Boost Your Sales with Product Image Optimisation Techniques
E-commerce photography is a specialised form of product photography, usually used for online shopping. It is essential to have high-quality photographs of products to show potential All about E-commerce photography.
E-commerce photography is a specialised form of product photography, usually used for online shopping. It is essential to have high-quality photographs of products to show potential customers what they are buying. Many eCommerce sites use professional photographers to take their product photos.
Product photos should be clear and in focus, with accurate colours. The product should fill the frame with no distracting background elements. The image should show all the product's essential details, so potential customers can see what they buy.
E-commerce photography is often done with a white background to make the product stand out. This type of photography is sometimes called "lifestyle" photography, as it shows the product in use. Lifestyle photos can be more creative than traditional product photos and deliver the product in a realistic setting.
Good E-Commerce photography can make a big difference in whether or not customers purchase a product. Apart from quality photography, image optimisation is also essential. Without optimisation, your images cant be shown in search engines. If your photos are not optimised, good photography will be useless. To know how
What is Product photography?
Product photography should involve incredible skills and knowledge to enhance the look of the pictures. This way, the product images will look far better and be enough to turn viewers into buyers.
Product photography is used in many marketing tactics, including brochures, leaflets, digital ads, catalogues, magazine ads, websites, and e-commerce stores. With each passing year, product photography has become a minor industry itself.
Product photography makes your product presentable and helps grab customers. In stores, these products are shown in pictures covering them from every angle; as a result, customers can see the product in detail. Every item, ideally, will be displayed with a range of pictures offering 360-degree views.
Good quality pictures on your site or store can create a good impression on customers. Here are two main types of eCommerce product images:
- Product-only images:
- In-context (lifestyle) images:
Product-only image
Honestly, a business owner always opts for products only for better results. This type of picture is taken from every angle in the best light. It will enhance the look of the product on white background.
Using a single colour as your background will slowly become the theme for your store. Choosing white as your experience is better as it won't create any disturbance.
In-context image
The brands most use it. If your brand has multiple products that can go with each other and you want to attract customers, show its daily life uses it. Then you should go for in-context images.
Suppose you are a garments manufacturer, so if you are shooting for a t-shirt collection, you can pair it with a jacket to enhance the look. In this way, two categories can go well, and both can be shot together. It depends on the product type, whether you choose the product only or in context.
Why is Product image Optimisation Important?
When you post content on social media so people can access it easily, everyone prefers to view image content rather than text! The reason is that images are interactive, but reading a text takes time.
Each day, technology has improved, and people's mindset has changed. People prefer to read details before purchasing, but now people focus on quality pictures before buying a product. Every brand is doing product photography.
Product photography not only grabs customer attention but also increases sales. High-quality pictures are a must for good marketing and increased sales. Try to cover the product from every angle and take clear pictures.
Why do E-Commerce Platforms Require Good Images?
Images have a profound message with them, and it has the power to communicate. Images somewhere work well for e-commerce businesses. If pictures are of low quality on a shopping site, it means no purchase. When you are buying online, so you are doubtful about the quality.
By looking at pictures, at least we can ensure what it will look like. As we say, the image can communicate; it has the power to convince the viewer to become a customer. High-quality images can make the customer read text content too.
Good pictures will reduce the return of products when people don't find the product as per their expectations, so they return the product. But these return cases will be low when the photography is up to mark.
Product photography ensures customers the quality of the product. Try to make multiple shots with white background and enhance the product's features.
1. Tricks to Drive Traffic and Sales with Product Images
Being a customer, everyone judges the reputation and value of a brand by the quality of images they use. There is nothing new that online shopping sites have to make their image quality great. Let's look at the top ways to make your images stand out.
2. Light the Images Right
Nowadays, since online shopping is at its peak, people can only clear their doubts with good images. Dull and blurred pictures will create a bad image for the brand. High-quality images can convert the visitor into a buyer.
For good photography, the essential thing is lightning. You don't have to spend much on lightning; you can use natural light. The product images should be focused, precise and bright. If you are a beginner in photography, it's better to avoid using flash as you can't handle it.
