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Small businesses have seen the light when it comes to getting online with around 71 percent running a dedicated website. That doesn’t even account for businesses that run exclusively through social media platforms.

Of course, the Internet is an inherently visual space. Sure, you see plenty of text floating around, but it’s often an interesting image that draws attention.

Given their essential role, selecting business website images isn’t something you can do with your mind only half on the job. That leaves the question of how you pick images for websites. Read on for the tips you’ll need to pick the right images for your website.

Options for Images

Businesses can address the problem of finding images in three main ways. The simplest option for many businesses is a stock image site. These sites provide you access to often vast libraries of images, but you run the risk of the same images turning up on other sites.

The second option is for you to take pictures yourself. This cuts out the middleman and ensures uniqueness, but it hinges on your photography skills.

Hiring a professional photographer to take pictures for you is the final main option. This typically proves the most expensive, and therefore least popular, option for small businesses.

Relevance

You must give some consideration to the relevance of the image. For example, a blog post about comic books probably shouldn’t include an image of a flower. It’s not that pictures of flowers are bad, they just don’t apply to the post.

Any time you add an image to your website, it should have a deep connection with the topic of the page or post. Keeping images relevant helps you prime the mental pump of visitors for the topic you talk about around the picture.

Relevant images are also SEO-friendly images. Search engines like images and they like on-topic images even more.

Uniqueness

Uniqueness is a big deal online. The subject of duplicate content still gives some website owners trouble. Fortunately, search engines know about stock image sites and generally won’t ding you for using images that appear elsewhere.

What happens if you find the almost-right image? For example, the foreground of the image is perfect, but the background includes things you don’t want.

Good news. You can find tools online specifically designed to remove background from an image. Then, you can replace the background with something that works better for your needs.

How to Pick Images for Websites

The problem of how to pick images for websites isn’t as complicated as it sounds. First, you must figure out how you’ll source images. Most small businesses opt for stock image sites, but you can always take pictures yourself or hire a photographer.

Once you can source images, it mostly boils down to relevance and uniqueness. When in doubt, go for relevance. An on-topic image will always trump an interesting but less relevant image.

Looking for more tips on building a better website? Check out the posts over in our Tech News section.

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