90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual. Research done by Hubspot shows that Facebook photos alone generate 53% more likes than the average post.
This is true too for images on your website. One of the most popular questions asked by our website design clients is where to find decent stock images, especially free options. A poor image, in terms of the selection, the quality and size of it, can make or break someone’s decision to continue browsing your website. This is true for any page on your website, especially one’s with galleries. Ideally if have a gallery, it’s better to have a thumbnail image (small) and then a bigger image if someone clicks on it. (Our team can take your bigger image and create this thumbnail for you – it’s not as easy the other way around.)
Badly Executed Gallery
Correctly Executed Gallery
Images used in example by www.samwilkinson.co.za
10 Free Image Resources
There are many free image resources out there. I have picked 10 of them which we have found to be very useful when designing customer’s websites.
- Dreamstime
- Free Digital Photos
- Free Range Stock
- Free Photos Bank
- IM Free
- Pixabay
- Rgbstock
- FreeMediaGoo
- PicJumbo
- Canva (My Favourite – it allows you to easily add text over images yourself)
Stock images have their place but where you can, especially if you are selling a product or service, try to use your own images. Also, if needs be, use some of your staff in your imagery – it adds a personal touch and lets customers feel that “real people” sit behind the website. Hiring a photographer can be expensive but in the end you will have images of your product and your company and your people. Which ever way you go, make sure you have amazing images that make visitors stop and have a look at.
Remember this – “On average you have 7 seconds to impress someone when they land on your website”.
Happy image searching.
