Get stock images for your website - mjcpk web design and development

A website with no pictures is fairly dull to look at and can be a big turn off for visitors. Ideally, as a web designer, the client will provide you with a set of professionally taken images that perfectly illustrate what you’re talking about. But, life is never perfect and you often need extra images from somewhere.

The best advice I can give anyone starting out in website or a client looking to set up a website is to NOT use free stock image websites. I’ve talked before about the dangers of using copyrighted images from the internet but this is a stylistic matter rather than a legal one.

The quality of free images is usually terrible

You can find images on the internet that you are legally allowed to use on your website for free but they are often either low resolution, poor quality or both. Many of these websites also insist that you provide a link to them on every page that uses an image. Also I have found the number of images you can choose from to be very small.

Good images cost less than you think

Don’t get me wrong, stock images can be expensive if you a resolution suitable for print work. However, for websites you rarely need massive images for anything and the cost is more reasonable. For example, the site I use www.123rf.com charges £11 (GBP) for 15 credits. 1 credit will get you an image that is 400 x 270 pixels, 2 credits will get you it at 850 x 570 pixels and for 3 credits you get a massive 2500 x 1670 pixels. Larger sizes are available.

So far I haven’t needed to spend more than 2 credits on an image for a website and as 1 credit works out at less than 75p you can see it doesn’t exactly break the bank! They also have better deals for larger amounts of credits.

You have to pay for quality

75p isn’t much but it makes all the difference when it comes to quality. I’ve seen some awful free images but I’ve been really impressed with the range and the quality of images from paid stock sites. It also makes the process far quicker and easier if I can go to one place and I know I’ll get the image I need.

Here are a few sites to try:

123RF
shutterstock.com
istockphoto.com
gettyimages.co.uk
sxc.hu

Without thinking about it you can easily be creating links from search engines and other sites that go to missing content. Make sure that when you rename pages, images and other files on your site that you tell everyone what you’ve done.

A .htaccess file is an essential tool for any website. It has many uses like setting default pages, 404 pages, indexes and URL rewriting but what we need it for here is the 301 redirect.
A 301 redirect is a way of telling the web server that you’ve moved or renamed a file but you still want links to the previous name or location to keep working. For example: if I have a page titled ‘products.html’ that I decide to rename ‘new_products.html’ I can use a 301 redirect to make sure anyone following a link to ‘products.html’ gets to ‘new_products.html’ and not a 404 page.

Where’d my Page Rank go?

There is nothing worse than having lots of people linking to your site and finding that it doesn’t go to the page you want it to. It also means that any Google Page Rank that you would have received is lost.

A 301 redirect tells people that the page has moved permanently. Search engines can use this to update their indexes and ensure that Page Rank is passed on to the new page name.

The syntax for a 301 redirect is really simple:

Redirect 301 /oldpagename http://www.yoursite.com/newpagename

Just create a new line for each page that you have renamed or moved. You can even redirect a page to one on another site if you have moved it that far.

You probably have a .htaccess file in the root of your website. If not you can create one yourself, it’s just a normal text file.

In summary

So when you next change the name of a file or an image on your site don’t forget to add it to your .htaccess file as a 301 redirect. You can check if you have any broken links on your site with Google Webmaster Tools. The 301 redirect also helps if you haven’t managed to update all of the internal links on your site too.

Bitcoin is a new online digital currency.

We are now accepting Bitcoins for our various services at discounted rates. This means that it is significantly cheaper to pay us with Bitcoins than with GB pounds.

This offer may not last for ever and is very much dependent on the fluctuations of the value of Bitcoin relative to other currencies. So take advantage of this offer while you can!

See our Bitcoin offers for more details or Contact Us for a quote for a specific service.

I must confess that I tend to shy away from jQuery and javascript in general. I know that javascript can do amazing things and I know it can really enhance the user interface of a site but I tend to avoid it. In my defense part of the reason comes from the historical problems with javascript prior to the advent of the modern libraries. Javascript could cause problems and was an effort to implement and maintain. As a result I kept things deliberately simple to ensure browser compatibility and for my own sanity.

Nowadays there is no excuse to avoid javascript and, when necessary, I use jQuery plugins to provide what I need in a site. However, I haven’t been moving beyond using plugins and the initialisation code provided by the developers on their websites. Other than changing a couple of variables I’ve not been writing any code. That’s not programming, it’s copy and pasting!

Something has happened to change everything. I recently stumbled across jQuery for Designers which is a site by Remy Sharp (@rem) with a whole load of great tutorials on using jQuery to achieve real world tasks.