3. Opt For a Clear Backdrop
Your backdrop should be transparent and light-shaded for better photography. The white background works great for every colour and enhances every product's look. Choosing a transparent or white background makes it much easier for eCommerce businesses. Choose a white or neutral colour background and be consistent with it.
It will create a good image for your business. Background colour matters in photography. Every coloured product will enhance on a white coloured background. For creating your white background, you can use the Slazzer tool. This tool helps in removing the image background in no time.
4. Provide a 360° View of the Product Image.
Taking pictures and posting them is not enough to grab a customer. However, the photography and editing should be realistic so that the customer is forced to buy the thing.
When you cover the product from all angles, the customer will have a better understanding of the product, and there will be a higher chance for him to buy the product.
5. Use Pictures of a Person Using the Product
It is not if you think posting product pictures are okay. If you are posting an earrings picture, how can customers imagine how it will look on you if anyone is not wearing it?
If you are putting pictures of a t-shirt and there is no picture of the model wearing it, how will the customer be compelled to buy it?
You should do a proper photoshoot with good-looking models in these cases. In this way, they can better understand how it will look ok them and what's size better for them.
Why is Image Optimisation Essential for Online Stores?
Online shopping sites are full of pictures, of which around 60-80 per cent are product images. When there is plenty of pictures on your site so it can make your site slow; on the other, nowadays, everyone is doing almost everything with the Internet, so having a mobile and iPad is common.
You know what? Due to the slowing down of the page, there are higher chances of loss. As per Amazon, if their site is slow for only one second, it will cost them $1.6 billion annually. The slowing down of the site can be due to unoptimised images.
You must lose, too, when Amazon loses this massive amount, so it's better to optimise your pictures. Using appropriate tactics is necessary for image optimisation to have enough traffic and sales. If your site is not image-optimised, there is a higher chance of losing a lot of profit.
What are Optimized Images?
Optimisation ensures that images have good quality and can be adjusted on the web and search engines. Optimised pictures do have a positive impact on the working of the website. These optimisation pictures consume fewer bytes for downloading; that's why the content loads faster, and the site's working becomes efficient.
Adding pictures to the blog or your eCommerce site will provide a better experience. But on the other hand, make sure that your photos are optimised according to Google standards and that the image size, file type, and quality are according to search bots.
You can expect your optimised pictures to grab good traffic if you implement these things. If you don't know for better optimisation, you must take care of a few things, or your site will fail in traffic, sales and search engine rankings. By making your images optimised, it will give benefit both the site owner and users too.
Drawbacks of Unoptimised Images
1. If your site is not image-optimised, your pictures will not rank in search results. It will only show the text as a result of a keyword. To find your photos as a result in search engines for a specific keyword, you have to optimise them.
2. Unoptimised pictures can create slow speed issues. It can vary from HTTP requests to the absence of HTTP compression, increasing site load time.
3. If your images are of the wrong size and placed at the wrong location, they will fail to grab users' attention. It will not even matter if the users will view it or engage.
4. Due to unoptimised images, there is a decrease in the conversion rate. Honestly, unoptimised pictures and slow-loading sites will create a wrong impression on your users that next time they are not even site due to waiting for long to get the site open.
Top Reasons to Master Image Optimization
Any site can do much better in speed and performance by optimising loss. But for eCommerce sites, optimising images is a must. Here are a few reasons why the optimisation of ideas is essential.
1. Attract more people.
Apart from product images, you have other photos on your site, too. Google indexes them all. When users search for relatable keywords so these images will display when you do the image Optimisation as per the Google guidelines, they will have the most chances to rank in search engine results and, as a result, attract more buyers.
Improve Page Loading Times
To make the site perform slowly. The main reason is unoptimised images. Since the photos have large file sizes, that's the reason they will take longer to load. Slow loading of the site will also impact the conversion rate. For this reason, people will visit your site, get irritated for waiting too long and leave.
Optimised images are in compressed form, which means they are in reduced file size, so that's the reason they take less time to download. This way, people will not get irritated and view your product.
2. Get ranked in Search Engines.
Optimised images have so many benefits apart from only fast downloading. They will attract more users and help your site to rank better in search engines. When the images are optimised correctly, they will be displayed in the search engine when the user enters the appropriate keyword.
