2011/06/07

If you don't do this one thing, you might as well delete all photos from your site - Small Biz Survival

If you don't do this one thing, you might as well delete all photos from your site

Posted: 07 Jun 2011 04:34 AM PDT

Did you know the photos on your tourism website are actually annoying more people than they are attracting? I hadn't thought of this, but Andy Hayes explained it, in "Why Photos on your Travel Website Can be a Bad Idea." I'll give you the summary here, along with the action plan to fix it.

White rail fence, tree swing and a tractor

Lovely! But where the heck is it?
(It's Sage and Saddle B&B,
near Freedom, Oklahoma.)

You put lovely photos of your place on your website. You even have some great photos on a rotating graphic. Great! Now I want to visit.

The Problem: You didn't tell me where those photos were taken. And I can't figure it out, because I've never been there. To make it worse, those rotating graphics make it impossible to stop and look at a specific photo or location.

Go back and read Andy's post, Why Photos on your Travel Website Can be a Bad Idea, to understand just how frustrating this is to your visitors.

The Simple Answer: Put every picture in context. Add a caption under every single photo. Use alternate text with every single image. Use the Title field to add text that appears when users hover with their mouse. Use all of these tricks on all images. Remember, for example, that iPad users can't "hover" over an image, so they won't see title tags. Screen reader users rely on alternate text.

It's a lot of work to re-fit all the images on your site. Do it page by page, step by step. For the future, save a copy of Andy's reminder in your file where you're keeping ideas for your next website changes. That way you won't forget to do this for all the images in your next upgrade.

Thanks, Andy, for giving us all a swift kick on this one.

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