Boost the impact of your site or blog with stock photos.

As a designer I spend a lot of time browsing the web and checking out other peoples websites and blogs for inspiration and ideas. I find that the most effective, user friendly websites I come across are those that make good use of photography. Today, I’m going to share with you some simple tips for using photography on your website or blog.

Why should I use photos?

There’s an old cliché which states that a picture paints a thousand words, producing written content for a webpage or blog post can be tedious so why not let photos do some of the work for you?
From looking around the LCN.COM website you will notice that we are pretty big on photography. For every one of our main pages we use a ‘high impact’ image geared towards grabbing the viewers attention and conveying an underlying message for that particular page. Using photography in this way can give your pages a big boost.

What sort of photos should I be using?

The photo can be bold, beautiful, strange, commanding or even just intriguing, so long as it makes the reader want to read on.

Where should I put photos?

As mentioned above, I feel that using photography to produce a high impact banner towards top of your main pages or posts is highly effective. These can be combined with strap-lines, quotes and other headings to help you convey to the viewer what the page is about and what they should be doing whilst on it.
Photography can be used to emphasize any section of your website or blog. Try not to go overboard though as too many images can make make your site look ‘bitty’ and unbalanced.

Where do I find photos?

There are some great sources for stock photography on the web. A simple Google search for ‘stock photos’ should return you with some credible websites.

Personally I’d recommend signing up to fotolia, they allow both individuals and professionals to legally buy and share stock images and illustrations at really affordable prices.

Our website hosting packages come with 3 free stock images from fotolia and you will be eligible for a 10% bonus on future purchases. A nice little incentive if you have already bought or are planning to buy a hosting package with us.