A Guide To Hero Images

By
COOK ISLANDS TOURISM CORPORATION

Whether or not you realize it, you often form opinions about websites based on their visual appeal. And it usually only takes about 0.05 seconds for you to form an opinion. A hero image, which is an oversized banner image at the top of a website, is a good way to give users their first glimpse of your business.

Create an inspiring hero image that encapsulates your company’s unique selling points (USP), sign-up forms, or a button to start shopping. Recent web design trends include using videos and animations for hero images instead of static photos.

A good design of a hero image is of great importance for the following reasons.

Images can make a big impact on people's initial impressions of a website. A high-quality full-screen image at the top of the page can help make a great first impression.

To increase conversion rates, the right composition of a hero image can help guide visitors and draw more attention to the call-to-action button. If the hero image has done its job, visitors can be successfully converted into customers.

However, large images can slow down a website's loading time, but be careful when using them—especially on mobile devices—as they can impact user experience. Increasing a website's loading speed by 0.9 seconds can reduce traffic by 20%.

Pro tip: To speed up your page loading speed, experiment with different file types (PNG and JPG, for example) to see which results in a faster experience.

Is the image you’ve selected actually adding value to your blog post or website? Many times, stock images can be unoriginal and cliché, which can detract from the overall quality of your content. The perfect hero image is supposed to complement your product images and core offering, but often stock images don’t achieve this.

In an experiment between good-quality and bad-quality hero images, users who saw the good image consumed 26% more pages than those who saw the bad image. Users also stayed on the site 43% longer with the good hero image compared to the bad one.

This is compelling evidence that images influence how users behave on your site and how much of an impact a good hero image can have.

This shows that the presence of appealing images on a website can motivate users to take action and that a good hero image can have a significant impact on website behavior.

hero image

References:
Hubspot Blog 
Otimizely
UX Planet
3.7 Designs