Why You Should Stop Using Stock Photography For Your Website

Sep 18, 2019

This article examines why small business owners and entrepreneurs should move away from using excessive stock photography and instead use original content to build competitive advantage and increase conversion!

woman holding a camera with a sign that says no to stock photos

Say No To Stock Photography When Possible

The convenience and affordability of stock photography can't be argued against but what you may not know is that NOT having unique or personalized imagery on your website or blog may be negatively impacting your website's performance. In addition, it may not clearly separate you from your competition and influence your unique components. In this post we'll examine why original photography is important for your business.

Whether you've built your own website or if you build websites for others as an agency or freelancer, you'll want to pay attention to this blog post. We know how easy it is to leverage free stock photography in order to find images that relate to your brand, products, or services and with tools like Duda, they even integrated both free and premium stock photography options within their website builder to make your life even easier at finding quality content. No doubt, this is the fastest way to populate your website with quality imagery but does it come with a hidden cost?

The Hidden Costs of Stock Photography

Put yourself in the customer's shoes. I try to do this as often as possible. Have you ever visited a website and knew right from the beginning that the photos used were not unique to the location? They did not reflect the brand that the company would prefer to present. Did the website have photos of the key team members or owner? Does it show their office, trucks, work area, or images in the field or on the job? How about images of their building, office, or a street view? All of those are extremely popular and will help you in providing original content that is unique to your business. Not having cookie-cutter images makes you more personable, and most likely, relatable.
blockquote duda website widget by ayni media digital marketing author thomas connery A moving company that replaced a generic shot of happy people moving (who’s happy when they’re moving?) with a photo of their team or their truck saw 45% more quotes from their digital marketing. - themarketinggarage.ca
Images are important for small business websites. Not only do they make your site appealing, but they also provide context about your products or services. It's super convenient to obtain free as well as premium stock photos today but please understand that stock photos can’t convey your brand identity as well as original images can.
According to an article from The Marketing Garage, there are five key reasons why you should STOP using stock photography as often as you can. Let's break those down below and expand a bit on each one.
  • Stock Photos Lower Conversion

    Do some Google searches on digital marketing tests that leveraged real or original photography and you'll find consistent results that point to an increase in conversion. As an example, a 3x increase was seen on a product ad when someone was wearing the product versus simply displaying the product.

  • Stock Photos Lack Authenticity

    Who do you trust more? An image of a real person, or how about a video where they explain what their company does and why you should contact them? Leveraging original photography makes you more authentic. People trust authentic and are uncertain about cookie-cutter images that do not reflect your business.

  • Stock Photos Can Be Overused

    Shutterstock has to be the largest stock photo database online. I'm just assuming. Pixabay is great, as is Unsplash but why would you want to use a photo that could potentially be on hundreds of websites and ads across the internet when the goal of marketing is to differentiate your company! Ouch...

  • People Like Looking At People

    You'll notice a trend in stock photos where many of them avoid faces altogether or are obviously using models instead or 'real' people. I know that sounds bad and models are people too. Research shows that eye tracking results in more time on the image as compared to the accompanying text. What does this mean? You about page for example, MUST have a great image of you and your business.

  • They Are Not Always 100% Relevant

    In a specific ad test, three times as many people clicked on an ad that showed the unique product in action as compared to stock photo of the environment the product works in. As much as possible, you want your photography to be relevant and relatable to the visitor or consumer. Show the product! Show it in action! Show yourself using it if possible. 

What Happens With Unique Images

Brightlocal published this article in April 2019 where they tested two web pages built in a nearly identical fashion except one featured original photography while the other leveraged only stock photos. Why? for some time now, search engine optimization experts have wondered how the unique, tracable, meta data might impact websites when the same image is discovered across multiple domains - sometimes hundreds and thousands of domains! Long story short, the page with the original photography ended up making it to page 2 on Google while the other page sat at position 54. Still think original photos don't matter when it comes to ranking your website pages? Experts are beginning to disagree.

What Should You Do As An Alternative?

Hire a professional photographer! Yes, I know that can be costly but your website is going to cost you when you can't convert those visitors! If you know your way around a camera or have the latest mobile phone tech, you might be able to capture a great image on your own. Odds are, there are photographers in your local area specializing in this service. Not only do many photographers offer one-time services as needed but many also offer subscription packages so you can obtain fresh, updated images for your business on a scheduled or routine basis.

Not only are original photos going to help your brand online, you can leverage them for paid advertising and for social media. Canva is one of my favorite platforms for customizing both stock photos as well as original photos. Add graphics, text overlays, build animations, and resize them for nearly any specific platform. Canva is an amazing tool if you create a lot of content, ads, or are very active on social media. The pro subscription ins $12.95 per month or you can same money when paying annually.
I hope this article helped to convince you that you should be working on building an original photograph content library for your business. Not only is it essential for your website, but these photos can be used over and over again, and even customized, to boost your social engagement. Stop using cookie-cutter stock photos on your paid ads today and increase your CTR!
So ya... I know, I'm guilty of using stock photography but I understand the importance of focusing on original photos. Going forward, I plan to make a conscious effort to use unique photos as much as I can and hope you do too!

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Hi, I'm Tom! I help agencies and small businesses with Duda website design, local SEO, and support. On the Ayni Media blog, I create content that helps people discover Duda as well as other website and digital marketing services. Need help with Duda? Hire a Duda Expert today.

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