Website Photography – Shoes of the Trade
Monday, June 21st, 2010
In regard to business marketing, I hear a lot lately about the importance of social networking via LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. These now accepted “Tools of the Trade” are geared to procure business and, if done right, are utilized to connect your prospective clientele to your website. Your connections, “friends,” and fellow “tweeters” come to your website to read more about your business’s product and service. That’s the idea, right? So, now they’re there, and what do they see? A great website with Flash, wonderful text, and “visuals.” But one thing in too many cases is sorely missing. Effective visuals. Positively impactful, impressive, and just good old-fashioned aesthetically pleasing photographic visuals.
I hear this sad refrain from almost every website designer with whom I speak. “My new client already has pictures, and no matter how much I say I want new photography, they say ‘these are good enough.’ “ And, yes, the vast majority of website designers I speak with say, “no, they aren’t good enough.” “Not only,” they complain, “are they not good enough for their lack of professionalism, they are low in resolution, and, more often than not, they are a complete contrast to the professional, artistic, and beautiful website I want to create for them.”
So, what’s a professional, artistic web designer to do? Less stellar work so as not to contrast with the horrible pictures? More beating of their heads against the wall? Resorting to other self-destructive activities
Tell you what, instead of contributing to the demise of artistry in web design, let’s give your web designer a break. Just like website designers, I expect you want photographic images at your site that reflect the work you do in the most positive and attractive way possible. After all, having a website is an essential tool of the marketplace. It’s your online brochure. And like your brochure, showing your product in its best light necessitates putting your best foot forward.
You know the importance of keeping your shoes polished in business, right? A good haircut, attractive clothes, well-manicured hands? I mean, you never know when you’ll encounter a potential client. You never know when a potential client is looking at your website either. Shine those shoes. Polish those pictures. Show your product off attractively. Give everyone who goes to your website the impression that their opinion is valued. Because it is. If the impression created by your website is that your product lacks value, they won’t value your business, and since this is all about social networking, guess what impression will be emailed and tweeted to your “friends” and “connections” . . . and, directly or indirectly, to your prospective clientele?
If through LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or whatever means of social networking you employ you invite people to a website utilizing photography that is unpolished, unattractive, and unprofessional, your business, too, will be interpreted as unpolished, unattractive, and unprofessional. Your website – just like your polished shoes – is one of the most important Tools of the Trade. Make sure you put your best foot forward with a website with polish . . . photography that shines.
– Dione Benson
