Photos by Pennie

http://www.photosbypennie.co.uk/

Pennie Withers is a Commercial and Event Photographer working in the Thames Valley and London.  She helps businesses stand out from the crowd by enabling them to have professional photographs on their websites, marketing materials and social media.

In the first guest blog of a three-part series by professional photographer Pennie Withers, she talks about the importance of professional images for your business website.

Are you having a new website built for your business? Or perhaps you have a great looking website, but are looking to freshen it up? Either way – you will need some cracking, beautiful website photos to really give it that WOW! Factor. You may also need photos for your social media posts.

Now obviously, I’m hoping you’ll look at my website (that’s http://www.photosbypennie.co.uk by the way!), immediately pick up the phone and book me for your business photos. However, even if you don’t book me, I would love to at least convince you WHY you need professional photos on your site (and while I’m on my soap box, on your social media too!). If I’ve piqued your interest… here’s why:

Apparently, our brains react differently to visual stimuli. This is because the brain deciphers images instantly, whereas words take more time to process. Photos or images are in fact, processed 60,000 times faster than text.

So – why should this matter to you?

Well, you can spend hours and hours creating a new website with fantastic, eloquent words, but I hate to break this to you, people rarely read website content word for word. However, have fantastic, professional photos on there and immediately, you are creating the impression that your business is professional. The photos reinforce your brand, they can show what you have to offer and in a nutshell, enable your business to create the right impression. In turn, people will want to do business with you. That’s good, right?!

On top of this – don’t forget that if you have a set of professional photos of your business, you can also use them in your social media. It’s a win:win – 2 jobs for the price of one! And if you don’t believe me, here’s some figures…

According to Media Blog – tweets that include a photograph, are 35% more likely to be retweeted. Add to this the fact that Facebook posts that have a photograph in will obtain on average, 87% more interaction. Make sense?

In case you’re not convinced, take a look at the photos in the link below.  My client was Alison Harmer, a copywriter and. She was having a new website built and didn’t want generic stock images. So, we spent a couple of hours setting up specific shots and hey presto… a unique website with striking professional photos: http://harmereditorial.co.uk/

So – hopefully you’re now fully convinced of the need for professional photographs on your website and social media posts. If you’d like to have a chat about how I might be able to help you, please give me a call on 07715 889457 or click here to send me an email.

In my next blog post, I’ll be giving you some tips on how to take your own photos for your social media.