When building your business’s website, it is very important to choose media that will positively affect the objectives of the website. One aspect of a site where this is especially true is photography.  
 
Many new business owners are unaware of the impact imagery has on their audience behaviour. It’s not just about the image of your site, it is about the value professional photography will certainly give their new site. Although it might feel like a hefty outlay, this initial cost is well worth the financial investment in the long run. 
Sites with professional photography, as opposed to stock images, get 35% more engagement from website visitors. These visitors are 40% more likely to share what they have seen via their social media channels than they would a similar business using stock photography! 
 
Below are the top five reasons why professional photography is better for your website than using readily available stock imagery. 
 

1. Your vision vs somebody else's vision 

No matter how expert the stock photo, it will always be someone else's vision as well as someone else's interpretation of the concept of your business and the vibe you aim to portray to your digital audience. As the old expression goes, "a picture paints a thousand words". But when it comes to your new website, why would you ever want those words to be another person's?  
 
With bespoke professional photography, you have control over what ideas, feelings, and emotions your site conveys. From an advertising viewpoint, that is HUGE. No matter whether you are selling a product, a skill or a service, a buyer's emotions will always have an impact or on the decisions they make, even if it is a tiny impact. 
 

2. Bespoke vs “same-old, same-old” 

One of the main benefits of bespoke photography is that it presents you with the possibility to show site visitors something they have actually never ever seen before. When prospective consumers visit your site for the first time, their immediate reaction needs to be "WOW." One sure-fire way to do that is with original photography that instantly reveals something they have actually never seen before they landed on your website - and especially not on your competitors' websites.  
 
This will certainly go a long way to assisting you in developing your own, distinct identity as well as promoting the image of your company that you want in visitors' minds. With stock photos, that is simply not possible since supply photos are made use of over and over, by many, many users and more than likely by others in your industry or field of expertise. 
 

3. Short-term spend vs long-term cost 

Obviously, hiring a specialist digital photographer will have bigger initial prices than utilising stock photos. There will indeed be additional expenses such as models or having your staff members away from their desk while participating in a photo shoot. However, there are several indirect expenses related to stock photos that exceed the licensing fee (which can be fairly high depending on the quality of the picture and just how commonly you wish to use it).  
 
You likewise have the time costs of scouring via hundreds, possibly thousands, of images to discover the "best photos" for your website. Furthermore, when you utilise custom photography, you construct a library of pictures that you own and also can make use of for as long as you please. With stock imagery there are commonly constraints on how you can use the image and for how long. 
 

4. The Perfect Photo vs "That Will Do" 

Before you choose your photos, before you even begin considering your vision for your new website, you will have (or should have) done market research to identify the goals/objectives for your site. This means determining the messages you want to communicate, and what you want visitors to do once they arrive on your site, i.e your call to action. 
 
With professional photography, you are ensuring that you will certainly have images that are best for your internet site and your message. While the expense of going the custom route will be greater in the short-term, the benefits of an extra impactful website that produces far better outcomes will certainly far exceed those expenses in the long-term. Actually, a less impactful website will certainly cost more as time progresses through lost possibilities as well as sales. Even if you find stock images that are suitable, they will not absolutely match your business and your message. With all of this in mind, “that will do” is not going to cut it when it comes to your website, or when it involves the success of your business. 
 

5. Immediate Connection and Audience Engagement 

Consider the last time you went to the "Customer Care" or "Client Support" page of a website and there was a photo of a customer care agent. Could you tell immediately that it was a commonly available stock photo? Had you seen that image or something very similar on another site or even used by a competitor? If the answer is “yes”, consider exactly how you would have felt if you had actually seen a picture of the individual who actually works for the company you are dealing with. You have a name and a face to put to the voice you may have spoken to on the telephone. Just how much better do you think you would feel about that experience if it was? 
 
While your intention is to eventually create that feeling of connection and engagement with all of your existing and potential clients, having professional shots of your team on the website will certainly speed up that process. The feeling of trust and dependability that you can establish is certainly worth its weight in gold. So it’s worth investing in the services of a professional photographer, rather than using stock images that are generic and overused. 
 
When constructing your brand new site, keep in mind that making a tiny saving now might mean that you will pay a much greater price in the future. Using stock images over professional digital photography services could be the one thing that puts you behind your competitor, when you could be leading the way with bespoke images showing you, your team and your business in its best light. 
 
For more advice or to learn about other web design services available from it'seeze Knutsford get in touch today - we’re here to help you and your visitors get the most from your online window to your business. 
 
Tagged as: Images, Photography
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