Almost every single website you’re going to visit has some type of images used in its construction. Whether it’s a header or logo or some other picture, you will find that every site, from the most successful to the least known, uses images.
Images need to be properly formatted for viewing, and their quality has to be good enough to view them. For example, if you have a JPEG that’s 200×300 saved on your computer, you might want to avoid loading this up to a size of 400×600 on the site. It will create blur and it won’t be of a quality worth showing.
A lot of designers have made a habit out of loading up too many pictures and not utilizing text enough. You might be surprised to learn, but text on a site is actually more effective than imagery, so always be light-handed with the use of images on your site. If you need to explain something via text, do it. Don’t rely solely on images.
It’s not at all uncommon for website owners to be punished or even banned from their hosts after the host receives a complaint that they have used copyrighted content. You might not even realize you’re doing it. But an image doesn’t need that circled C to be copyrighted. As long as you don’t have permission to use it for free, you’re basically stealing it. So be careful.
Depending on any one of a number of circumstances, someone visiting your site may not be able to access the original image path from your server. This could be due to location, bottlenecks, or a host of other reasons. This is where the ALT tag comes in handy. Use it and give your visitors a viable alternative in case the original image doesn’t want to load. Don’t leave them staring at that white box with the red X.
Your logo is going to be the number-one image on your website, and you should treat it as such. No matter where you’re placing this image on your site, you should always put more care and thought into your logo than in anything else you’re loading up in terms of an image. Your logo is ultimately going to become synonymous with your business brand.
Stock images are images that you will find for free from any one of a number of different websites online. These images can sometimes be very unique and very appealing, but if you’re using them, you can bet that someone else is using them too. You should take it easy on these images and try to keep things original.
Image links can become broken when you’re first loading them up, or perhaps you make changes to another area of the site and something gets twisted, or it could even happen if the server drops the image. The point is that you need to check your images often to make sure that they’re loading. If they’re not, there’s a broken link somewhere.
Any image you’re using should be loaded directly to the server. You will always want to keep a backup, but always avoid using free hosting sites. If there’s a problem at that site with your account, the images on your site won’t be displayed. Keep everything in-house.
Images are going to be a very important part of your overall design, so make sure that you use these tips above to help you when formatting, loading and storing images. Your visitors will definitely notice your site more if you handle your images properly.