Why Are The Pictures So Small?
The other day I was checking out some hotels for an upcoming trip in May. I went to multiple websites and clicked on the pictures; they were absolutely tiny. I tweeted about this and received a quick response from Chris Pitre:
If you have a benefit you are trying to show off, such as a great looking room or a wonderful campus, what prevents you from using large pictures and video to convey your story? Bandwidth is no longer an issue, since there are plenty of tools to help you look great such as flickr and vimeo. Can you imagine choosing a hotel from words versus a great photo of what they truly offer? It’s time to change, how fast can you do it?
Thanks Jolie O’Dell for suggesting this post.
March 25th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Oh, shucks! Did I suggest it?
=)
Well, it’s a good subject. Hotel websites should be totally tricked out with video clips showcasing features and benefits — rooms, restaurants, lobbies, spas. And they should all have interactive comments/reviews sections! Recommendations are so powerful, and if the hotel doesn’t curate them, another site will.
March 28th, 2009 at 9:13 am
Pictures are great, but in the world of online search a picture is worth zero words. Images, video, Flash – all are invisible to search engines. Search engines only understand > words <.
I’m not suggesting that you’re necessarily wrong or that the hotel should use teeny-tiny images — just that there must be a balance between marketing to search engines (ie attracting website visitors) and marketing to website visitors once they have reached the site (ie conversion).
March 30th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
We completely agree that words are what computers see. The text should be compelling to both humans and computers alike. Fortunately, today you no longer have to choose due to bandwidth constraints, websites can have (and should have) both.