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The images you put on your website are important! They can help show who you are as a brand, engage the reader, and ultimately make you more sales. In this article, we’re going to talk about how you can maximize your website imagery to increase your bottom line. Let’s dive in!
Aim to evoke an emotional response from your customers
If you can inspire a strong emotion in your customers, they’ll be more likely to connect with you — and more willing to spend money on your products and services as a result. You can show people joyfully using your products, or use images of people who are sad because they have a problem you can solve, for instance.
Let’s take a look at how a number of businesses are already using emotive imagery in any effort to boost their conversions.
Take a look at how Live Nation, a concert and live entertainment business, does this on their homepage.
After a year of pandemic life, many people are wanting to get out and about again, and this image of a concert — something that most people haven’t been able to attend in over a year — will help to get people excited and ready to buy tickets. Just below the image, they note that Music Midtown has announced their festival lineup — this is an engaging and exciting combo that helps encourage ticket sales.
Similarly, Kaiser Permanente, a healthcare insurance company, helps customers feel safe and reassured using the right imagery on their website.
Many people are concerned about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines and aren’t sure where to look to get information. By using imagery of a man and his doctor, where he is smiling and looking comfortable, this helps instill a sense of safety in the viewer, thus encouraging them to get vaccinated. Furthermore, since Kaiser Permanente is an insurance company, offering their viewers trustworthy information and making them feel safe in this way encourages them to invest in the company’s services.
Build connections with images that humanize your business
People don’t want to feel like they’re spending their money with a faceless corporation, so focus on using images that humanize your business. You can do this by showing images of your team on an About Us page, showing off the different types of work you do, or showing behind-the-scenes images that demonstrate your process or products being created.
Let’s look at a few examples.
AKD Law humanizes their business using a range of images showing their lawyers looking happy and welcoming.
Sometimes, law firms can seem intimidating and robotic, with all of their legal jargon. But it’s easy to connect to and relate to these lawyers because there are images of the actual people prospective clients will be working with. Putting a face to the names shows that these lawyers are just people, after all! Humanizing their law firm in this way is sure to help AKD Law secure more clients, and it’s a tactic you can easily replicate on your website.
Copeland Oaks, a retirement home in Ohio, also humanizes their business by introducing some of the Copeland Oaks leadership team.
Each individual has their own photo and biography that tells visitors a bit about them and how they got into working with Copeland. Giving out this information to their potential residents shows that Copeland is run by trustworthy individuals that have compassion for the people in their care; humanizing their business in this way encourages people to visit Copeland and become residents.
Create visuals that show your business has personality
If you want people to feel connected to your brand, use imagery to show off your personality a little bit! Keep in mind that the requirements here will differ depending on what industry you are in — a kids’ toy manufacturer will want to use a lot of colorful images, while a law firm will want to use more polished and professional imagery. Try to pick themes, colors, and designs that your audience will relate to.
Let’s look at a few examples of businesses that show off their personality through visuals.
Take a look at how Coca-Cola showcases their personality using imagery. In this image, there’s a young girl with a skateboard and a variety of Coca-Cola products. This image shows that Coca-Cola is fun, exciting, and refreshing. Additionally, there are a variety of products, showing that Coca-Cola can be incorporated into a lot of different parts of life — cola for refreshment, orange juice for breakfast, or PowerAde for sports, for example. By showcasing the girl here excited about drinking several Coca-Cola products, they encourage their viewers to make a purchase to get in on the fun.
BarkBox, a dog toy subscription service, shows off their personality and sense of humor in their images as well.
On their homepage, they have two silly dogs making funny faces. On top of the dogs are dancing bone graphics. This imagery shows that BarkBox loves dogs and is willing to have fun while working. As stated earlier, showing off personality (and, in this case, a bit of humor) helps people feel more connected with the brand, thus boosting their sales.
Help customers imagine themselves using your products or services
If you can help your customers imagine themselves using your products or services, they’ll be much more likely to want to buy them. Keep in mind that you should try to use real people in your images, as opposed to models. This will help the customers picture themselves in their shoes.
User-generated content offers another great way to get this type of imagery. Consider if it would be practical for your business to use a hashtag on Instagram to give your customers a place to post images of them using your products. You can repost user-generated content on your own page or share it on your website to give them a wider audience — just be sure to ask your customers for permission to use their content in advance! Showing off user-generated content helps customers imagine themselves using your products, thus boosting your sales.
Let’s look at a few examples of businesses that use imagery that helps customers imagine themselves using their services.
Dollar Shave Club, an online razor subscription service, helps customers imagine themselves using their services on their homepage. The first image a website visitor sees is that of a man carefully shaving his beard — much like the targeted audience of DSC. This helps potential customers feel more confident and secure in their shaving routine; after all, it can get difficult! By implementing this strategy, which makes them feel more relatable, Dollar Shave Club can help increase their sales.
On the other hand, Vessi, a waterproof footwear retailer, uses images of people using their shoes in water to help potential customers imagine themselves using their products.
The man here is splashing in a river. This type of image gets the viewer to imagine themselves bringing these shoes on hikes or nature walks and never having to worry about soggy socks or wet feet again! If your products or services have a particularly unique feature, consider how you could highlight it in your imagery like Vessi has — showing that your products work as you say they do will help you increase sales.
Show how your products or services work
People like to make informed purchasing decisions. If you can show how your products or services work through your imagery, you can increase your chances of making a sale. You can do this with product photography, GIFs or graphics that show how your products or services work, or with photos of your products being used.
Let’s look at a few examples of sites that do this well.
For instance, Ping Identity shows off their Single Sign-On product in action using imagery.
They have a diagram that explains how their products are able to work while confirming the user’s identity. Software products can be confusing for a lot of people but, by outlining the process so simply, PingIdentity helps their customers better understand the product, which can help them to secure more sales.
If you have a product or service that is complex — software, insurance, and automotive-related services tend to fly over people’s heads, for instance — consider how you could use diagrams or videos similar to PingIdentity’s
Finally, Loganix, an expert in digital marketing, SEO, and backlink building, shows off how their SEO templates work using imagery, as well. They have a variety of templates to help find backlink gaps, uncover keywords, create content briefs, and more.
In the image on their web page, they give you an example template. This shows the viewer that Loganix is an expert in what they do —- before people commit to spending money with them, they can use these free templates to help them make a more informed decision.
Summary
Your website’s imagery can make or break a sale. If you want to increase your bottom line, picking the right pictures is crucial! In this article, we outlined several different tips to get you started, including tapping into emotions, humanizing your business, showing off your business’s personality, and showing how your products work. Take a look at your website and see where you can improve
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Author bio & headshot:
Adam Steele is COO and co-founder of Loganix, which is an SEO fulfillment partner for digital marketing agencies and professionals. The company provides the SEO services that businesses need to grow and achieve their goals. If you enjoyed this article, you can find more SEO guides and templates on the Loganix blog.
