How to Choose the Best Images for Your Website

For a fun change I decided to create a video tutorial to go along with this blog post in case you wanted to watch the process instead of reading about it!

Choose Images for Your Website

Don’t worry- you can read the transcript if you aren’t in the mood for a video.

• Transcript

  Hi, everyone. This is a video about finding stock photos for your website. So obviously Unsplash is my favorite. I'm on the Unsplash website. Unsplash.com

  And I just wanted to talk a little bit about how to find stock photos for your website. So first you need to decide what story your photos will tell on your website.

  For example, if you are an interior designer who specializes in minimalism, the type of photos you're going to look for will be probably the opposite of someone who runs a bright and colorful candy store, just as a very obvious example.

  So you need to look for pictures that showcase that type of style and the type of customer you want to attract.

  So there's a huge variety of stock photos available. So you definitely need to narrow down what you're looking for, what colors you're looking for, the general look and feel the photo before you start searching, you might get confused and just start like downloading everything, which is fine.

  If you want to do that and then edit it down later. But it's a lot easier if you just search.

  So we're here on the Unsplash homepage and you can see, we have some featured categories up here. We have the search bar, and if you scroll down, you'll just start seeing photos right away.

  I believe these are the newest photos. I don't know if that's actually true or not, but that's what I think.

  So I like this photo. Speaking of candy store, I like this photo in the middle. It's pink and blue kind of pastel colors, gradient abstract shape.

  I would definitely get that if I was running a minimalist candy store, I don't know if anyone's doing that. So I'm just going to hover over that and I'm going to click on or hover over the photographer's name and then click view profile.

  So I can see a few more. I don't want to butcher this person's name. I believe it is Pawel.

  Not sure. Okay. Sorry about that if I'm saying your name wrong, but I've used photos from this photographer before, so I know they have a lot of great stuff.

  I won't scroll down, but as you can see, there's over a thousand photos. So if you like any of these, definitely take time to look through here.

  Cause there's a lot of good stuff. So these are more abstract experimental. These would be great for like a creative project an artist anything like that.

  Also, I just like these and there's a few minimal ones too, which is nice. Lots of different colors, lots of different abstract shapes, kind of surreal.

  I can see a lot of different people using or getting some good use out of these photos. So I like this one.

  So I would download that one might do that later. Actually, I can just do it now to show you. So you're going to click on the lower right-hand corner.

  Pretty easy. And it’ll just show up down here in your downloads. So very easy to download.

  And I would definitely explore this page. If you like the photos, this person is producing. And another great thing about Unsplash is there's interests right here in this person's profile.

  So if you liked some of these, but you're like, oh, I don't know. I like something like this, but I don't like this particular one.

  These can help you narrow down on some keywords or categories that would be similar, but maybe not exactly the same if you wanted it to be a little bit different or if you want it to be exactly like this.

  So that's a good place to look. So I'm going to type in a user for a minimal office profile. So I’m clicking on their profile.

  This is STIL (S T I L) I looked this up ahead of time, but you would have also found them if you had typed in any of these words.

  So I searched before for minimal office and this one popped up so very easy to do, very easy to search.

  And these are basically exactly what I'm looking for. Like minimal office, lots of neutral colors and flat lays a lot of good stuff.

  I don't know if other people like these types of photos, but I just love like minimal office phone for websites.

  Cause I think it looks very modern. So after I scroll down, there's a reason I scrolled down. You get to see even more categories down here that this photographer's work appears in different categories.

  So if you're like, Hey, I wanted more women in the photos. You click business woman, working woman, corporate woman. They have a bunch of other ones down here.

  So I'm just one of many reasons why I enjoy using Unsplash because once you start going through profiles or searching, it's just very easy to start finding photos and honing in on what you want them to look like and your vision for your website.

  So I'm going to search this just so you don't think I'm lying so minimal, as you can see they have a lot of minimal things. Searching for minimal office and you can see after you do a search, there also are related words or categories at the top.

  So in case you're like, oh, actually I wanted work instead, you could click that. And we're going to scroll through, you got a lot of white and neutral backgrounds with office stuff.

  Definitely use a lot of Unsplash photos for websites and just in general to make designs like graphic design. For example, I use this photo in my website.

  So basically anything that you like that you feel like represents you and your brand and what you do should definitely, definitely download it, try it out.

  Also, you can definitely download more photos than you feel like you need and then edit them back. Or you can download them and then if you put them on your website, you're like, oh wow, that actually doesn't look good there. 

  Then you have a few extra just in case some of them don't look good or you don't want to use them, but definitely be picky with your photos when you decide on what to do or which ones to upload and have on your website.

  All right. As you can see, the minimal office page just keeps going and scrolling. Also, if you wanted to look at collections, you could click collections and then you can see, like, for example, if you wanted more darker tones, you could pick that one.

  This is also a good way to see like a snapshot of what other people are doing. You're like, oh wow.

  I like that one better. I mean, this one is just calling my name minimal. So I just got lots and lots of photos here to choose from.

  And if you have any questions or comments, make sure to go back to the blog post, leave them there.

  I'll check them out. I'll answer questions if you have any and I'll see you guys later. Bye.

Leave me any questions or comments and I’ll see you in my next post.