Why Should You Use Corporate Headshots on Your Website?

It’s no secret that corporate headshot photography elevates how you present your company in so many ways. Corporate headshots on your website are a great visual representation of your company for your clients.  We will look, more specifically, at why it’s important to have website headshots, why it is important to hire a New York Corporate Headshot photographer and how to choose a look. We’ll also look at the practical and technical elements, like the headshot size for your website, you should consider before you actually get to your shoot date.

So, why do you need professional headshots on your website? Easy – connection. Your clients want to know about your company and the people that make it run. If they see something in your team that is relatable or trustworthy in some way, they will be more inclined to take further steps in engaging with your company. Just like a logo represents your brand, a New York Corporate Headshot photographer can help you show clients who you are, and how you position yourself in the market.  It sends many visual cues.  

If you work with clients remotely, having business photographers come to cover your staff is even more imperative. Since your client might never actually meet your team, you can use professional headshots on your website as an opportunity to personalize the experience. They want to know that a person is behind the Google search and other digital connections that bring them to you. They like to know that there is a real team of people behind the brand.

Professional service businesses are a no-brainer for corporate headshot photography. Attorney headshots have been an industry staple forever. Why? Because they create a connection while conveying the professionalism and integrity that they want their clients to understand about them. While all industries strive for this, other industries, such as accounting, financial services, medical and real estate follow closely to that idea.

Other industries might hang their website headshot decisions on other values. For example, advertising, design and marketing firms might want to communicate a style. Universities and educational institutions might want to communicate scholarship, diversity and honesty.

The quality and style of your headshots convey a lot about your business and signals how you conduct business.  Forbes conveys this well in the article linked here. A New York Corporate headshot photographer can you create photos for your website that illustrate a more full and clear idea of who you are.

Make Sure Your Executive Headshots Match Your Brand

Your website headshots should closely follow your branding. Whether it is mood, color scheme or level of formality, make sure the images are visually consistent with other design elements on your website.

For those companies that have not thought through this branding idea, now is the time. We dive deep into rebranding in our last blog post, should you like more information on how to do this. To summarize, though, the first thing you need to do is decide how to evoke the type of business you are, visually.

We mentioned some of the types of businesses that would benefit from website headshots in the last section. There is plenty of room for creative decisions and the choices made will communicate who you are inside of your industry. 

What is your industry? What type of work do you do in your industry? Where are you located? What kind of clients do you see? The answers to these will help drive your decisions for the professional headshots on your website.

One of the key things to think about is what kind of business you have. What kinds of clients do you serve?  If you are in the legal profession, are you a large or mid-size firm? Do you focus on business-to-business or corporate clients where you need to evoke a buttoned down corporate feel? Or are you a lawyer that focuses on family law?

In the first example, you would have your staff dress professionally - a suit and tie, for example. You might shoot in an office or against a solid white or grey backdrop. For the latter, you could go a little more casual and approachable and choose a softer, more environmental look. A tidy sweater with a collared shirt evokes trust and confidence and the slightly dressed-down look creates a sense of comfort. 

Research your peers and your clients. What kinds of trends are you seeing in their headshot photography? Does any of it ring true for your company? How does their body language read in their images? Copying is a creative no-no, but there is nothing wrong with taking inspiration from others as a way of finding the right style for headshots on your own website. These examples will also help give you a way to start a more concrete conversation about creative direction with your photographer.

For those of you who have worked through these questions for your company, things will be easier! Your challenge is to make the headshots on your website match your existing brand identity. If you need ideas or inspiration, take a look at some examples in our headshot galleries.

If you have already done that and have a headshot plan in place, you are further ahead of the game. For example, at The Booth for Business, we always make notes on how our New York professional headshot photographer shot the client’s photos, including background color, lighting plan, studio setup, etc. This way, we can easily match the corporate headshots that were done on previous shoots. In our opinion, this is a must for any company that has more than 20 people and/or frequent new hires.

Sometimes companies build a website, but hiring their website photographer is an afterthought. They have individual photos, but they are clearly not done by a professional. You know those photos that double as their new hire security photos? Or the ones where they say, ‘stand up against the wall’, and they take a quick photo with their phone?

It is very jarring to the visitor to see a great piece of web design with bad photography. The discrepancy is obvious and it could make the viewer wonder if the company is cutting corners in any other ways.

Whether the photos are not professional or simply no longer align with your branding, book a few days where a New York corporate headshot photographer comes to your office. This way you can cover everyone, aligning your professional corporate headshots with the overall professionalism of your website.

What to Consider When Uploading a Headshot to your Website:

Size & Meta Data

Now that you have a plan for your business headshots as they relate to brand identity, you should start thinking about the nuts and bolts of creating and using images.

Think about where these photos will go on the website. Will there be a single page of photos where a rollover reveals title, name and small detail about the person? Will there be a full directory?  You click on a name and it brings you to an individual's page with a full bio, including experience, education and expertise? 

More technical questions to consider:

How large do you want your corporate headshots to appear on the website?  

Do you want the executive headshots to be landscape or portrait orientation?

A photographer will make choices on lighting, background, camera placement, how close/far he/she is from the subject based upon these decisions. 

Finally, there's the nitty gritty of where these photos are going and what kind of specifications you will need to accommodate those placements. When we photograph headshots, we always like to know ultimately what the headshot size for your website will be. Make sure you also share details like image size, file type (jpg, png, pdf) format and, sometimes, colorspace (RGB, CMYK).

Planning for your business headshots is integral to any business website. Working through these considerations we’ve laid out in the blog will lay the groundwork for a successful and mistake-free shoot. 

Still confused? Please give us a call or fill out the ‘contact us’ form, and we’ll be in touch!