Tired of spending ALL DAY looking for just the right image for your website?
Have no fear, mama, these tips will save you a ton of time and help you pick out the perfect image for your blog or website.
Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.
1. REMEMBER YOUR BRANDING
Brand Images for Graphite and Grace
One picture is worth a thousand words, right? That one picture needs to be communicating the same thing as the rest of your branding.
If you’re not sure what branding is, it’s basically what your business is telling the world. Your logo, website, social media presence, colors, fonts, images, and more all help make up your brand. These things help great brands tell stories that resonate with their potential clients.
(For more on how to choose branding for your business, check out my Branding for Beginners post.)
Images are a powerful part of your branding because they help communicate feelings.
The right images can help your visitors feel empowered, hopeful or relaxed. But the wrong images can confuse or turn away the people you want to work with!
What images you choose depend on how your ideal client needs to feel when interacting with you.
2. CHOOSE IMAGES WITH YOUR BRAND COLORS
Brand Images for Claire Solorio Coaching
Colors produce feelings in us; that’s why it’s so important to choose brand colors that give off the right feelings for your brand.
It’s also why it’s so important to choose images that match your brand colors.
If you have a bright and bubbly brand, then you don’t want to choose a dark and mysterious picture for your website.
Many stock photo websites let you search by colors or even HEX (color) codes. This is the EASIEST way to find stock images that fits your visual branding.
3. CHOOSE IMAGE CONTENT CAREFULLY
Brand Images for Making Waves Social Media
Who is in your pictures is just as important as the colors of your pictures.
So often I see brand boards that people spent HOURS putting together that don’t have a single person in the images.
Here’s the truth: people connect with pictures of other people!
We intuitively think to ourselves, “If I buy what they’re selling, my life will look like that person’s!”
So make sure to include stock images with people in it- and people your clients or customers will relate to!
Have a business for mompreneurs like me? Use photos of moms and kids, not buff men skydiving. The content of your photos should appeal to your target audience.
4. KEEP A CONSISTENT STYLE
Brand Images for Busy Mom Launch Squad
Edgy, soft, bright, bold – there are tons of different styles of photography. To remain consistent with your website and your branding, you want to choose images with the same style.
Using stock photos from the same photographer would be the perfect way to make sure your images had the same style. Since that’s pretty hard to do without forking over a small fortune, try to stick with a handful of photographers whose style matches your branding.
5. CHOOSE QUALITY STOCK IMAGES
Let’s face it, there are some pretty terrible stock photos out there. Just to be clear, I don’t at all suggest using a cheesy stock photo for your website. If a picture makes you want to gag when you look at it, DON’T USE IT!!
There are some great stock photo sites now when you can get quality images without making a huge investment.
My favorite free stock photo site right now is Kaboompics. There are some really creative and different images on there that don’t get my gag reflex going. In fact there are a bunch I’d love to frame and hang up around my home because they’re gorgeous!
You can also buy stock images from sites like Creative Market. Buying a package of images is a great way to save money while having a consistency to your branding.
BONUS TIP: SIZE YOUR IMAGES FOR SPEED
Having huge images on your website slows it down. Like a lot. And a slow site hurts your rankings with Google AND means that people will leave your website.
Have you ever searched for something and came across a website that seems to take FOREVER to load? Like paint drying slow. What did you do?
If you’re like 90% of Internet users, you bounced right off that site if it took more than 5 seconds to load. Yikes! That’s like saying goodbye to your online business right there.
One of the easiest ways you can improve your page speed is to use images that are sized correctly for your site. That means if your hero image is 1600 x 500 px, don’t use an image that is 3000 px wide. It will take an eternity to load because it is SOOO big.
The easiest way to resize your images is to use a program like Canva or Photoshop.
Create a canvas the size of the image you need on your website. And then upload the photo you want to use to that canvas. Save the file as a jpg (unless it is a logo- then use a png file) and upload it to your website. Ta-dah! Site speed immediately improved.
In case you’re not sure how fast or slow your website loads, check out the website speed test from Pingdom. It will give you a list of things you can improve. If your images are too big and taking too long to load, Pingdom will let you know!
DON’T LET BAD PICTURES RUIN YOUR BUSINESS
Images aren’t the only thing important for good web design, but they certainly are towards the top of the list. Use these tips to make sure that your website is attracting people to you, not making them run (or bounce) in the other direction.
1 thought on “How to Choose the Right Images for Your Website”
This was great info. I had no idea about the picture size I was mostly worried about what they looked like. Thanks for the tips.