Use Images, Make Your Visitors Happy and Build Your Identity with Retro Marketing

Copyblogger has recently published a post regarding text formatting with a very specific picture in the beginning. This example is to demonstrate why you should be creative in using images on your website. Just have a read the second comment to this post:

Eric: Best. picture. ever.
The article was OK too

What is our target, Sir?!

If you have a website or a blog you quite likely visit Google Analytics or any other stats often wondering how to improve the following:

• number of visitors and visits
• pages/visit rank
• avg. time on site
• bounce rate

Probably you are addicted to these stats, like I am, checking them to often wondering if you are closer to your targets.

It is nothing new that to boost your website figures you need to make your visitors happy enough so they will:

• spend more time on your website visiting more pages
• encourage them to come back regularly

It is not a rocket since, it is a retro marketing

To make your visitors happy, apart from serving a quality text content, you should use good images as examples or as a background to what you write about. Be a bit tricky, show some humorous pictures and entertain your visitors ??Â?Â? make them laugh or make them think, play on their emotions.

Just analyze the pages you have seen recently, especially blogs, and realize how many of them use images to make their articles or posts more attractive and build identity. Also think about many web developers placing endless texts on their websites where they should start with case studies, images and examples.

We all know how sales letter style is efficient in selling ebooks, subscriptions etc. Big headlines, photos, testimonial, text etc. People want you to entertain them and show some magic not only blocks of text. And you don??Â?Â?t have to be as radical as sales pages, but you can use your creativity and add images that will guide your visitors and make your website more interesting.

What can we do for you?

Apart from smart headlines and titles, images will allow you to:

1. Catch visitors??Â?Â? attention and encourage them to stop scanning and start reading
2. Add value to your text and play on emotions
3. Make a good impression on your visitors and build an identity
4. Make your viewers visualize and remember your website in a better way.

Every day I read a lot of new blogs and probably I will be more eager to re-visit them if they presented more value and stood out from the crowd.

Example #1 ??Â?Â? Commercial website / Media ??Â?Â? NationalGeographic.com

A common technique for media/news portals is to start with a rotating slides and links showing you what are now the most interesting topics to read about. NationalGeographic.com have an easy access to stunning pictures that will catch your attention but the point is that you need to be smart and take your visitors around showing them things they just can’t miss!

It is all about packing your articles in a nice wrap and selling to people.

Example #2 ??Â?Â? Blog ??Â?Â? CopyBlogger.com (again!)

• Catch attention: When you look at this picture it tells you something from the very beginning. In just a fraction of a second you receive a lot of information before you even start reading and think what this site or post may be about.
• Play on emotions: If you have ever read Superman comics or watch the film you may feel sympathy to this page.
• Good impression: You may think that copyblogger is taking more care when publishing posts.
• Make them remember: You will be eager to come back as you think the website looks quite nice and you can also enjoy added value in form of pictures.

Example #3 ??Â?Â? Tech News ??Â?Â? Wired.com

Catch attention: Many tech news websites have a lot of text on their home pages to squeeze as much fresh content as possible. Wired.com is different as it offers big titles and images just after you enter the site. Sometimes I read articles that wouldn??Â?Â?t have normally attracted my attention but because of the eye-catching picture I decide to click through.

Good impression: I like to visit Wired.com as it allows me to quickly find out what are the latest tech news and which topics may be interesting for me.

Example #4 ??Â?Â? Commercial website ??Â?Â? Manchester United

Manchester United is currently not only the best football club in England (if you consider their position in the Premier League last season) but their website is the state of the art as well. Just look at the splash page to find out ??Â?Â? nicely designed graphics allowing you to quickly find out where you want to start browsing. The main site is similar ??Â?Â? anywhere you go, you usually see small blocks of text accompanied by images. It is very user-friendly as Man Utd site is packed with a large number of information.

Example #5 ??Â?Â? Commercial website ??Â?Â? Apple

I couldn??Â?Â?t help myself to present this website. I like to observe Apple??Â?Â?s marketing and quite often I visit their homepage to find out what they are showing. I am bit tired of this iPhone mania but I still think that Apple deserves a bit of admiration for the way they put everything together on their website, especially when presenting their products.

Where can I find it?

Let??Â?Â?s say you would like to make your blog or website more attractive and add some photos or icons. You??Â?Â?ve got a few options:

1. Go to Stock.xchng where you can download most of them for free.
2. If you would like to have quality photos and you are ready to spend a few $ go to iStockPhoto
3. Join IconBuffet and exchange nicely designed icons that will make your website more attractive.
4. Ask you friend who is a photographer to allow you to use a few images taken by him and share the link love.
5. And the last option, buy a DSLR camera and start taking pictures. I bought Canon 400D/Rebel XTi and I am quite happy with it although I still need a lot of practice to take beautiful pictures.

And just to summarize this topic, I would like to recommend you a post titled Feeling Sandboxed? How You Can Get 53% More Searches with One Tweak regarding the usage of images and their influence on Google image search.