Photos give customers a rich impression of your business, and articles with photos in them are 47 percent more likely to be clicked on, reports content creation agency Curata. Not only do compelling photos encourage engagement, they aid in SEO efforts, since photos may be tagged with keywords and show up in search results. Photos are essential for a company’s SEO strategy, writes SEO agency AudienceBloom CEO Jayson DeMars. Besides supporting written or filmed content, photos tell stories. Great photographers combine technical proficiency, style and vision to creatively illustrate ideas, according to a digital photography school. Whatever your budget, there are things you can do to ensure you only use quality images for your content.
Rule of Thirds
While outsourcing to professionals is ideal, if you shoot photos in house, there are things you can do to make the pictures look professional. Spanish business photographer Alexandro Lacadena Gomez suggests you are conscious of the rule of thirds; imagine an image is divided into nine parts with two horizontal and vertical lines spaced equally, and put your subject where the lines intersect, since that is where people’s eyes naturally gravitate.
Show Perspective
If you’re photographing a product, shoot it from all angles to show off all features. For other subjects, shoot from multiple angles to show unique perspectives. Use black or white for your background to make your product pop, and light the product from all sides. Be mindful of your white balance setting to ensure white backgrounds don’t appear yellowish or brownish, according to blog.cx.com. Consider diversity when using models.
Composition
Once you’re familiar with composition, you’ll be surprised how universal most of the tips are. You’ll find the way to make a photo look professional, according to photographymad.com, instead of a snapshot:
- Place your main subject off center
- Think about the way you place your leading lines: straight, diagonal, radial, zigzag, curvy, etc.
- Work with symmetry and patterns
- Consider photographing from above, ground level, close up, far away, from the side, etc. for a unique perspective
- Keep the background simple
- Give depth through a background, middle ground and foreground
Cropping and Editing
After shots are taken, crop photos to optimize them if needed. Photos may be edited later for color, for elimination of red eye, and for exposure — most basic computer editing programs, such as Apple iPhoto, have these features built in.
Learn.columbia.edu has a photo resolution and size guide, which recommends photos for the web be at least 600 pixels wide with a 72 DPI resolution and a file size of 20-200K. To embed photos into your website, use a free popular uploader such as Picasa or Flickr, according to Practical Ecommerce, since your Web platform may have photo limitations.
Portrait Lighting
Photographer Bill Hurter’s book, “The Best of Photographic Lighting,” states there are five basic portrait lighting setups:
- Paramount, butterfly or glamour lighting: produces symmetrical shadows beneath the subjects nose
- Loop lighting: great for people with oval-shaped faces
- Rembrandt lighting: the shadowed cheek of the subject has a small, triangular highlight
- Split lighting: occurs when the key light illuminates half of the face
- Profile lighting: used when the subject’s head is turned 90 degrees from the camera lens
Inexpensive Photography Resources
Using royalty-free photography can give you many quality photos for free through sites such as SXC.hu or Flickr. Examine the photographer’s terms to ensure you’re using the photos legally, suggests Search Engine Journal.
During the photography process, relax and breathe, Phoenix-based photographer Maria Vassett told Phoenix People. She encouraged photographers to follow their creative sides and inspirations when shooting.
By Peter Marino, owner of reelWebDesign.com, a complete content marketing company in NYC.
