Looking to give your website’s lead conversion rate a push in the right direction? Making your website appeal more to your future leads could be as easy as swapping out those terrible stock photos for images of your actual staff. Turns out, the average consumer isn’t just an expert at tuning out disruptive marketing messages. They’re also fed up with crappy stock photos, which is why websites with photos of actual employees are about 95% more effective at lead capture than the same sight with stock photo.
In case you’re not quite sold, we’ll do the math on just how quickly bad stock photography can drive away your future business. Microsoft Corporation estimates that most people make a judgment of a website homepage in 10 seconds. Considering the average adult can only read about 50 words in 10 seconds, photos play a much bigger role than your on-page text or mission statement in determining whether or not visitors will stick around!
This doesn’t necessarily mean that every image you put on your website from here on out needs to be a candid shot of someone who actually works for you or buys your product. Kissmetrics recommends that you use “stock photos that don’t look like stock photos,” meaning snapshots that aren’t staged or only tangentially related to your message. Just for fun, we’ve decided to review 5 of the most overused stock photos and why using them gets your brand messaging all wrong:
1. Helpful Young Female With Headset
Images of smiling, stock photo models with headsets have to be the be the most-commonly overused offender among bad stock photography. Chances are, you see multiple examples of this web design error on a daily basis. The website invites you – their potential lead – to reach out to their young, attractive customer service representative for a free quote.
Unfortunately, we’re just not buying it. The young, smiling female customer service representative is among the most overused examples of stock photography. Consumers have wised up that the girl on your website, the billboard they just passed down the street and your competitor’s website isn’t actually holding down 3-4 jobs, she’s really a stock photo model.
2. Heavily Cropped Handshake
The purpose of images on your company website is convey the value of your product or service in a matter of seconds. But for the love of Facebook, don’t go the easy route and illustrate this with a heavily-cropped image of a handshake.
Not only is this stock photo way overused, it’s not even effective. Turns out, we rely on faces to build trust, and hands just aren’t going to cut it. Kissmetrics has found that human faces speak to “power skimmers” in a way that other body parts just can’t.
3. Jumping Around in Suits
Looking to let your customers know that your small business is fun, flexible and creative? Fabulous, but don’t try and communicate this through another stock photo concept that’s infiltrated the internet, which is photos of a group or individual jumping in suits. Let’s face it: it’s just not believable, and you can’t build trust through photos of clearly staged scenarios.
There are loads of better ways to communicate the fact your company is forward-thinking, casual and innovative than showing a woman who’s just seconds from landing on her stillettos. Is your company logo and web design using bright citrus hues or greens to indicate your values of growth? Have you adopted user-friendly humor like memes as a form of building your brand personality? Trust us, it will have a much more positive affect on your conversion rate.
4. Suspiciously Friendly Huddle
Teamwork. Anyone with much business background knows that effective teams can increase productivity and get projects done in a way that a single-person operation usually can’t. Too often, companies try and communicate this concept on their website by posting stock photos of suspiciously friendly group hugs or huddles.I really like my coworkers – we’re a fun, creative bunch and we work well together. But we don’t touch usually touch faces, even for the sake of a photograph. May we suggest customer testimonials or case studies as a better way to illustrate the power of your team in action?
5. Frustrated Technology Owner
It’s a well-known fact that your customers likely have a need for a product or service if they’re visiting your website in the first place. Building buyer personas to envision exactly why they’re searching for solutions is a great step towards developing content marketing that people can really connect with and feel inspired to share.
That being said, using generic stock photos of a frustrated person with an electronics to indicate frustration can just look pretty cheesy. These stock photos are going to be even less appealing to your future clients if your product or service has nothing to do with technology. Make sure your visual content’s message matches up with your website visitors pain points. If you’re in the business of selling cupcakes or landscaping, showing a snapshot of a model feeling frustrated at their laptop just won’t cut it.
What Are Some of the Worst Types of Stock Photos You See on a Regular Basis?
