Strategy Series 2021: Graphics

Your digital marketing needs graphics, whether that is photographs, drawings, infographics, add some colour to ensure that your content is eyecatching.

However, you need to be careful when using any of these images and we have put together some of the things to watch out for.

Is it legal?

Please please please don’t download graphics and images from google search and use them on your website or social media.

There are stock image sites where you can download images to use free of charge, once you give credit to the creator.

You can also use platforms like canva to create your own custom images.

No excuses, this one can get you in a lot of trouble so make sure to stay legal with whatever images you are using.

Is it current?

If you’ve updated to a new version, eg with your logo, make sure that you have updated to that version wherever it occurs online (this one may take some time but stick with it!)

Is it relevant?

Make sure that the image that you are putting with a piece of content makes sense, this is where it may be best to create your own rather than trying to find a good fit in the realms of stock images.

Is it eyecatching?

One of the reasons to use graphics is to catch the viewer’s eye on your website or, perhaps even more so, on social media. Social feeds are hectic and a good graphic can significantly boost visibility which will result in more engagement via likes, clicks, comments.

Is it “you”?

Make sure that the graphics you use match the personality of your business, your brand or your own personality. This is part of the first impression people will get and the ideal is that when someone converts and is interacting with you personally it feels consistent.

Using your own photos is always the best option, once they are of reasonable quality. Both for legal reasons and to increase authenticity.

Be authentic, it is so obvious when people are posting in a genuine way and the reaction will always be significantly better.

Is it quality?

There’s a trade off in using graphics on websites where we must balance image quality with site performance.

High-resolution graphics mean that they look high quality, clear and easy to view – and an impression of high quality on your website reflects on the quality in your business, generally.

Large image sizes can, however, affect performance and slow down load times on your website, which affects user experience as well as search performance.

There are a few tips and tricks to achieve this balance:

• Use an image resolution that matches how the image will be viewed – don’t load a 5000-pixel wide image when the screen size will never be that wide.
• Use an image optimisation tool or plugin to compress the image, these tools can reduce the file size to improve performance and often without any perceptible loss in image quality.
• Load the correct size image for the screen, so for a phone the website should load a smaller resolution graphic as it is displayed on a smaller screen.

Check out the rest of our Strategy Series here