[vido]
**Video coming soon!**
Until then, the instructions are below.
Transcription:
Hello, everyone and welcome to The Weekend Website! My name is Kim Bultsma and I’ll be your educator for how to build your website.
In this video, we’ll dive into
- Creating a folder to organize all of your assets
- What to look for
Let’s get started!
First, start by creating an Assets folder. I use Google Drive to save everything, but you need to do whatever method works for you. Unless nothing works for you–then take this time to start a new method of organizing! There are plenty of cloud storage solutions available, and one that I use for my photos is pCloud.
Next, create a folder within the Assets folder called “Originals”. This is where you’ll save the original files you’ll be saving for use on your website! I always make sure I keep the originals in tact in case something happens and I need to start over with editing, resizing, etc.
Now, here comes the fun part…
Time to start searching for images to use! Now, you don’t have to have your own images to start. But if you do, I would recommend going through them and copying a few over to your Originals folder. We’ll come back to them later.
There are actually many websites out there that offer free downloadable images you can use without giving credit. Let’s take a look at a few of them:
Pexels.com has a lot of photos and videos you can download and use on your website. For example, if you have an exercise business, type in “exercise” in the search bar and you’ll see quite a bit. You can narrow it down to a variety of types of images, from orientation (I usually recommend landscape or horizontal images) and color (which is where your brand colors will come in useful).
There are many other websites you can download images from:
Here are some recommendations for types of images to consider:
- Use images of happy people. Images that show people being successful as a result of your products or services (even if it’s stock images) are more persuasive than images of people who show fear.
- Use a variety of ethnicities, genders, etc. This shows your business as welcoming to everyone, regardless of race, gender, or creed.
- Use images that are simple but compelling (i.e. don’t have too busy of backgrounds, etc.)
If you know you’ll be using a lot of stock images (for social media, for example), getting a subscription to a stock photo website is something to consider. We use Envato Elements (which is $198/year or $16.50/month). Not only do they have a vast library of images, they also have royalty free music, stock video, graphics templates, and much more. You get unlimited downloads, too.
That’s all for this section! Thanks for watching.