When digital marketing experts talk about visuals, they do so with a strong sense of urgency. From the moment visuals were first able to be used on the Internet, there has been a serious movement to get more out of what we can see on a website. Today, movies that used to take hours to load can now automatically start within seconds of you clicking on a website that is filled with images. But how important are those visuals that are being put on your website?
In digital marketing, visuals are what a user sees when they first come into contact with a landing page, website front page, or a digital ad. Everything from the layout to your website to the color scheme that is used is part of your website visuals, and they have to be able to attract an audience on their own.
It takes .05 seconds for an Internet user to decide whether or not they are going to give your website a look. The slower your website loads, the more traffic you lose. But the more visuals you use, the more apt you are to retain that traffic. Once digital marketing experts figured out how quickly people made their website decisions, it became imperative to get visuals down to file sizes that could load in less than a second.
The combination of your website layout and any images or videos must load as fast as possible, because it is your visuals that make that first impression. Before a consumer even has a chance to determine whether or not your content has value, they are making decisions on whether or not to utilize your website based on your visuals.
Aside from determining whether or not an Internet user will check out your site, visuals reach into the very core of human behavior. It is estimated that 93 percent of all human communication is done using visuals. Everything from using the right combination of colors to creating a layout that is pleasing to the eye makes a difference.
An image or video can help a customer to get a more comprehensive understanding of your product than the written word ever could. A picture or video of a product can help elicit emotional responses that are critical in the buying process, and they can give a potential consumer a feeling of familiarity that determines whether or not a product will be purchased. Visuals are also essential in helping people who have never seen your product before to understand how it works, and what its value may be to them personally. Visuals can deliver all of the buying cues a consumer needs without ever using a single word.
A digital marketing professional not only understands how to use visuals, they also understand how to monitor the effectiveness of visuals and make changes as needed. Something as simple as changing the background color of a website page could increase traffic three or four fold. These are the types of observations a trained professional can make to help your website succeed. With the right digital marketing team on your side, your website will be able to utilize visuals to get results that words could never achieve.
