The Importance of Website Images
While videos drive more social media engagement than images, images remain one of the most important aspect of website design and optimization.
Images play a key role in creating attraction and conveying brand identity.
As a current or future website owner, it's important to carefully consider the images selected for your website.
Everything from image cropping to image overlays matters when it comes to design.
Images also present a unique opportunity to present your story, your team, or your products to the market.
Should I Hire Someone to Take Photos For my Website?
That depends on your vision for your website.
Naturally, if your site is dedicated to one memorable event, like a wedding or annual conference, hiring a photographer to professionally document your event in photo will add a lot of value to your website.
Of course it's also important to have professional photos taken if you intend to present e-commerce products that do not come with stock photos.
There is quite an art to correctly photographing products, and that's not something we do here at Build Hello, but if you'd like a referral, give is us a call, send over an e-mail or fill out our form.
How To Optimize Images For the Web
Image management is critically important for your website's performance.
Smaller image sizes are faster to serve; so images need to be optimally compressed, in a way that preserves quality.
It's also ideal to serve optimally sized images for devices with unique screen sizes.
Your Content Management System (CMS) likely contains some options for processing images; however, that code may need to be configured.
Also, image optimization can be bundled with other processes, like those that convert image formats, crop images, and introduce overlays and image effects.
If your CMS doesn't come with adequate image processing options, you can hire a developer to install libraries/plugins that will ensure you're getting not just optimal sizes but also formats.
What is a CDN
Finally, it's important to ensure your website resources are optimally cached, compressed, and served.
CDNs are computer resource storage centers that save cached versions of your website's resources, including images, in strategic locations around the world.
Once your website is integrated with a solid CDN service, client computers (people) that visit your website will be sent the closest saved versions of your images and resource, greatly increasing the performance of your website.
If you'd like to learn more about image management for your website, or have your website assessed, give is us a call, throw over an e-mail or fill out our form, we will get back to you in a jiffy and book you in for a free consultation.
