How to Use Images Effectively on your Business Website

Pretty much every website uses images - some doing so more effectively than others. Images are an important part of any website and can be used to instantly communicate various messages, far more quickly than words can. Images can be used to sell products, show what you do or persuade site visitors to contact you.

Follow these following guidelines and make the images on your site work harder for you. Ensure that all images are:

1.Relevant

Images can be an effective tool in giving site visitors a quick idea of what any page content is about. Users can glance at images and if they're relevant immediately understand the message you're trying to convey. Marketing images used to enhance your brand are perfectly OK, provided of course they convey your brand values.

2.Easy-to-understand

Many images are far too detailed, making it difficult for users to quickly understand their purpose. This is particularly true for small images that link to another page featuring an enlarged version of the image. By keeping images simple, users scanning their eye across the screen can immediately gain an idea of what the content is about.

3.Quick to download

Despite broadband penetration increasing and increasing (in the UK just 15% of Internet connections are dial-up) it's still important to reduce image file size as much as possible. Even on broadband connections any page with a number of heavy images can take a good few seconds to fully download, frustrating your users in the process.

There is a tradeoff between good quality images and bloating out your site and making it run very slowly - remember if your site takes an age to load and display properly, then you're pushing visitors back to the search engine before they've found out anything about how great your products and services are.

4.Able to be changed

When an image is of a product that can be purchased, it's crucial that users can adjust the display of that image. This could include enlarging the image, zooming in or selecting alternate views of it.

So there are my handy hints for boosting your online sales by making sure your website uses images in a customer friendly way that boosts your business online.

Remember, images are a powerful selling and communication too so the more time you spend making sure your presenting visual information in a way that really appeals to you visitors, you can really improve the effectiveness of your website.