For a business there are many requirements that a website has to fulfill  but one of the most important is that it should look professional. You want your website to reflect your organization in only the best light and make it look like you are capable, resourceful and skilled in everything that you involve yourself with. If you have a website that looks sub-par, or that doesn’t have a professional edge to it, then people will instead think that you either lacked the skills and resources, or that you aren’t bothered about doing jobs to the best of your ability. If your website looks like a child made it, then who is going to want to entrust you to handle their finances, or sell them computer parts? What’s to say they won’t be just as shoddy?

With this in mind, using images of real people in your web design is a risky move and one that can go either way. While having people on your site can inspire confidence if it looks professionally done (the assumption would be that you hired professional models and photographers), it can also end up being unintentionally funny if they end up looking awkward or it’s obvious you took the pictures yourself. So how can you ensure that you get the human element right and make your site look corporate and impressive rather than like a fun day out with your friends?

Use the Right Services

The first thing to do is to outsource. You may be tempted to try and do this yourself, but unless you are professionally trained in taking and editing great photos and you have a model friend it won’t look right. Your web design company should be able to handle it for you, but if they can’t make sure you find someone who can.

The Models

You also need to make sure that you find the right models to demo your products or services for you. This means finding people who are attractive because this will make your company look more desirable and successful, and it means dressing them in a ‘power dressing’ kind of way. Look for diversity in your models too and you will make your business appeal to a wider audience.

Additionally you also need to ensure that your models are good actors – if they are even a little bit self conscious it will come across, so ensure they have experience behind a camera before pointing one at them.

Setting

The setting of your photos is equally important. If you have a professional looking work environment that says what you want to say about your business then it’s fine to use that as long as you have the right lighting. Otherwise, see if you can rent somewhere else or speak with your designers.

Editing

The way you edit your pictures can also have a big impact on how effective they are. This is again something best left to the pros, who will be able to enhance the lighting and contrast to give the images that glossy magazine-style feel, and who can use airbrushing to remove any blemishes or mistakes.

Author: Vadim Kirichenko is the brains behind today’s guest post. He likes sharing his views on online marketing and SEO. He says a good advertisement is the one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself. He also says that a good web design is nothing more than creative way of attracting people to your website.