Website Design: Four places you need brand photography on your website
Whether you’re just using a landing page or have a built-out website, you’re going to need visuals to go along with them. To be safe, a good rule of thumb when designing your website is to ensure you have a photo on every page. It provides visitors with a relatable representation to your brand, boosts your SEO (which is good even if you’re not actively working on it), and when done right, it will quickly show your high-ticket potential customers that you value quality. When planning a shoot with your brand photographer, here are all the spots you need to think about having images.
Your hero image.
The image that probably matters most, your hero image is the first one visitors see when they land on your website. It only takes about 50 milliseconds, or 0.05 seconds, for someone to form an opinion about your website and decide whether they’ll stay or leave. If you don’t have a captivating visual to greet them upon arrival (or if your image takes too long to load, but that’s another topic), you can kiss that potential customer away.
That hero image could be anything from a graphic to a video, but frankly, images are still the quickest way to make a first impression, so make sure it’s a good one.
Sprinkled throughout your homepage.
Your homepage should give users a bulk of information from the get go without making them have to click around. It makes a mobile user experience much easier (and hey, guess what, over 50% of website usage is from you guessed it...mobile). You can go more in depth about yourself and your services on other pages but it’s a good idea to whet vistors’ whistles so that they truly start getting an idea for who you are and what you do out the gate. This means that your homepage should have images that complements each section you write about.
BONUS: Most website builders will give you the option to include a snapshot or carousel of your Instagram feed. Use it, especially if you spend a lot of time curating your grid to accomplish a certain aesthetic that further solidifies your brand.
Your about page.
You’d think this is fairly straightforward but you’d be surprised how many websites I’ve visited without a photo of the person behind the brand anywhere in sight, and that includes their about page. This is a great spot to use a portrait or headshot, accompanied by a few photos that tells more of your story, i.e. a hobby, your travels, etc.
Your services page.
One of the main things I spend a lot of time discussing with my clients when planning their brand shoot is how their service or product makes their customers FEEL. As business owners, we’re all essentially solving someone's struggles or challenges. If you can get that emotion translated to an image to demonstrate how your client will FEEL while or after working with you, you are speaking a whole new powerful language. Don’t miss the opportunity.
Now, depending on how you build out your website, there are many other spots to include photos, such as your portfolio, contact page, etc. But these are the main spots to keep in mind and plan for when designing your brand shoot. Feel free to share your final products in the comments!
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MEET YOUR BRAND PHOTOGRAPHER
Bernadette Marciniak is a branding photographer based out of Los Angeles & New York City. She works with coaches, healers, educators and creative business owners to create powerful imagery that converts audiences into clients.
A former photojournalist, Bernadette approaches brand photography from a storytelling standpoint, using the emotions of your ideal client to guide a photoshoot. Illustrating the achievable transformations of the people you work with is the most powerful way to create the visibility your business needs.
Bernadette loves good pizza, craft beer and red wine. She watches Parks and Rec, Friends and How I Met Your Mother on repeat.
