Your website represents you and your company. You've paid for quality design and the site looks good, you invested in quality writing and you have good content, but somehow, you know something is missing.

The Danger

It's easy to underestimate the value of quality photography for your website, but it's mistake that can cost you in visitor interest and long term loyalty. By simply displaying some of your products on each page, you can increase buyer interest, and even the service only business benefits from attractive photography by leaving an indelible image of professionalism in the mind of their visitors.

The opposite danger exists of having only images on your website. If you want ranking on your site, you need text content. Search engines have always ranked websites using text content, so you will always want to have a well written, search engine friendly description for your web pages and any important images. Naturally, you would feel rather foolish describing your own logo, yet you can add a hidden description visible to the search engine and thus add to your chances of increasing the ranking of your web pages.

The Value

We've heard the phrase quoted enough, "A picture's worth a thousand words", but fail to see the importance of the phrase. Imagine, if you can, a car manual with no images, or a do-it-yourself guide for building a log cabin, or even instructions for assembling that great new entertainment center. Attempting to follow any of these would be a nightmare without images to guide you, and photographs tend to be the best images of all. They are, after all, the most realistic—imagine that!

A small investment into a cheap digital camera ($100-$200) will make your blog so much more interesting. A professional photographer is indispensable when it comes to shining brightly in the marketplace of your specialty. If you want generic images to drive home the point of your article or blog, you can try one of the many stock photography sites. Some even offer royalty free images for your use. Here is a list of many stock photography sites, compiled by Frank Niemeir: http://www.mindspring.com/~frankn/photo/stock.html .

Your Goal

Remember, you don't have to be a professional photographer to produce excellent results, but it will take some work and effort. You want to learn at least some basics of photography, as well as your camera's features (yes, you will need to read that blasted little booklet that came with the camera, a.k.a.: the manual). As for photography in general, here's an excellent site for photographic tips, especially for digital photographers: http://digital-photography-school.com>".

Ultimately, the goal is to portray (excuse the pun) meaning to your visitors. If you're selling a product, picture the product somewhere in the page, preferably nested in the description. If you're selling a service, such as plumbing, shoot a picture of your client's plumbing, before and after, showing the difference (remember to get their permission, first). If your service is professional (legal, medical, etc), have your staff pose, take good snapshots of the office, and perhaps some items familiar to your industry, such as a stethoscope or gavel.