It is the real world nature of the tutorials that has made the difference to me. It is not suitable for absolute beginners as it doesn’t introduce you to the basics of jQuery. I know the basics, I’ve watched and read tutorials about them before, but what I needed was some more concrete examples of jQuery in action.

What’s good about jQuery for Designers is seeing how you can use the various selectors and functions built in to jQuery to achieve things quickly and simply. Remy does a great job of making you want to get coding. As a result I threw together a little animated carousel in only a few lines of code. Previously I would have searched the web for a plugin that exactly matched my requirements and would probably ended up with more code when you added together the plugin code and the initialisation code that goes with it.

So, all in all, I’m feeling both inspired and empowered. I’m looking forward to taking my designs to the next level with what I’ve learnt. If you want to do the same head on over to jQuery for Designers and get started!

Using copyrighted images that you don’t have permission for can cause you serious trouble. What seems like and easy way to avoid paying for images can end up costing you a lot more.

Every image is copyrighted by default. The copyright is owned by the person who produced that image. They can sell the rights to that image in many different ways or they could license it for use for free. Just because a website doesn’t have a copyright statement doesn’t mean that you can use their images for free.

I found this image on a website…

Clients often come to us with images that they want to put on their website that they have found on other peoples websites. Sometimes they find them by using Google’s Image Search.

These images all belong to someone else and if we were to use them we would be stealing them and passing them off as our own.

Hotlinking

It is possible to show an image from another website without actually having it on your web server. This is called hotlinking. Your web page displays the image directly from they other website’s server. This isn’t an infringement of copyright but it is still a very bad idea.

Using images like this uses bandwidth from the other person’s website. It may actually be costing them money to show images on your website. This is known as bandwidth theft and is considered a very rude thing to do on the Internet.

The other problem with this is that you are always at the mercy of the website that is hosting the image. If they remove the image or block your site the image will disappear from your website without notice. Sometimes website owners like to get their own back when you hotlink to them. Some do this by changing the image to a notice that says something like ‘Don’t Hotlink!’ but others have been known to be more extreme and swap them for offensive images and pornography. Do you want that on your website?

Penalties for Copyright theft

If you are using someone’s images without permission they can send a takedown letter to your ISP. Internet Service Providers like to avoid the legal complications of copyright and often comply immediately with takedown notices without contacting you. The first time you realise there is a problem is when people start complaining that they can’t get to your site anymore. The ISP has probably pulled your entire site due to breaching the terms and conditions of their hosting agreement.

Beyond this you could be sued for your use of copyrighted images depending on whether doing so made you money or caused the copyright owner to lose money. However the potential loss of your site (even if for a short time) should be enough to make you avoid stealing images.

Alternatives to using copyrighted images

There are a number of sites on the web that will let you use their images for free. Some of them will do so on the understanding that you link back to them but they don’t often have very many or very good images in their collections.

Another option is images that have been licensed as Creative Commons (CC) by their creators. These can be found on both Flickr and Wikimedia Commons. There are different types of Creative Commons license that allow you to do different things with them. Make sure you check the details of the license before you use an image.

Royalty Free Images

Royalty Free Images are not free. You have to pay an initial fee to use the image but you don’t have to pay a royalty every time the image is used. The good thing about royalty free images is that you don’t have to include an attribution to the image creator on the web page.

Lately we have been getting Stock Photos from 123rf.com who have a large catalogue of images that are available in different sizes and very reasonable prices. This is a much quicker option than having to trawl through free images sites and Creative Commons sites for the image you want.

Never, ever, ever

So there you have it. There is never a reason to use copyrighted images. It is illegal, can cause you loads of problems and there are much better alternatives available.

Keywords are an essential part of websites and how they rank on search engines. The only way to really gauge the success of a site is to monitor where it ranks in the major search engines for certain keywords. Here at mjcpk we offer a Search Engine Rank monitoring service that tracks your main keywords and where your site ranks for them.

There’s more than one important keyword

You may be a cleaning business but ‘cleaning’ is not the only keyword you want to rank for. ‘cleaning ’ is one your shouldn’t ignore as this is often more important than ‘cleaning’ on its own. In addition there will be any number of other keywords you’ll want to rank for: cleaners, floor cleaning, house cleaning, domestic cleaning, office cleaning, professional cleaning, affordable cleaning, industrial cleaning etc. may all be applicable to your site too. A small site should have a list of at least 20+ keywords that they are targeting.

