Give Your Website the Looks That Kill

Do not compromise on your branding! Use the right images to convey the right messages.

Hello ladies and gents! I hope you have been having a productivity blast and your business is doing better than ever. If so, congratulations! In case you are still experiencing some difficulties, roll up your sleeves as we have lots of work to do. After all, it’s a lot way to the top if you want to rock & roll! At least, you do not have to worry so much about your valuable intellectual property. You already know how to protect your ideas from being stolen while being fast as a shark! Today, I want to discuss a tiny detail that many of us still seem to underestimate and somehow gloss over: yep, the ones who read my last week’s blog post on protecting the ideas that you pitch already know that I am going to rip on those of you who put no-matter-what images or corporate stock photos on their websites, company blogs or business pages. What is my rationale for doing so? Well, first and foremost, it makes you look unoriginal, it gives you the plain, standard looks, and it somehow undermines your credibility in the eye of the savvy web visitor. Is there something else that pushes me towards drawing such conclusions and passing such harsh judgements? Well, read on and you will find the answer for yourselves!

Every single day, I browse through hundreds of websites. Some of them are a piece of marketing art, others are not so good, still others are plain repulsive. What really grinds my gears, however, is landing on a website that contains a bunch of unrelated images, which are out of place, out of context, and even out of any marketing rationale. This is what makes me, and possibly lots of other visitors, click away and forget about the unspeakable web horrors that we have just witnessed. What is my point then? Well, it is pretty straightforward. If you consider images a minor detail that you add in order to make your content more interactive or a bit more attractive, you are dead wrong. Images are inseparable part of your content as they complement it and they give it the extra visual flavor it requires. Hence, do not ever make the mistake of just adding random images that seem somehow appropriate. You need to have the right pictures that convey the right messages! Otherwise, you might confuse or chase away visitors and prospects. Yet, it turns out that it is not so easy. Indeed, choosing the most suitable images might seem like a Herculean task. Normally, some people, especially the ones responsible for the marketing and the overall design of websites of big companies sprint straight to the image banks and they buy the images that somehow suit or are related to a corporate organization. Usually, they purchase some boring, glitzy, sterile corporate images as anything else might not be appropriate and it would breach the sanctity of the corporate looks. Anything a tad more avant-garde is out of the question. It might greatly upset some of the CEOs or a member of the Board of Directors.

Having said so, I want to point out that I am not against the purchase of images. I am just against wasting money and hence scarce company resources on the wrong pictures. Allow me to elaborate. Type in Google the name of a big company and open their official website. Quickly click through it and pay special attention to the images used. Do you see the beautiful array of politically correct images, which convey the spirit of multiculturalism, dynamism, youth, and ambition? Remember seeing those pictures somewhere? Oh, yes, just about everywhere else! Indeed, you have seen one, you have seen them all. The same goes for the websites, which use such images. At the end of the day, they are all standardized pieces of inadequate design and marketing and they are devoid of any value. In addition, poorly chosen images are the arch enemies of good branding as they do not contribute in any way to creating and solidifying your unique presence. Consequently, even if companies do offer value-added content, the very sight of poor images might dissuade people from reading the information about the company, the services it offers or its products. Indeed, using the typical corporate stock photos suggests that you are still living in the pre-2.0 web age and you do not really have a clue about inbound marketing techniques, value-added content, and good branding. Furthermore, by being too afraid to stay away from the industry cliches, you opt to follow rather than lead. Consequently, do not wonder why your business is not doing so good. History is written by innovators, not by copy-cats. Therefore, any artificial stifling of entrepreneurial, marketing or graphic design creativity spells failure in huge red letters. What pains me most, however, is coming across the websites of small, supposedly innovative, startups run by young folks, which abound with indifferent, poorly chosen images. It literally breaks my heart! Is it so hard to find an appropriate, attractive, fresh picture in Google images? Aren’t there enough photographers that sell amazing photos different from the standard corporate images with which we are bombarded? If you are sick and tired of the image banks, check the creative portfolios of some outstanding photographers and artists on Behance! Your jaw will literally drop at the sight of their work! So ladies and gents, you have no excuse but to get hip and creative! Bad images can compromise your marketing efforts and portray you as empty and superficial. In addition, do not forget to optimize your images for SEO purposes! You will not believe it but there are so many people who just put images without even bothering to change their titles from ‘smiling, happy people’ to ‘Company X superstar marketing and communications team’. Make sure you include keywords in your descriptions as this will improve your web ranking. Sometimes, I stumble upon great companies while looking for some images!

So, do you get the full picture now? I hope you understand why it is important that you choose good images and why you must optimize them! You might consider this more of a formality but do not forget that the Devil is in the details and you are in business in order to succeed and ace them all! Thanks a lot for reading this article! I hope you find it useful. If you are famished for more marketing insights or you would like to improve your business practices, subscribe to the RSS feed that rocks, follow us on Twitter, join us on Facebook or feel free to contact us! Have a great weekend and see you around next time when I am going to discuss the notion of being a leader of the pack. Till then, just rock on!