Getting traffic to your website is imperative for any online business.

However, for those who have an e-commerce website or online shop, the ultimate goal is converting traffic into online sales.

You should prioritize conversion with the same intensity as you would try to push more traffic to your website, otherwise, you are merely wasting your ad dollars.

People love to see what they buy, and images have a way of engaging people.

Since an image can communicate a message more explicitly, more often than not, much better than words, it is crucial to consider how images can increase your website sales conversion rate.

The brutal reality is that customers expect freshness, allurement, and personalisation each time they return to a website.

Moreover, this is accentuated by research from Invesp:

• 56% of online shoppers are likely to shop on a website that offers personalised recommendations

• 57% of shoppers will provide personal information if they believe they will benefit from it.

• Personalised ads convert ten times greater than ordinary ads.

One telling concept is evident then, how you can use impactful images to reach the emotions of your customer and influence your relationship, and in the process, forming a better relationship with your customers.

There is a subjective opinion that influences a buyer’s decision and having the right images are a fundamental part of this.

Appealing to your customers’ emotions with the correct images

Research has demonstrated that when we purchase a product, it is for an emotional reason. It goes beyond saying that a user merely browses, he/she also wishes to experience it.

So, this is where having the right images is vital.

While the right pictures can increase your conversion, it is up to you to engage the visitors’ senses.

One fundamental way to do this is by using photographs or images that help them visualise the experience with your company’s product.

For example, Coastal, an e-commerce store that markets contact lenses and glasses and has a “try-it-on” innovation that enables customers to view what they’d look like in potential new glasses.

So, with the appropriate images that propose a user a fantastic experience and appeals to their emotions, you can increase the conversion on your website and the engagement you have with your target demographic.

Using images that appeal to the customer emotions

Detailed and quality images have a way of engaging to the feelings of your customers, which is critical if you wish your website to convert more.

By using 360-degree images and placing them delicately in an area, your customer can visualize pertinent details about your product is a must.

Visualising the product in several angles as possible helps the customers foster an image in their head of what they are getting and how they can identify with it.

However, be warned, you may decrease your return rate when you present alternate views because you will be showing customers what they are getting.

For e-commerce sites that sell expensive goods, alternative perspectives are a must because online shoppers who come to such websites will be very much interested in product authenticity.

Using larger images increases conversions

Larger images are one sure-fire way to increase conversions.

During an A/B test, Skinner Auctions blew up the pictures in their online catalogue by 28%. The results – a 63% increase in visitors clicked on the button to start the bidding process.

In another A/B test ran by conversion rate optimisation agency Optics on the site of their client MALL.CZ, blowing up images of products on the website led to a whopping 9.46% increase in sales, meaning that regardless of the types of products offered, larger product images deliver better sales results.

Design principles to boost conversion

You have probably heard of the expression that content is king. Well if content truly is king, then think the design is queen.

E-commerce websites should utilise colours that convey the right feel and stand out against the colourful backdrop of your webpages.

For example, green on a yellow background will not be as sharp as yellow on blue.

The colour variations you use on your website should be one that instantly draws visitors’ attention.

Ensure that you remove any excess surrounding that draws attention to a visitor.

There are tools you can use to edit background images so that they instantly become more professional.

Here are some further reasons why you should optimise the images on your website to boost conversions:

Optimising images will decrease file size more than any other aspect of the average page

• Images make up 64 per cent of average webpages

• Lossless image optimisation leaves an image looking identical while decreasing file size in the region of 5-20 per cent for JPEGs and 20-40 per cent for PNGs

• Optimising images on your website is actually an easy web performance – aiding SEO in the process.

Sitemaps are critical if your website has a massive number of images

An image sitemap can be beneficial to inform search engines of images, though it depends on the size and authority of the website – if there are only a hundred products for example, and they’re all within two clicks of the homepage, the site is unlikely to need an image sitemap.

However, if images can’t be accessed through crawling, then an image sitemap can help search engines discover pictures they might not otherwise find.

It is imperative to ensure that your website is easily found, and to do that search engine crawlers will need to assess your website and determine whether it loads faster and is easy to navigate.

If it is, your site will be found by more visitors and thus increase more conversions.

Summary

To increase your sales conversions using product images ensure you use images that:

• engage your customers’ emotions

• choose larger images over small

• offer alternative views

• use online tools to optimise and better design your images

• use an image sitemap if required

Following the above will have better results for online shoppers and visitors when it comes it increasing sales conversions.

The key here is to get found, keep the shopper on-site with engaging images, and then make it easy for them to purchase.

This article was first written for Inspiration Feed.