I am currently working with a very driven client. She is, finally, working to get her offline business online. Her website is an issue that she has been circling for years, literally, and finally she has decided to buckle down.

Unfortunately, she has convinced herself that she can’t handle the technical stuff.

Now, truth be told, if I EVER had my back to the wall, she is the person I would want beside me (did I mention that she is also one of my best friends?) I KNOW she can learn all of this stuff! Believe me, she is more than capable!

At the moment, she is struggling to learn how to edit the photos for her website and most recently we have been working on the thumbnails needed for her shopping cart products.

Product Images are Vitally Important Website Content!

As I tell my clients, product images on a web site are an extremely important element, for a number of reasons:

Product Images – Pros

For Human Visitors –

• Product Images can provide information in an efficient way. However, images are NOT an appropriate substitute for meat, detailed, written product descriptions
• Product Images can provide appealing eye candy

For Search Engine Visitors –

• Image file names can be a powerful search engine tool
• Image alt text tags can also reinforce the appropriate product keywords and brand names when used judiciously

Product Images – Cons

For Human Visitors –

• If your pictures aren’t sized correctly, they may load slowly and your human visitors are likely to get impatient and leave your site

For Search Engine Visitors –

• Google has begun to assess websites by loading time. If your web site loads slowly, it may be penalized in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages)

And with the cons, we reach the crux of the biscuit… my client has not been able to successfully and consistently handle the resizing and editing needed for these ever important Product Images.

She has been insisting on using a couple the free Microsoft Image programs that seem to come loaded on new computers. They are designed for loving grandparents and not for serious business people.

We have run into permissions issues (first time I have ever had this problem… and boy, was it hard to track down!), and resizing issues. In spite of the fact that I had her download a free solution – IrfanView – she has avoided taking the time to learn it…

As a result, she (and I) have wasted a number of hours trying to fix what shouldn’t be broken in the first place…

I was a painter in a previous life and believe me, having the proper brush for the job is non-negotiable!

I have been wracking my brains trying to figure out a way to explain this to her and have finally figured out an analogy that will have meaning for her – basically, she has been trying to knit with two crochet hooks… for those of you who are woodworkers – you can’t use a straight blade screwdriver if you need a crescent wrench!

As in every endeavor, take the time to find the right tool for the job, and then take the time to learn to use it correctly. Trust me, it will save you time and tears in the long run!

Source by Tink Boord-Dill