It is always impressive to see stunning quality images on a website. Great visuals jump out and draw interest. Ultimately, images do far more than just make a website look good. When they are deployed effectively, images are a crucial tool in maximising the marketing impact of your content. In this article, we will look at how images can effectively double the marketing success of your content.

Websites with visuals are more trusted

Trust is a big part of operating an effective website. If a user comes to your site and doesn’t feel they can trust what you have on offer or what you are saying, then you have virtually no chance of convincing them to use your site and convert. No matter how impressive your content is, if the trust isn’t there, you will not be able to achieve your goals.

Having good quality images is a simple but important factor in establishing trust. For example, showing off your company as a real business is a key way to build trust with your audience. Professional marketeers suggest using relatable visuals (and moving images) that represent your target audience, build up trust, and portray a sense of reality. When you have built that trust, the quality of your content can shine through.

Important for organic search

“Content is king,” says the old search engine optimisation (SEO) adage. And it is true; high-quality content is more valuable than ever to a website that wants to place higher in Google’s rankings. But if you are looking for ways to boost your performance in organic search, you shouldn’t ignore the importance of images. After all, images are simply another form of content.

“Images add value to your SEO efforts by increasing user engagement and accessibility of your website,” says Danae Weber of Emfluence “images make any content more interesting and appealing by helping readers understand your content better.”

Your content is being skim-read

Written content plays a vital role in your website. Without it, you will face real challenges in attempting to sell products and services to customers. And it is always very noticeable when written content is low quality. But given this, it might be surprising to learn that the vast majority of readers will only skim-read your content.

Of course, some are reading for the details. Given this, you need to ensure that the content is high quality. But given that a considerable amount of traffic is only here to glance at the content, it shows the advantage of images. Pictures can be used to tell a story, and they can help to make pages more engaging.

Crossover with social media

Having access to high-quality images for your content gives you a much broader range of options. You can deploy images across a variety of channels, including your social media profiles. This is an example of how high-quality images can make an enormous difference.

All marketers face the challenge of keeping their content fresh on social media. So when you are already creating stunning imagery for your site, this is really helping with another aspect of the job.

Visuals help to create and drive leads

While written content is undoubtedly essential for conveying information and ensuring that a customer understands your product or service, it is through visual content that websites are able to really push engagement. When customers are more engaged with your website, that helps you to naturally create and drive them into sales. In short, visuals are great for lead generation.

Interestingly, statistics show that 90% of the information that is sent to the brain for processing is visual and that this leads to people forming a first impression in just 50 milliseconds. This shows you just how important it is to have the right images in place to grab your audience's attention and make them want to stick around.

Tips for getting the right images

So, when we say the ‘right’ images that can double the value of your content, what do we really mean by that? Carefully selected images should highlight your company or product’s backstory and project an authentic message to which your target audience will relate and respond. More than merely telling a story, your visuals should also align with your marketing strategy's core message and highlight the values your brand represents to engage prospective customers successfully.

Here, we present some tips for finding, creating, and using images that will help you get as much out of them as possible:

• Avoid stock images - you might think that stock images lend a professional look to your site. While this can be true, it is also definitely the case that stock images are overused on the internet. This is a problem. It is easy to spot a stock photo - they don’t look natural, and it can put customers off. It is always better to create your own images if you can for a more personalised approach.
• Create unique images - it’s a great idea to create images with a unique look and feel. Camera specialists MPB recommend looking for a way to stand out from the crowd: “it can be a simple pop of colour, a visual representation of a new concept, an element of education, or even something beautifully imperfect. Unique characteristics will always engage your audience in an organic way, even within an algorithm.”
• Compress your images - it might seem counterintuitive, having spoken so much about how to get the perfect images, but in some cases, it is essential to minimise file size. For the vast majority of users, this will make no noticeable difference to the quality of the photo. Compressing your images helps the page load quicker, which is essential for SEO.