Small Business Websites

So you’ve got a great product. Let’s say it’s meditation tapes designed to decrease stress in people’s lives. The product includes a book and four audio CDs. You invest in a professional photographer to take great photos you can use throughout your website. One image is of the book, one of the four CDs and one has the whole package.

You build a website and place these photos throughout the text, advertise your product and sit back and wait for booming sales.

• But have you used images to their best advantage?
• Does just the pictures of a book and CDs make you want to buy?
• What are your photos actually saying about your product?

When using images, you need to concentrate on what people are getting. Not physically getting, but getting as an end result of your product. Your meditation product is focusing on helping to relieve stress. Did you show your buyers what that might look like? Does a tranquil scene of a private beach do more for your message than the photo of your product? What about an image of someone smiling in traffic? Here, you’ve painted a picture of someone so stress free, that even extremely annoying life occurrences can’t break them out of their peace and stress free living. Now that will sell your product ten times more than three different photos of the book and CDs.

Yes, of course you still need to show them the product and what they’re getting, but you also need to show them an image that breaks through their barriers and really speaks to them. You’re supposed to be relieving stress.

• How does that look?
• What can you show them to help start that process now?
• Are your images putting them at ease - perhaps relaxing them?
• Are there any visual reinforcements to convince your prospects to buy?

Consider how overused a photo of someone sitting at a computer is. Do you get any clear feeling when you see it? Probably not. It’s just filler to break up text, but doesn’t say anything. In fact, it could be used for everything from online colleges or internet yellow pages to actually selling computers. Sure, it could fit on any of these sites, but does it really work? Will it help reinforce your message or get through to your clients in any way?

If you’re selling a car with reinforced door panels, which scenario actually means something?
Example 1: The image of the door cover removed to show the inside reinforcement and how the panels work.
Example 2: The image of the car after an accident compared to the damage done to another car without these reinforced panels. Make it visual. Make it meaningful.

Take a look at your website. People buy based on wants. That’s a feeling. How are you making them feel? If a picture is worth a thousand words, did you just say nothing at all?

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