Smartphone cameras may tempt business owners to take photos themselves or find an alternative to hiring a professional photographer. Remember, your photos represent your business. Low quality, unprofessional images may convey low quality about your organization or the products and services you offer. Pictures and your website are hugely important when it comes to making a first impression on customers.
The availability of smartphones and the increasing quality of the cameras has made creating images for your website, social media and blogs incredibly easy to obtain. However, are they the right images to convey your message and story to your ideal client?
When it comes to your brand, don’t skimp out on what’s important. Creating a reliable, visual brand that is communicated consistently across all your forms of marketing is essential in today’s business market. People are looking more and more to brands and companies that fit their outlook on life.
Professional pictures are not just for product shots either. Sure, your online storefront should look as professional as possible, but also creating images that capture your entrepreneurial story and your personality is incredibly essential these days. People want to connect with the person they are purchasing their goods from.
Presenting professional product pictures and your story on your website along with rotating images and content, via blogs or otherwise, will encourage people to visit and re-visit your site to purchase your goods and services time and time again.
There is also a hidden benefit to using a professional photographer to build your images for your website. An easy way to boost your website’s search engine optimization (SEO) and make it easier for your customers to find you is to optimize your images for search engines. A majority of professional commercial photographers are aware of these quick adjustments and can help you use the correct file management and sizing to rank higher in the search results.
Your website is one of the main areas to rotate professional imagery continually, but social media is also one of the most important spots to share what you offer. Regular posts on social media keep your brand in front of your customers. While you’ll use images from your phone to create the day-to-day content, rotating through your professional photos throughout a season is a great way to reinforce your brand image.
Building a shot list with your photographer of specific products that you can use with text overlays and on blog posts is a great way to get the images that you can use over and over to reinforce your brand.
Creating one to three posts a day with new content, and at least one of those being the professional content created for you.
Blogging is a great way to tell stories and develop longer posts of information with your customers. When writing a blog, using professional imagery of the main subject immersed in your text keeps the reader engaged. Our brain is made for visual processing, studies have shown that combining relevant images with text can increase the amount of information your audience remembers immensely.
While you may feel tempted to use snapshots and low-quality images on your blog, remember that your readers are there to read a longer article and are actively engaging with your brand. With social media, they are scrolling by and reading snippets of information. A blog is an entire screen of just your brand, so making sure that you have quality content to offer is imperative.
Your blog is another vital spot for your search engine optimization, so using the correct keyword image naming and sizing on your post is important to make sure your customers can find the product or information they are looking for.
Now is a perfect time to schedule a consultation with a local commercial photographer to start building your brand and telling your story.
Missy Fant is a professional commercial, event and wedding photographer in Vancouver. Visit www.MissyFantPhotography.com.
