When you choose to DIY your website rather than hire a brand designer it can be extremely overwhelming. Once you write all of the content, pick out your fonts and then choose your color palette, you still have to choose the right photos that will capture your ideal client.  UGH, THE AGONY!

If this is you, don’t worry! I’ve created a lot of websites for clients that use both brand photos and stock photos alike, so in this blog post I’m sharing the Do’s and Don’ts of picking photos for your website.

DIY-ing your website? Here are a few relevant blog posts that might help you also:

• How to Create a Unique Color Palette for your Website 
• 5 Rules to Live By: Website Fonts
• DIY Website Design Course

Picture of yourself looking at the camera

Having a picture of you on your website is crucial to converting viewers into clients because it puts a face to the work. Especially if you are a coach of some sort, you want your visitors to know who you are and connect with you immediately. There should be at least one picture of you on your website of you looking directly at the camera so the viewer can “look you in the eye” and connect with you. It sounds silly, but if someone can look you in the eye (even if it’s through a computer screen), they are more likely to remember you and trust you.

If you don’t hire a brand photographer ask you mom, brother, boyfriend, girlfriend, friend, neighbor ANYONE to take a picture of you! All you need is just one photo.

Hint: Use this one photo on all your social platforms as well to create recognition. For example,  your email signature, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest profile pictures and if you do any guest work (blog, podcast or speaking engagements) use this photo there too.

Avoid Low Quality photos

Have you ever gone to a website and seen blurry photos? Are you rolling your eyes right now too? Yeah, that’s what I thought. When you go to a website that has low quality photos (especially nowadays with super high quality photos at your finger tips) it makes you feel like the business doesn’t care. So, if the business doesn’t care about their own website, then why would they care about you and your work?

Pick intentional photos

Your photos are a part of your brand so when you’re picking pictures you want to make sure there is a meaning behind it and it connects with your ideal client. You want your visitors to see themselves in your photos as what it would be like working with you.

For example, if you’re an online coach for women, you should have photos of women laughing, you working one on one with someone else, happy people, so that when someone visits your website they think, “this could be me”.

Stick with your color palette

This is something that could be tricky and might take a little bit of time, but pick photos that are on brand and have the same tone of your business. For example, if your brand personality is bright and cheery with pops of color and orange, you probably wouldn’t have photos that are black and white.

When looking at photos, think about how they make you feel and if they portray the brand tone you are going for. You can also edit photos using vsco or other free apps that can help to bring out specific colors in your color palette.

A few other notes:

• If you are using stock photos on your website, be sure to credit the photographer! Never use photos that you don’t know where it came from, like on Pinterest or Tumblr.
• Try not to use cliche stock photos on your website of random people. If you’re using stock photos, choose photos that don’t have people’s faces in them and more as accent photos.  My favorite website for stock photos is unsplash.com

I hope this is helpful for you in choosing photos for your website! Don’t forget, before building your website you should have a brand strategy all figured out so you know who your ideal client is, your brand messaging and build content that converts. Download the free brand strategy workbook to help you create a solid foundation for your business.

Have questions? Shoot us a DM on Instagram or send an email to olivia@currentdesignstudio.com.