They say that photos are the equivalent of 1000 words. If you want to spark emotions within your visitors head then you need to use images to get the level of effect you desire. Whether it is to sell more products, gain user loyalty or just to impress the visitor then well placed images can have significant effects.
Find the Image You Need
The first thing you need to do is find the necessary images. With the wide selection of free stock images available you are best to just perform a search in one of the search engines and you will get plenty of results. When you look on all the sites you will actually find that you are spoilt for choice!
Alter the Image
Once you have the image you need to resize it and alter it as necessary so that it will fit nicely into your site and work with the colour scheme. This can be done even with free software like 'Paint' which comes already installed on your computer. Although remember to retain the best possible quality of the image, it is better to have a great looking image that takes 1 second to load then a rubbish image that takes half a second to load.
Is The Image Right For What You Want?
All the time you should be thinking about what effect you want the image to have. If you are selling a product then it obviously needs to show the product off to the max or at least highlight one of the best features. If you own something like a debt related site and you want to make the visitor feel even more miserable so they phone your company up then you will want to put an image of a depressed person with a beer in their hand looking at their finances (immoral I know but business is business!). Make sure the image is relevant and will spark the emotions you require.
Placement of the Picture
Now you need to put the image in a good place. Once again this varies depending on what you are trying to achieve. If you have a large article then I think it is best to put a small image half way down. This way you can increase the emotions they have as they have already read half the content so they are already gripped, its just a case of heightening their emotions.
If you have content which doesn't really get juicy till half way through then you don't want to lose them early on. The best way to avoid this is put an image at the very top, this will give them an idea of what the article is about - especially if it is a chart, flow diagram or something like that.
Alternatively with some content you may want to put it at the bottom. This is best when you want to finish the reader off! For example if you are reading an article written by a charity about a poorly child from Africa and the whole article has made you feel sad about the child's problems with her health and family deaths then a picture of her (crying) at the bottom of the page is probably going to finish you off and make you 100% appreciate what the charity is trying to do!
Conclusion
You may think the references above to people in debt and to a poor African child may be a bit inconsiderate, but I'm just trying to emphasise the power of images. Well written content is good and draws the reader in but a top quality well placed image can close the door on the reader and make them remember the page they are on. After the effect you've just had on them they will use your website and no go off looking for others!
Get Free Images for Your Website
If you are looking for top quality images that you can download for free then you are best to visit Free Stock Images. This lists all the best photo resources and all provides articles about images just like this one so you can learn even more about the power of the picture!
Author's URL: www.goarticles.com
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