We always recommend that our clients use their own images and video content wherever possible – it makes you look a lot more professional, genuine, inviting and relatable, especially in the world of Ai now.
Customers want to feel like they can trust you and if they know your using stock images to portray your business then you’re essentially already lying to them in a way. Even search engines and ai algorithms now look favourably at real images of your own, as they are able to detect when an image has been used multiple times before.
There are, however, occasions when this just isn’t possible and that’s where we would look to source images for our clients through stock library websites.
There is a bit of an art to choosing the right image – in terms of function but also in terms of it not looking too much like a “stock image”. Here we run through a few examples of what to avoid when choosing images for your site.
Being Cheesy / Staged
This is always the first thing we look to avoid when choosing imagery. Anything where the model is smiling at the camera with a glazed look in their eye, or with their thumbs up or the classic business guys handshake is a big no from us. These images come off as obvious, cheap and tacky – at best they make you look unprofessional and that you clearly put no real thought into the design, and at worst they make you look like a fake company.
Aim for images that look natural, not staged – where the model has a genuine smile or is doing real work, not staring at the camera whilst holding a spanner, for instance.
Being Unrealistic
Following on from looking like a fake company, using images that are clearly unrealistic or not something your company can provide will have the same effect, or worse yet could set you up for a lawsuit if it’s what a customer is expecting. An example of this could be a kitchen fitter website that shows a glossy, flawless kitchen they didn’t or can’t even fit.
Poor Quality / Poor Lighting
It goes without saying you don’t want to be using poor quality images, but it’s worth mentioning. A good website design is based alot around the images used and if you go to a free image library to source your stock images, as an example, then it’s usually noticeable. Spend a few extra pounds and get decent quality, good lighting, bold contrast (where appropriate) images that will help your company stand out.
The Wrong Location / Setting
You need to make sure the images you choose look correct to the location you are based. For instance, if you’re a UK based builder, and you find an image of a guy with a classic lumberjack shirt, working in front of a large, white picket fence house – then this won’t work as it’s no doubt based in America.
The Wrong Model
Make sure the people in the image look like they are based where you are too, or could be a potential customer or employee (whichever the goal is). Yes it’s good to have some diversity of people in your site, but if, for instance, your a UK based IT company and you choose an image of a group of Chinese people in a boardroom, customers will just think this is a Chinese business.
Make sure the model(s) look authentic and natural too, this takes a bit of judgment but you ideally want someone relatable and friendly looking. When someone is smiling in an image (without it looking fake or cheesy), it always helps to connect with a customer and has been proven to help conversions.
Popular Images or Models
Avoid where you can, images that could be used on other websites or of a model that is a regular in a lot of stock photography. They maybe a perfect fit for your site or have the right look, but in using it you just become generic and gives more chance of people recognising this as a stock image.
Not Matching the Brand Image / Style
This comes down to branding and ensuring the images you choose show the story you want to tell your potential customers. Are you light, bubbly, friendly or more serious, professional and corporate, the images you use will go a long way in portraying this. This will hold true to tone, brightness and colours in the image as well as any models presence or facial expression. For instance, a marketing company might opt for images that are more edgy and abstract, whereas a local plumber would just want realistic, straight forward imagery.
No Consistency With Multiple Images
You might need multiple stock images throughout your site and if so they need to have some level of synergy with one another. This comes back to your brand style and making sure you have a consistent look.
It also relates to images where you’re maybe trying to replicate staff members working – you don’t want random images of people with all different looks, e.g. a plumber with a blue uniform in one image and then a different plumber with red overalls in another, it’s clear these are fake shots then and not your real team.
Redundant Images
Don’t just choose an image because you feel the page needs an image. Make sure you know the reason for having the image first.
For instance, an image of a telephone on the contact us page. We see this a lot and it’s so frustrating. You want to avoid being too “on the nose” and too obvious. It’s a contact us page, the user knows what they’re there for so don’t patronise them. And in this day and age a telephone usually isn’t even the way someone does contact you, so make it make sense. A picture of a friendly staff member or an office building would be a much more effective choice for instance.
Image Proportions Being Wrong
In general, websites on desktop are landscape and on mobile their portrait, so you need to be aware of this when choosing stock imagery to fit a certain perspective.
If you want a nice banner image, for example on the homepage header then you need to find an image which has background either side to it. No point choosing one where the model takes up the whole space, when you come to put this in position it would cut most of them off and you’d have only part of their face or body showing. Different sized screens means the edges could get cut off too, so if important or focal points are either end of the image it may not work either.
So these were some tips to help source the best possible stock images or videos. But even after all this, you still can’t beat real, genuine images of your own – even Google and Ai algorithms prefer it. We do have our own high quality photographers and video creators that can help too, feel free to get in touch to find out more >
