If you’re trying to design your own web site, you will eventually have to select which images to choose for your web site. The images you select will share your vision of your company and will often convince customers whether or not to do business with you. Therefore, you will want to select carefully. You may, for example, want to consider the following when making your decisions:

*Advice from your web design company. Hopefully, you have hired a web design firm to put together your professional web site. Your firm may have suggestions about what types of images you can include on your web site, and this can be valuable advice, since web design professionals often know very well what sort of images customers respond well to. You may want to consider these suggestions when making your decision. However, remember that the choice is ultimately up to you.

*Relevance. You’ll want to ensure that any images you select for your web site are perfectly relevant. For example, if you are selling Seiko watches online, you want to not just include images of any kind of time pieces on your web site. You want to include images of the specific Seiko brand timepieces that you are selling now.

*Attractiveness. You’ll want to ensure that every image and every photo on your web site is as attractive as possible. Get rid of images that have poor exposure, blurriness, lack of focus, redeye, fuzzy details, and imperfect color. If there’s a photo that you really have your heart set on that is unattractive, consider getting it Photoshopped to make it more viable for your web site. Just don’t put it up as it is.

*Details of your products or services. If you’re trying to sell something online, you will need to ensure that the images on your web site provide enough detail to allow your customers to make a decision. For example, if you are selling clothes online, you should provide several images of each clothing item from all angles, and you will want to ensure that each image is large enough so that customers can see all the little details, such as hems, zippers, and buttons.

*Size. Your images need to be small enough that they don’t slow down the download of your web page. This can be a challenge, especially if, as described above, you’re trying to give your potential customers a lot of detail about a particular item. One way around us is to use clickable thumbnails. Simply include a tiny thumbnail next to the description of the item you’re selling. This allows your potential customer to click on the thumbnail and get a much larger image.

*Images that help you with branding. Some images do not help you sell your product, but are designed to help you sell your company. These images are referred to as images that improve your branding strategy. For example, if you’re trying to sell something online, you might want to include images of your brick and mortar business, or images of your team or your company president. This will help customers feel as though they’re doing business with a real company and will make them more comfortable about doing business with you.

If you’re trying to create a fabulous web site for your online business or just for fun, you will eventually run into the problem of which images to add to your online space. You have lots of options, each with its advantages and drawbacks:

*Stock images. Stock images are usually royalty-free or copyright free images that you can get from stock image web sites. These images can be photos or simple icons. You can get stock photos of just about everything, and you can either buy all copyright to these images or, more often, get these images for free. Stock images are appealing because there are so many of them, and they’re so easy to get, and the price is certainly right. However, if you’re considering stock images consider carefully whether the images you are choosing actually reflect the content of your web site. If, for example, you have an online business selling candles, make sure that the candles represented in the images that you are buying are the actual candles you plan to sell. To put it simply if you sell Trapp candles makes sure that images on your web site have them.

*Photos that you take. Today, digital cameras are so inexpensive and so high-quality that it is easy to take your own images for your web site. The advantages to taking your own web site is that it is inexpensive, fast, easy, and allows you to capture exactly what you need. For example, if you are a florist, you can easily take pictures of your actual retail store and place them online. This will give your customers an exact idea of what your store is like. The major disadvantage is that it can be time-consuming to take your own photos, and you do need some skills in order to make your photos as attractive as possible and reduce them so that they download quickly on the Internet. Another major disadvantage is that unless you are a professional photographer, your images may simply not reflect a very professional image of your business. Blurry, out of focus, or poorly developed pictures can make your business look less than appealing to potential customers.

*Photos that you get a professional to take. Getting a professional to take pictures ensures that your images look great online. The major disadvantage, of course, is that it can be very expensive to have a professional photographer take all the images you need for your web site.

*Animations. This is one of those clear-cut issues in web design. The simple two-dimensional animations that you see on some web sites have no place on your professional web site. Simple GIF animations look amateurish and often laughable. If you need an animation in order to show how a product or service works, you’ll need to have a professional web design company create a multimedia video or slide show to include on your web site.

*Multimedia. Multimedia content, such as videos, YouTube video links, and audio seminars, can add quite a bit to your web site. Unfortunately, these types of content are also very memory hungry and they do require a little bit of expertise in order to put together professionally. Only include multimedia if it really adds to your content — for example if it shows your customers how a particular product works. Also, if you want multimedia on your site, make sure that professionals create it and upload it for the best results.