This is important because you may find that it is too expensive or difficult to compete for your main keyword and it would be better to spend time and money on other keywords.

Monitoring keyword rankings

The only way to know which keywords are worth spending time on is by knowing where you rank for them. If you rank 23rd for a keyword on Google it may not take much effort to get onto the first page. However, if you rank 479th then things are going to be a lot harder and not always worth the effort.

The more information you have the better you will be able to choose an effective strategy for your site. Once you have begun work to improve your rankings then the only way you can be sure it is working is by tracking your keywords rankings.

Making it easy

If all you want to do is get on with your business and don’t want have to spend your time gathering statistics about your website then mjcpk can help. For only £25 per month we will prepare a report detailing your rankings in all the major search engines. We will monitor up to 100 keywords (or key phrases) for you.
We will begin by establishing the keywords that people use to get to your site now and where they rank. If you can improve the rank of these keywords you will definitely increase traffic to your site. We will then prepare a more complete list of keywords (incorporating any that you would like to rank for) and will monitor their rankings.

We will point out suitable candidates for easy improvement and can also offer advice, when required, on how best to improve the ranking of your site.

Contact Us now to start tracking your keywords and making your site more successful

If you have any questions or would like to discuss things further then please feel free to Contact Us.

Design is all about psychology. We must understand how people are going to respond to what we show them. We know that a website for a daycare centre that uses only the colours red and black and is covered with pictures of skulls is not going be received well. This is quite obvious but there are more subtle things that we shouldn’t overlook.

A simple mistake that I used to make when I first started designing websites was to not use photographs. I used graphical images to add gradients, curved edges and any number of nice looking touches but I often left out photographs.

So why is this a problem? Any design without photographic images tends to look quite impersonal and as a result some of my designs ended up looking like sites for soulless corporations rather than the small businesses they were actually for. Something as simple as a photograph of the building the business is in or some of the products they provide can counter this.

The next step is to add some photos of real people. Showing the visitor a picture of a person engenders trust. We are a very visual species and we like to look at the person we a dealing with. A smiling face is even better because that keys into our natural psychological responses. A smiling person means they are our friend and mean us no harm. We also respond to smiles with one of our own (or at least a relaxing of our frown). This causes us to release some of our happy brain chemicals and makes us even more likely to trust the site.

You will tend to see that the photos of people displayed on websites tend to match their target audience. A site for teenagers will show pictures of teenagers rather than old people, a Chinese site is most likely going to show those of Chinese ethnic groups and a site for new mothers is going to show women rather than men. When we see an image of someone that we feel is like us then we identify with them and, again, are more likely to trust them.

This can present a problem for sites that have general and/or worldwide appeal. It isn’t possible to show photos that equate to everyone who is likely to visit a site and often those that try to be too PC and multicultural end up looking totally contrived. We all have our own preconceptions, likes and dislikes when it comes to gender, race, ethnicity and age. However much we’d like to be able to treat all groups the same (especially when it comes to generalities and stereotypes) we don’t. Remember this is occurring mostly on a subconscious level and is not something we are always directly aware of.

To get around this problem of bias towards and against certain groups there is a surprising solution. Cartoon images can achieve all of the positive aspects of smiling faced photos without the problems of bias. The reason for this is that a cartoon image is very simple and lacking in detail. We supply the detail in our minds and superimpose our expectations onto the cartoon. This could be a simple stick figure or even an animal or bird.

Twitter is a prime example. A smiling anthropomorphised bird works as well as a human face. It also has the benefit of being cute and non-threatening. The choice of animal can also be used as statement about the company. A bird may be fast, a dog dependable and so on.

So photos are essential to key into our natural preference for seeing who and what we are dealing with. Smiling faces set us at our ease and engender trust. A single happy cartoon character can be more use than a slew of varied human images. We are programmed at the deepest levels to look for faces and we see them everywhere.

I’ve been writing a few guest posts lately and the first one has been published over at Netchunks.com.

The link is: http://www.netchunks.com/essential-tips-to-ensure-site-visibility-for-webmasters-and-designers/

I’d like to thank Shiva Chettri for giving me the opportunity.

I’m also looking into getting a few guest writers to add a couple of blog posts here.

The site has just received a new design. The old one was looking a little dated and the blog design didn’t exactly match the main site design.

The content is still the same for the moment but over the next month the portfolio is going to be updated and some new features will be added.

This is all part of a number of big changes happening at mjcpk. So watch this space!