E-Commerce Image Optimization Tactics to Drive More Traffic from Google. You must better understand why image optimisation is necessary or your site is lost. Here are a few tips and tactics by which your site will improve.
3. Image types.
Being a website owner, you should be aware of different image formats. You can decide which format will be more appropriate when you understand image format types. This will make sure that images are not blurred. Among all the formats, the most common image formats in which pictures are saved are JPG, PNG and GIF.
Out of the three, the first one is JGP. It is one of the old image formats linked to the web. The best thing about JPG is that it can be compressed, so you can have it in small file size without affecting the quality of the image.
They consist of many colours when showing product photos, so JPG is the appropriate option. The second image format is PNG. They are mainly used for the background images, such as dark-coloured backgrounds. They are perfect for photos which need transparency. But the drawback is that it produces a large file size.
The third format is GIF; it has low quality compared to JPG images. It is an ideal option for small photos. They are unsuitable for large products as they give large file sizes, affecting your site's work.
Things to keep in mind
- It's better to opt for JPG for all your product images.
- For product images with transparent backgrounds or logos, PNG is appropriate.
- For icons or animating images, GIF is the saviour.
4. Always Add Alt Text
Make sure you add alt text to your images. Adding alt text is important; by adding alt text, you can provide extra details about the image. You can add keywords, too, so your image will be displayed in the search engine, generating organic traffic.
It's super easy to add an alt key in WordPress. When you upload the product image to your WooCommerce store, you can also add the alt key at that time. Click on the pencil icon for editing, then enter alt text in the box.
5. Name Images Descriptively
Avoid using the default name given by your camera; instead of that, think and decide on some creative name. Make sure your name should be descriptive yet catchy.
Suppose the product image can be named Brown Leather Jacket. In this way, the search engine will understand the image. By keeping the name descriptive, you can use keywords in it too.
6. Make Use of Image Sitemaps
Adding a sitemap will make it easier for search engines to find your site and understand your site structure. If you want your images optimised, ensure the sitemap has pictures on top of the content. To start with Yoast SEO plugin is great. It comes up with WooCommerce and will improve the other SEO aspects.
7. Optimise your thumbnails to Drive upsells.
Images are the primary source of communication and conveying the message. These images not only market the products to the consumer at the time of purchase or even when they are just scrolling.
Upsell is an option to upgrade or add on a product displayed by the seller after the starting purchase. Thumbnails are usually shown on a page at different times of the day. You should present the products around the cart or purchase page using upsell. If thumbnail pictures fail to load, you are losing profitable business.
When a customer comes to your site with a Google ad, that's a paid lead. The more they purchase will decrease the customer acquisition rate. Since thumbnail pictures seem small, don't consider them useless; they are equally important for your business. Thumbnails should be around 70Kb, which is excellent.
For resizing the files, it's better to use Pixlr. Using GIF and JPEG for the files is a great idea. Make sure to give a firm name to thumbnail pictures and add alt attributes. By optimising these thumbnails, your SEO will be much better, and the amount of profit will be increased on every web conversion.
Try out the A/B Test Images.
Site owners and marketers love to use the A/B test. Unoptimised images, slowing of the site and wrong picture angles can cause significant sales loss. Here are a few parameters to test your images; let's look.
1. Quantity: Test occurs between all the images based on per product, category and page. You should test how many thumbnails you can place below every product. With this test, you can know what's excellent for your customers.
2. File size vs quality: With the help of the test, you can check to do high-quality images, and slow loading of the site impacts conversions of the site. If the product is outclassed and expensive, such as an exclusive watch, so customer will be okay with waiting to view the picture. They can zoom adequately and see the tiny details of the product.
3. Figure out which pictures customers like. There is possible that your customers like to view the product from top and bottom views. And if they get photos from a few angles, they convert too.
When doing A/B testing, ensure you deal with one variable at a time. If you are checking the number of images for the category page, don't test the quality of the images. Deal with one variable at a time. If you handle multiple variables simultaneously, you will not know which variable affects the conversions.
