When you decide to hang your virtual shingle on the Internet, you gain access to a wealth of tools for promoting your business. The most important of these is the ability to create a visual presence for your business that potential customers will be able to explore. The images that you choose to place on your website are just as important as the sign that you hang on your front door or promotional materials you hand out. With professional-quality digital cameras now in the reach of the average consumer, there is no excuse for not choosing excellent photographs for your physiotherapy practice website.
Ignore the temptation to use uninspiring point-and-click photographs. Your photographs should enhance your content, not serve as arbitrary decoration. Many visitors to your website will be first-time visitors, and you want to leave a good impression. Spare a thought for composition and lighting. If you are taking outdoor photos, partly cloudy skies will give better results as you won’t have sharp contrast and shadows.
For your home page, consider a nice photo of the facade of your practice. Take care to exclude any distracting elements from your photo, such as rubbish bins and drive-by traffic. Casual browsers to your website will then be able to make a connection between your web presence and the building that they may drive past on the way to work.
Take pictures of your facilities and include pictures of your staff. Be sure that any facility that you take a picture of is clean and spotless and that your staff members are smiling and friendly. For best results, team photos should be consistent; use same, plain background image and try to take everyone’s photos from same angle. If you have uniforms, wear them.
In addition, choose photographs that enhance your content, rather than detracting from it. A section describing the physiotherapy services offered at your clinic should be accompanied by pictures of your state of the art equipment and, if they consent, happy and relaxed customers. Choose to photograph only equipment that is new or in some way unique to your practice. Try to also photograph individuals while they are engaged in a conversation or other interaction. A candid picture of a customer receiving follow-up directions from the nurse is much more powerful than a posed picture of a patient staring at the camera.
Remember, visitors to your website will be considering trusting you with their health. Your photos can go a long way to making them feel comfortable meking this decision. If you need assistance resizing and inserting your photos into a page on your website, let us know.