Things are definitely heating up in ecommerce, and it has nothing to do with summer (well, maybe a little bit). With the holidays on the horizon and looming ever-closer, it’s a race against time to get your site and promotions ready. In the midst of all the activity, sometimes things fall through the cracks. Sometimes everything will still run smoothly, sometimes they won’t.
One thing you definitely don’t want to overlook is your product images. Bad ones can break your business, but great ones can increase conversions to take your business to the next level and beyond. Here are just a few tips to make your product images attractive and engaging for your visitors:
1. Quality, quality, quality!
People want to experience a product before they buy it. Since your visitors can’t physically experience your product, you want to make sure they can get a good feel for it from your images. This means having clear, high resolution images is a must! If they’re blurry or grainy, visitors will trust you less, question the quality of your product, and your conversions are going to suffer for it. It’s a small oversight, but can have a large effect on your bottom line.
2. Don’t forget the lighting.
Lighting can make the difference between an okay product image and a great product image. Make sure you’re using a clean background that contrasts nicely with your products. You want them to stand out and look great too. Additionally, really good lighting allows you to highlight features and details of the product, which can also make it more visually appealing to your visitors. Your product images could be the difference between a visitor choosing you over a competitor; great lighting could be that difference for your product images.
3. Show the product in use.
Online visitors cannot pick up and examine your product as they could in a retail store. By including images of the product in use, you can give visitors an idea of what that product can do for them and how they’ll be able to use it in their own lives. It gives the product a more personal feel and makes it relatable by providing that human element.
4. Include varieties.
This includes different angles of the product as well as colors. If your visitors can view a product from multiple angles and see it in different colors, they’ll be more engaged with that product, more attached to it, and then will be more likely to purchase it. Besides, people want to know what they’re getting for their purchase. Keep in mind, you don’t want to overwhelm your customer with tons and tons of product photos. Giving them just the right number to really familiarize themselves with your product can offer big returns.
5. Remember SEO.
As search engines continue to change the way their results appear, you want to make sure you give yourself, and your web properties, the best chance of showing up. Your images also have a chance of appearing in image carousels and next to your listings. So, don’t forget SEO best practices. Make sure your filenames for images are unique and descriptive, add alt tags to all of your images, and implement schema markup on your pages so your images have the chance to get the attention they deserve!
Those are the basics to get you started, and just in time for the holidays. Here’s to a conversion boost during the holidays, and more attractive, engaging product images all year-round.