Images matter because…
Studies show that people remember 80% what they see and only 20% what they read. In fact, 65% of people are visual learners. These and many other readily available statistics favour the idea that images are the most powerful means of communication, they also remove language barriers, as they are easily understood by everyone in the world. On the Internet, images are used for all kinds of reasons: to enhance, to illustrate stories, for ads, and to present products or services. Imagery is becoming evermore important, as many of us are now growing up with technology, with the internet taking over as the most significant segment for consumers. So, should we make our images stand out?
• For a better user experience. When it comes to websites, images matter because their role is to capture the attention of the visitor. They can convey our messages in the blink of an eye. Looking at a Roza image, your customer can see the quality, fit and attractiveness of the garment without the need of reading lengthy descriptions immediately.
• Increasing the shopping time that your customers spend on a website is a user engagement signal for Google and a search ranking factor for your site. The best images for your on-line shop should be both ‘eye candy’ and informational. They should relate directly to the text of the page, and ideally, they should be original pictures provided to you by Alterego Customer Services.
• Using great images will also make your site rank better in the image search section of the search engines such as Google . Image search matters a lot for getting traffic to your site. According to recent research, Google Images counts for 26.79% of searches, surpassing YouTube’s 3.71%.
• Also, when customers find great images, they share them on WhatsApp or Facebook. This will increase your website visits and gain more customers, just like old fashioned ‘word-of-mouth’.
So, how do I get the images to look great on my site?
By paying special attention to your aspect ratios. Alterego will provide you with some fantastic images, but when your web-designer, or you are building your site ensure that you have the aspect ratios right. Aspect ratio is the relationship between the width and height of an image or object, or in other words, how wide something is versus how tall it is. There are multiple different types of aspect ratios, including things like 4:3, which means that a TV screen has a width that’s four times as wide as its height (a 16:9 TV would be 1.77:1).
Why is Aspect Ratio Important?
Aspect ratios are very important to us, especially if you are mirroring your website to other devices such as laptops phones or tablets, then using the wrong aspect ratio can lead to some pretty big problems. For example, if you are displaying at a 16:9 aspect ratio and you try to view it on an a monitor that is displaying 4:3, the image will be letterboxed. The same thing goes in reverse – if you have content that’s designed for a square pixel aspect ratio and try to watch it on a widescreen monitor, you’ll get letter-boxing. This often happens because images and videos with a different aspect ratio are “cropped” to fit the new ratio, and sometimes important information is lost in the process.
It’s not just about making sure everything looks good on different screens, either. Different aspect ratios can also affect how people interact with your content. For example, a square video takes up more screen space than a traditional widescreen video, so it’s great for Instagram and other social media platforms where people are used to seeing square content.
Aspect ratios may seem like a small detail, but they can make a big difference in how your content looks and how people interact with it. Pay attention to them, and you’ll be able to create content that looks great no matter where it’s displayed. If you’re not sure which aspect ratio is right for your needs, do some research or ask someone for help. The last thing you want is to spend hours working on something that may not turn out right.
Free software you can use to re-size your images
We have found that the easiest free tool for image resizing is Adobe Express. There are also lots of other free applications available by doing a Google search. Adobe, however, makes image resizing easy. Simply start by uploading any image in JPG or PNG format, then select the destination to choose the size you need. Apart from the standard aspect-ratio pre-sets, the image resize tool also includes pre-sets for all social media channels like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and more. You can also scale and pan your image to include the areas you want, then crop out the rest. When done, instantly download your resized image…bingo!