Why Should I Use A Photographer Instead Of Stock Photography?

I’m sure you’ve found yourself asking this very question when you first started trying to find a web designer or tried to make your first site. A lot of times business owners don’t even think about photography for their websites. It’s something that most think just comes with a website and it really doesn’t matter much.

In all honesty, a website can be made or broken with the photography that is chosen to be displayed on it.  When you visit any major site such as msn.com , apple.com or even terminix.com you will notice only the newest and cleanest looking images.

A great instance would be if you were looking for rolling hills for your website. Say you run an wind turbine installation company, you would like to have the greenest and most clear hills possible. Listed to the side is an image found on a stock photography site or free and the other is a photo taken by one of our photographers. You can clearly see the difference in quality and to your customers it makes all the difference.

Usually large web design companies offer free access to stock photography such as clipart.com or sxc.hu, but these should only be used as placeholders within your website. When starting an online presence stock photography should be one of a few things that should be added to your budget, along with logo design, custom graphic design, hosting and online marketing just to name a few things.

A lot of stock photography is actually unappealing to a lot of people. Some of it is just right out creepy to some people. A lot of fake smiles, some guy that belong in the server room of a company not the website, someone expressing too much enthusiasm, any ‘relaxing’ position while working and any other random person just standing or sitting around. These are just a few things to keep in mind while choosing photography. When it comes down to it, trust your web designer to choose the best photos for your website.

If you could find a local photographer or web design company with a photographer to come to your location to take some custom photos for your website, this is the best route to go. This assures that nobody else on the internet has the same photos so customers aren’t seeing the same images over. If you are a local construction company, your visitor may have visited a few other local construction companies and those websites may end up having the same photography as you. This could lead to customer distrust because of the perception your website portrays.

Keep in mind that on some of the best stock photography sites such as istockphoto.com have high prices due to the quality of their images, so choose your images wisely or it can cost an arm and a leg to have your website look perfect.

If you would like a local Belleville, IL Photographer to come to your location to take photos, check out our photography services.