visual-image-content

In the industrial industry, visual content is especially important. The big machinery and expansive projects are brought to life with visual content, and your website can be nearly ineffective without it.

A typical industrial company’s website usually includes some form of visual content, but are they fully optimized?

Why include visual content?

In our fast-paced society, visual content is a must if you want to catch someone’s attention. Many people do not have time to read through all of the content on a website, so visual content can be used to convey a message about your industrial company or brand in a very short period of time.

The benefits of visual content on your industrial website are endless, but a few are listed below:

They create a first impression

When a visitor first arrives on your industrial site, they will likely be drawn to images before reading any of the main content. These images are going to create a user’s first impression of your company.

Within a few seconds of looking at your site, a visitor should be able to figure out what kind of products your industrial company sells, and the services you provide.

A clean logo that professionally depicts your industrial company will also help users create a first impression.

They show product specs

Visual content is a great way to show the potential buyer close up images of products. Listing product specifications is a great way to describe the product to the consumer, but including a good quality picture can be the difference between a shopper and buyer.

Buying products online means the buyer does not have the ability to reach out and touch the product, so they have to rely solely on their eyes. A professional photo of the product that allows the shopper to zoom in on individual features can help to bridge that gap.

For example, if you sell heavy equipment, potential buyers may want to know if the equipment will fit in their storage area or garage. Having close up images with the measurements of the product will help make the buying process even easier.

The phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words” holds true as many online shoppers can understand a product better if they see a picture of it. This is especially true for industrial companies who sell products the average consumer may not be as familiar with.

It helps a customer remember your brand

If you want your website visitors to remember your products and brand, visual content is a must.

Users are much more likely to remember the information shared on your site if they can associate it with an accompanying image.

You can make sure you stay in the consumer’s mind even after they’ve left your site by featuring rich images on your site.

Optimizing images

Adding images to your site can improve the look and performance, but the images are most effective when they are optimized. If images are too large or small, blurry and pixelated, or unable to be read by the search engine, they will not bring any value to your site.

It is important to optimize any visual content for the following reasons before adding it to your site:

SEO purposes

Visual content is not just for your website visitors.

Keep in mind that search engines can’t “see” an image, rather they rely on alt text to read and understand what an image is on your site. This is an alternative text that accompanies an image, which the search engine is able to read and rank for SEO purposes.

Including lots of images that relate to your targeted keywords in your SEO strategy can improve your ranking in search engine results, if alt text is included.

The alt text is a few words, ideally including a keyword, that describe the image it is attached to. The user will not necessarily see the text (unless hovering the mouse over an image) but the search engines are able to read the text when they index your site to be ranked.

For example, if your industrial company sells industrial-sized sanders, the alt text for the machine could simply be “industrial-sized blue sander.”

Brand Image

Furthermore, it is important to use good quality, professional photos to display your brand image. Users can easily spot poor quality photos, which make the company look unprofessional.

Pictures should not be grainy or hard to see. Instead, be sure that any visual content is clear and professional.

In addition, you should try to steer clear of using too many stock images, or images that people have already seen 100 times. If you’re able to hire a designer to make custom graphics for your site, or have some design experience yourself, it’s always better to have unique images rather than stock photos.

Kinds of visual content

Pictures are not the only kind of visual content you can upload to your site. Videos and infographics are two additional kinds of content that can bring valuable customers to your website.

Images

Pictures and images are probably the most common type of visual content found on most websites.

Images of your products, employees, facility, and other aspects of the business are a good way to show the user what your company does.

Videos

Videos are another great form of visual content than can help grab the attention of site visitors, and even keep them on the page for a longer period of time.

These videos could be a how-to tutorial, a customer testimonial, or even a tour of your industrial facility. A good rule of thumb is to keep videos short, because most users will not stick around to watch long videos.

Infographics

Infographics are a type of visual content that are usually in the form of an outline, chart, or diagram.

They typically depict steps in a process, and organizational flow, or statistics.

For your industrial company, you could create an infographic that explains the different industrial jargon that you use on your site, an infographic that outlines all of the heavy machinery you sell, or any other topic that is better understood with a visual representation – especially if it includes numbers or statistics.

What kind of visual content do you use?

Overall, adding visual content to your industrial company’s website can increase your search ranking and turn a shopper into a customer.

What is your go-to kind of visual content on your industrial website? Share in the comments below!