Enhancing a Business Website with Photography

Whether you are designing a new business website from scratch or revamping an existing one, the visual focus is likely to be on its use of photography. Ipswich and Suffolk businesses, as well as those in the London area, know they can call on Stillview to make their web pages stand out from the crowd. Photographs on a website are far more than just an add-on, because they can be used as a central feature of the design. Images with the right visual impact will enhance a site's appeal, as well as helping to sell the product or service on offer.

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Product Photographs
Product photography is an important element for commercial sites, both on pages where products can be bought direct from the site and on those where the site owner is the manufacturer and selling stock to other outlets.

With fashion in particular, in order to compete with high street stores, online operations need to ensure the clothes they are selling can be seen clearly. Straight product shots on a plain background are ideal to show items of clothing to customers at home, with consistency being an important element here.

If all the items are shot against the same background and from a similar angle, it will be easier for a customer to choose between the different styles. It is also helpful if there is an option to examine the fashions close-up, to give an idea of the fabric and finishing. This means that high-resolution and high quality are very important. Of course, a product photographer could also take  fashion shots for your site on location or in a studio, to put across the clothes' style and practicality, or to help convey a particular lifestyle.

With new technical products, showing the item in use can help people connect with the product featured in the photography. Ipswich-based Stillview are experts in all kinds of commercial photography, from pack shots to products in use, for instance vehicles or machinery.

Business Portraits
Where you want to convey the skills of specific people within your organisation, including business portraits on your website is a great way to  connect with your customers. Putting a face to a name will often encourage prospective clients to get in touch.

Showing faces is also important to convey the high standards of customer service that your company offers. This can help to personalise a service even if it is entirely carried out online. For instance, seeing individuals in a warehouse will help customers to feel that a parcel which arrives through the post has been personally packed for them. Business portraits used on the web can be specific, for instance showing a particular solicitor, writer or engineer. However, they can also be generic, perhaps showing a smiling and friendly customer service representative "waiting for your call".

Site Banners
Many business websites have eye-catching site banners. These are usually large images running the full width of a page, which gives a strong visual impact even if the rest of the site is mainly text. A powerful image created by a business photographer can be combined with text and graphics to get across key messages and encourage new visitors to your site to explore further. A good banner can be made up of a single photo, or a composite of multiple photos may be used to create a strong graphic effect.

It is also possible for a banner to be still or animated, for instance with a constantly changing slide show, which can add a sense of energy to a site. This imaginative use of photography can help a business in Ipswich or Suffolk to get the word out about their services to customers both locally and further afield.

Blog and Article Illustrations
With corporate blogs and articles, appealing images will help to draw readers into the text and encourage them to read on. It is also valuable for SEO purposes to have photographs with suitable captions included in a site.

Portfolio Slide Shows
Where there is any visual element to the product or service being provided, a slide show is an ideal way to showcase the range of items which are available. Slide shows can be set to rotate images automatically, or may be user-driven, with controls allowing visitors to move forwards and backwards through the images.

For example, a travel company could show images of destinations and customers enjoying themselves. A self-storage company might show images of the storage premises and customers using the facilities, while any retailer of shoes and clothing could showcase the different items on sale in an ever-changing display.

Bespoke Menus and Icons
In the age of touchscreens and mobile apps, it is unfriendly to expect people to navigate around using tiny text links and buttons. Larger clickable areas are easier to use and more appealing visually. In addition, it can help a website if, rather than just being created in plain blocks of colour, these link buttons feature photographic backgrounds with composited text. This is also a way of illustrating the subject matter for each link.

The photos used can be either full focus or in a soft focus, perhaps using sharper close-ups of specific products. With photography used in this way, the overall result is a lot more "designed" and professional looking than a site just featuring plain text and buttons to click.

About Stillview
Stillview can provide high quality photography to assist with all these different uses, serving commercial clients in Ipswich, Felixstowe, Bury St Edmunds and all of Suffolk. We also have customers in Cambridgeshire, Essex and across East Anglia, as well as London PR and advertising agencies.

Commercial Photography in Ipswich – Click the link to find out more