Photo and video: what they change on a website
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Two sites, same structure, same copy. On the first, stock photos: people shaking hands, an office that is not yours. On the second, your workshop, your premises, your team, an ordinary morning. The second inspires trust before a single line has been read. That is what photo and video change: not the beauty of the site, its credibility.
Why stock images show
Everyone has learned to spot these images: too clean, too smooth, the same from one site to the next. They do not really lie, but they say nothing, and the visitor can feel it. Worse, they can turn against you: the customer who arrives and does not recognise the premises, the candidate looking for the team in the photo.
A real photo, even an imperfect one, says something stock images never can: this exists, it is here, it is them.
Photos: what they should show
No staging, just reality well framed. What reassures a customer who does not know you:
- The places: the shopfront, the entrance, the interior. They will know where they are going.
- The people: those they will have on the phone or in front of them. A simple portrait in daylight beats a studio.
- The work: the hands, the tool, the gesture, the result. That is what they are buying.
- The products: on a neutral background for the catalogue, in context to make people want them.
A well-prepared day of shooting gives you enough to feed a website and months of posts. Preparation counts more than equipment: a list of what to show, tidy premises, people who have been told.
Video: short, silent, useful
On a website, video is not a corporate film. It is a few-second shot that loops, without sound, showing what a photo freezes: the gesture, the movement, the atmosphere. A workshop at work, a machine running, a street seen from above.
It must stay short, load fast, and never start with sound. The visitor watching it on a train will thank you. If you have a real film to show, host it on a platform and embed it: the site does not have to carry that weight.
The trap: a beautiful image that slows everything down
The photo straight out of the camera weighs several megabytes. Put on a page as is, it slows it down, and a slow site is paid for twice: in visitors who leave and in SEO, because Google measures how fast the largest visible element appears and takes it into account.
- Resize every image to the size at which it will be displayed, no larger.
- Convert it to a modern format, lighter at equal quality.
- Load only the visible images, the others on scroll.
- For video, a few seconds, compressed, and a still image while it starts.
It is technical, invisible work, and it is what keeps an image-heavy site fast.
The rights, before publishing
Two points to settle in black and white before an image goes online. The right to use the photos: who took them, for which uses, for how long. And the image rights of the people who appear: a written agreement, even a simple one, for every employee and every visible customer. A photo removed under pressure always costs more than the agreement asked for at the start.
Conclusion
Photo and video do not make a site more beautiful, they make it true. Show the places, the people and the work; keep the video short and silent; lighten everything before publishing; settle the rights. The rest is copy, and copy reads better when people believe what they see.
Frequently asked questions
Because they are spotted at first glance, they say nothing about you, and they can turn against you when the customer arrives and recognises nothing.
The places, the people the customer will face, the work being done, and the products. Reality, well framed, in daylight.
A heavy video, yes. A few-second loop, compressed, silent, with a still image while it starts, no. A real film is hosted elsewhere and embedded.
Yes, a written agreement, even a simple one, for every employee and every visible customer, before going live.