Top Reasons To Put Relevant Images On Your Website

Like it or not, humans are visual creatures, and most of us would rather look at images instead of reading long blocks of text, especially when reading a blog. So, it’s helpful to break up your blog posts with images to make the site easier to read and navigate and make your blog more professional. However, choosing relevant photos is crucial to your SEO and the overall user experience. Let’s look at the top reasons for putting relevant photos and images on your website.

What Are Relevant Images

Before getting into how relevant images help your site, it’s best to define our terms. A relevant image or photo adds additional information instead of giving something pretty for the user to look at. For example, let’s say you own a restaurant. Adding images of the actual food you serve, the decor, and other amenities give the user a clearer picture of what to expect when they come to eat rather than a generic photo you got from a stock photo site. Sure, the stock photo may look more professional, but it doesn’t add value the way an authentic picture of your establishment does.

Top Reasons To Put Relevant Images On Your Website

Additional Information

As mentioned, adding relevant photos to your blog or website gives the user information in addition to what they read on your site to help them form a better opinion of what you’re offering. In our restaurant example, you can use the best writing to describe the delicious food and the atmosphere. Still, the images of the dishes you serve and how the place is decorated let the reader see what you’re talking about and can often do a better job of selling them on coming in for a meal than the description.

Increases Time On-Site

People who run blogs and websites put a lot of focus on traffic, and rightly so. You want to drive as many readers to your website as possible if you’re using your site for business and want to convert readers to customers. However, it doesn’t do you much good if people come to your site only to leave shortly and never return — that’s where relevant images can help.

Increases SEO

Another advantage of using images relevant to your blog posts is they boost your SEO. Images play an increasingly important role in search engine results, and people are turning to image searches rather than links. Using original images instead of stock photos helps your search rankings because Google’s algorithms can identify what the image is and whether it’s a duplicate or not. If others in your industry are using the same stock photos as everyone else, your original image will stand out, which is good for your ranking and your brand.

Make Your Site Unique

We wrote a post about how to make your website stand out from the rest, and one tip worth mentioning here is avoiding stock photos to make your site uniquely yours. Stock photos, while they look professional, are generic and staged, and people recognize them as such, and they do a poor job representing your company. Studies show that customers are becoming better at recognizing stock images and are less likely to put their trust in a company that uses generic photos using paid and staged situations instead of the real thing. When you incorporate relevant images, whether it’s a chart or graph you created or photos you shot onto your site, you stand out from the rest of the websites using the same generic photos and images, which makes you look more trustworthy.

Make Your Website More Scannable

Finally, incorporating images relative to your post makes your website easier to scan and navigate, and your readers will appreciate that.

How To Get Relevant Images

Now that you know the importance of using relevant images, you might wonder what’s the best way to get them. The first is to use the tools you already have — your phone. Most higher-end phones have cameras that rival what the pros use, and there are many apps that can help you adjust the images you take with a few taps.

If you’re unsure what to photograph, you can use stock images to give you ideas and create images inspired by them. If you’re not skilled at taking photos or don’t have the time, you could hire a photographer to help.

Sure, pros can be expensive, but most people know someone who has a talent for taking pictures or does weddings on the side who can help. And you can always turn to your local college and get a photography student to do the work, which is much cheaper than hiring a pro. In the end, you’re paying for images, whether you purchase them through a stock photo site or hire someone to do it for you, so spend your money on original content, and your readers will respond.

If you’re ready to take your online business to the next level with measurable results, contact us at Brandtastic today at 813-441-0275 and let us show you what we can do with our proven methods and track record.