Choosing Photos for Your Roofing Website
Guys, I wanted to answer a classic question we get all the time when we’re trying to build a new website right? For a roofing contractor, should they use stock photos from the internet or should they use their own photos – original photos. A lot of times on the home page especially of your website, you kind of want to use stock photos and you’re leaning towards that because; they look nice and bright and they’re wallpaper quality while the photos you take on the phone a lot of times may not look as great. So the answer is that; you should use your own photos and here is why? Okay, it is not to do with that you can’t, it’s not only that it’s bad for SEO like if you take this picture right here.
Like this guy, who doesn’t know this guy? Like that’s another thing like homeowners can tell when it’s like a stock photo, that this is this is not a roofer like you know this is not it’s not how a great… Normally, you don’t look this perfect while you are Roofing right? Things get a little bit more messy, that’s one side of it all right? That people just know what things look like you know, we’ve seen these photos it’s like in lead generation websites all over they always use the same guy. Like I wish I could meet this guy, I’d be like, ‘’you’re famous’’.
People often have to make a choice with their photos to either cater to roofing search engine optimization or they just go with complete stock photos to please the end user. We have to do the mid ground of both.
Anyways, the point is; one is that homeowners can tell that this is a stock photo but other than that even if you can get away with it you know which you can you know if you take like a corner of a pic and you change the tint and you add some more like you know things on the picture like let’s say a few layers of yellow likes slight that we can’t tell but Bots can. What will happen is the Bot won’t be able to tell anymore that this picture was copied from somewhere else on Google. They will think it’s a unique picture, you can do all that but that brings me to the second point.
We’re moving to a direction right? Its 2018 now, we’re moving to a direction where Google is loving more and more of raw activity. You see that like let’s say even two years ago, having nice YouTube videos for a Roofing contractor was like you know cutting-edge but now many contractors make videos almost on a weekly basis right? So, and Google loves that. It helps their brand, not only homeowners go to it but it ties everything together because; it brings video and text and search engines all together in their whole branding perspective right? You can find them on websites as well as on video as well as on social and everything like that. Not going too much in that direction, what I’m trying to get at is that; as time progresses more and more it’s going to be a necessity for your business to be a live, interactive, living thing in the digital world, instead of just making a website and slapping it on like it was in 2010 maybe and maybe you do fine.
Now by this time, by 2016-17 already, if you don’t have something that’s posting constantly, if you’re not link building constantly, if you’re not getting exposure press release things like that constantly and you’re in a competitive city, it’s more likely that you’re going to be taken over by your competitors who are doing those things. As we go more forward, these things are going to get even more interactive. Posting pictures, sharing your blogs, a storm is coming giving your updates; how are you getting ready for it? What kind of offers you have for this hail storm that’s coming. These kind of things are becoming more and more in the moment things and if you have a problem with putting together whatever it takes to get nice photos for your website and adding to the overall roofing website design then you’re also going to have a problem with the trends right? So, I’m trying to address the main root you know root issue where this question comes from so we can get a holistic idea.
Now having that all said, going back to the pictures thing; It does not require in today’s world, it doesn’t require you to have a camera crew or spend thousands of dollars to get a nice picture. If you have ever taken a still landscape, holding your phone on the side with the new phones you know iPhone 7, Samsung Galaxy 8 whatever you’re using right? The latest phones, you’d realize when you upload it to the computer, that thing comes up pretty big and clear. It’s not like any more pixelated pictures that we had before, I don’t know what people think what kind of pictures these come up when you take with your phones but if you’re using the latest phones and it’s bright outside you know Prime hours of the day, the picture comes pretty much as good as any DSLR camera. Like, I can’t tell the difference, I do everything with my phone I mean right now I’m recording this with my computer’s camera that’s why it might not come out the best but if I was to record even this this video right now with my phone camera, would just like you know well I’m inside the room it would still comment 1080p, it’ll still be HD right? So, point is; work your angles, bring your inner photographer out and you know put on well get your crew wear some t-shirts, invest in some you know good-looking t-shirts when the next time you’re going out to a great you know big job, you can put on a show, take some pictures and that is good enough to improve your overall roofing marketing.
Check out the Youtube Video on Real vs Stock Photos for Roofers