Tips to Rule the E-Commerce Product Photography
To excel in any field, you should know the tips and tactics to make the work effective and efficient. Nowadays, every brand is using product photography to make their product reputation better. Here are a few tips that will make your photography better and effortless; let's look.
1. Spend money on a light.
Good light means good pictures. Honestly, high-quality light can change photography quality. Don't back off in spending money on the light source for your photography. You should have a minimum of two lights at your shoot location. Moreover, figure out which light suits your product, natural or studio.
2. Use high-resolution pictures.
The simple purpose of product photography is to display every detail of your product, right? Make sure to use high-quality pictures for your products. Honestly quality of images does have an impact on sales.
3. Try to follow the standard image size.
Following the standard eCommerce product image size of 500 x 500 pixels is better. Walmart opts for 2000 x 2000 pixels, but Amazon prefers 1000 x 1000 pixels for better vision by the audience. You should also produce pictures of a minimum of 2000 x 2000 pixels by having an idea from it.
4. Create a reflection effect.
Enhancing the photography and giving it a reflection effect is a great idea. Putting plexiglass under the product will provide the picture reflection effect.
5. Get a tripod
For high-quality product photography, buy a tripod. Creating balance at the time of photography is essential. If there is a lack of balance, it will impact the quality of the pictures.
6. Always use a PC for editing photos.
For better editing, always opt for pc instead of a mobile. It doesn't matter if your phone has excellent features and is costly. The mobile screen is small, so you can't focus on minor details.
7. Do photography from every angle.
Don't miss any angle when taking pictures of the product. Cover the images from the top, bottom, and all sides. Since the purpose of product photography is simple, customers can view it from every side to have an idea of what the product will look like.
How good Product Photography can Impact the Sales of the Business?
Product photos are more important than ever in today's highly competitive marketplace. A well-shot product photo can make all the difference when selling a product, and brands increasingly use professional photographers to ensure their products look their best.
There are several reasons for this trend. First, high-quality product photos are essential for e-commerce platforms like Amazon and eBay. To compete in these marketplaces, brands need to have intense product photos that showcase the features and benefits of their products.
Second, social media platforms like Instagram have also driven the need for better product photos. Brands want their products to look good on their website and social media, where potential customers spend more time. Finally, customers themselves are becoming more discerning when it comes to product photos.
With so many online choices, customers are increasingly looking for photos that give them a clear idea of what a product looks like and how it works. In short, brands must use high-quality product photography to stay ahead of the competition.
Conclusion
Every brand is using product photography nowadays. Good photography gives your site a new look and vibe. We all prefer to shop online rather than go to markets. But only good photos are not enough to rank your site and generate leads.
Your image is optimised for search engines and loads faster. Our easy tips and tricks will make you understand how to optimise the images. For better site performance, optimisation is necessary. In case of any queries, comment below.
FAQ's
Why is optimising images essential for eCommerce stores?
Optimising images make your site work fast, increases sales, and gives users a better experience.
Are skills needed for eCommerce photography?
Ecommerce photography requires a unique set of skills to be successful. A person should know how to take essential pictures and edit them.
What is the budget for eCommerce photography?
The rates vary between $50 and $250 per the product photo.
Why is product image optimisation important?
Product image optimisation is important for several reasons. Firstly, optimised images load faster, improving your website's user experience and reducing bounce rates. Secondly, well-optimized images can improve your search engine rankings and drive more organic traffic to your website. Finally, optimised images can help showcase your products in the best possible light, leading to more sales and higher conversion rates.
How can I optimise product images for the web?
You can use several techniques to optimise product images for the web. One of the most important is to ensure that your images are compressed and resized to the appropriate dimensions for your website. You can also use techniques like image caching, lazy loading, and content delivery networks to improve image loading times. Additionally, you can optimise your image file names, alt text, and captions to improve their relevance and search engine rankings.
How can I improve the quality of product images using erase?Bg?
Erase.bg is a powerful tool for removing the background from product images, which can help improve their overall quality and make them more visually appealing. However, you can use several other techniques to improve the quality of your product images further. For example, you can adjust the brightness, contrast, and saturation levels to make your images more vibrant and eye-catching. You can also use image editing software to remove blemishes, add shadows, and make other adjustments to enhance the overall appearance of your images.