Did you just take some new beautiful photos of your business or services? Are you ready to share them with your online audience? This article will walk you through how to easily upload and manage your images on your LocalSite.
First, let's talk about the types of images you should add to your LocalSite.
Images you took yourself. It's important that all images added to your website you either own or have copyright privileges to be using them commercially.
When can you add images taken by someone else? When you have copyright permission to use them commercially. This may require that you cite the source of the image, the photographer, etc. Be sure to know what requirements your images have before adding them to your LocalSite.
High-quality images. Website visitors can visit your website from a plethora of devices including smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktop computers, smart TVs, etc. It is important that your photos appear beautifully across all of these devices and that means they must be high-quality images. We recommend a minimum of 2048px to ensure this level of quality.
For more details on the types of images, you should or shouldn't use on your website, check out this helpful article here!
Next, let's identify the different types of images and places where they can be placed.
Hero Image: this is the large image you will find at the top of each page of your website. It is right under the header of your site and often will include the H1 (Heading 1) as part of it. These images are built into the template of your LocalSite and it is important that they are high-quality images with a horizontal landscape to look their best. These images cannot be edited in the OneLocal Website Editor and you will need to connect with your Marketing Specialist in order to make changes to this image. Add a comment to the photo and also attach the file of the new image you would like to add.
Individual Image Sections: there may be multiple sections of your website with an image and text section next to each other. Images selected for these areas are strategically chosen to match the written content next to them, as well as the space available. You can replace these images if needed, but please keep in mind the content and spacing when you do.
Gallery Images: These are groupings of images that you may find throughout your website. We recommend using gallery sections on a website when you have lots of your own high-quality images to showcase your business, staff, projects, services, etc. It's great to keep these sections up-to-date with relevant photos for the specific time of year, new staff members, or recently completed projects that your business is proud to show off!
ps* If your site doesn't have any gallery sections yet, but you have plenty of beautiful images to share, connect with your Marketing Specialist so we can add this to your site!
Linked Images: Some images on your site will be used as Calls to Action (CTAs) to get website visitors to visit specific pages on your website, most often the dedicated services pages. It's important that if you do update the image to something new that it is still relevant to the linked topic, and please ensure that the link is still connected once you have completed the update. This is important for both our website visitors and Google!
Blog Images: Your blog is the place we encourage you and your staff to have the most amount of fun and free will when making updates to your site. Your blog is your opportunity to really share the personality of your business, talk about topics you find interesting that relate to your business, and really showcase that you are a thought leader in your industry! Each blog Onelocal writes for your business (if you're on our Dominate plan) includes a hero image to catch viewers' attention and any blogs you write should too! You can even feel free to add more photo content throughout the body of the blog if you do have the images to spare! But, we don't recommend using the same exact photos from your website on your blog as well, they should be fresh and new when possible.
Lastly, Make Sure You Own The Content You're Posting!
It's so important that you have the right to post any images you are posting on your website and the easiest way to ensure that is by taking photos yourself! The average smartphone in 2023 has a great quality camera that you can take photos with that will look amazing on your new site! If you are posting images owned by someone else, be sure to get the rights to post the image and be sure to add the appropriate metadata to give credit to the creator.
If you want to continue learning more about photos, check out this other article link below!
Next: Images for your Website