Why are images so important online?

The old adage that a picture tells a thousand words is perhaps more true online than it’s even been offline. Photos and images are a vital part of any successful digital strategy, and without them you’ll find your online presence doesn’t have nearly the same impact.

But why is this?

Images can portray a lot of information fast

It’s well known that people don’t tend to enjoy reading long blocks of text online. Images can be a great way to get across information quickly and efficiently… without needing to write it all out. This method works particularly well for things like infographics, as your readers will be able to take information on board easily, and without having to scan through a whole article.

Images make the web look appealing

If you compare the digital world of today to the digital world of ten or fifteen years ago, you’ll be faced with a very different place. The web of today is more streamlined and stylish, and a lot of that is due to the kind of images we use now. As web design and development has become more advanced, it has come to rely more and more heavily on images. Why? Because they make things look more appealing and attractive.

Images are attention-grabbing

When it comes to the internet, there’s always something better and more interesting than what you are currently looking at! Because of this, it has become really important to be able to get attention and keep it. A good image is a great way to do this, and many people and companies use images to grab attention for the rest of their content. In fact, stats show that articles that include images can get up to 94% more total views.

Images can sell products

When it comes to e-commerce, images are vital. The better quality images that are used on an online store, the more products that are likely to be sold as a result. In fact, in most e-commerce situations the images do a lot more of the selling than the product descriptions or even the reviews.

Images are more engaging

Research shows that images are more engaging than almost any other type of online content. This can be seen on Facebook, as you are likely to receive a much higher proportion of likes and comments on an image than you are on any other kind of network. This fact also explains the huge growth of image-centric social platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest.