. The most common practice of doing this is using ‘featured buttons’ or ‘call-to-action’ buttons. These are often a number of buttons on the home page which are accompanied by a high quality image and a title, like so:
This graphic, visual way of displaying your content does not only look modern and fresh, but actually leads the visitor to where you want them to go. If you want to direct people to an availability page for your hotel, put a high quality image of your hotel or room to make the visitor want to click it. You are essentially making decisions for the website visitor, and if done well this could potentially increase sales and interest.
Something to remember
Always remember, when using images on your website, always use high quality images. Low quality, grainy images are not going to do anything good for your website, if anything, the result will be negative. If you have a good digital camera, try your hand at taking some snaps for your website – if not, see if you can hire a local photographer who will be able to produce the images you require for your company.
If you have any questions in regards to using images on your website, or websites in general, please contact Cosmic’s web team on 0845 094 6108, or send us an e-mail on info@cosmic.org.uk!