Describing Pictures on the Web

By writing on behalf of your pictures you'll be performing an act of service to them. On the web pictures cannot speak for themselves: they need corresponding words. Before you give in to dread at the thought of writing 250 words for each picture or painting on your site, think about what is really required. You don't have to write anything extremely profound. Just tell the same story the pictures are telling. Give it some context, tell its history or associate a press release or case study that relates to the image.

Before you begin writing, take a minute or two to think about how this image came to be in the first place. If it's your own painting or artwork, write what you where thinking about when you created it or about the circumstances that led you to draw it in the first place. If the image is an ad or design piece, think about the art director or photographer who worked hard to produce it. Is it really that much work to tap out a couple paragraphs that may help the world discover your art or find your firm? When people do find your site, these words will add a helpful context and raise the importance of the piece to the one who discovered it.


That last point is important. If you read our newsletter on the dynamics of indirect search engine traffic you know that search engines lead visitors into a site's sub pages far more often than they lead them to its homepage. If you start integrating words into your site's portfolio or gallery, people will begin their visit to your site from the inside. When visitors hit your site from these sub pages, the more context you give your content, the better!

There's no doubt, that writing and editing content for the web takes work. Not everyone is comfortable slinging words and phrases together. ["Slinging words and phrases together" - there's a nice phrase, if I say so myself.] But I bet a little creativity, some cooperation and a vision for the complementary association of words and pictures can help get it done.   next >