In February, I wrote an article for the faithHighway e-zine about image optimization. I spoke in detail about the important technical factors of image selection… things such as dpi, cropping, and resizing. Like most things I write, it kind of read like it was generated by a robot. In doing so, I’m afraid that I may have done our loyal readers a disservice by glossing over one of the most important factors in image selection – relevance.
No matter how good an image looks, if it’s not relevant to what you’re writing about… do not use it. For example, if I were ever to finish my novel, A Tribute to Water Gun Warfare in Post World War II America, I would be ill-advised to use a picture of the Mona Lisa on the cover. The Mona Lisa is, of course, one of the great works of modern art that the world has produced. It is both beautiful and thought invoking. However, it has absolutely nothing to do with water guns, and would serve as nothing more than a distraction from the point of my novel. The same holds true for your website content as well. If you are a small church in Temple, Texas, then don’t use pictures of New York City in your About Us section. Conversely, if you are a mega-church in Dallas, don’t use a picture of tumbleweeds blowing across a lonely street on your Contact Us page. Images that have no relevance to the written content of your website, or misrepresent what you are all about, will have more of a negative impact than a positive one.
It is, of course, important to use images that look good on your website… but it’s more important to use pictures that are relevant to you and your content. Take pride in who you are as a church, and reflect that pride through the images you choose.
Pic by Striatic
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