Power Structure: Slide Shows

When I worked for a major consumer website back in the 90s and early 2000s, I found that slide shows were one of the most effective tools for boosting page views per visitor. In fact, I quickly discovered that there was virtually no limit to the number of slides our visitors would click through. Because the site was associated with a monthly magazine, I had access to thousands of high quality photos. Our slide shows soon went from 15 to 20 slides to 30, 40 or 50 or more images. Most of our shows centered on recipes, but topics like decorating, gardening and home improvement also worked well.

Now imagine that you’ve just been put in charge of your company’s website, and your first order of business is to update the “Our Team” section of the “About Us” section. You could stick to the typical approach: a long scrolling page of postage-stamp size images accompanied by meaty chunks of biographical information.  If you’re very lucky, your average visitor will make it as far as the Chief Financial Officer before heading off in search of a stock quote or the latest annual report.

But what if you put much of that same information into a slide show? Now your visitors are greeted with a large photo of your CEO and a brief but compelling bio. Click. Another slide, another key member of your management team. Click, click, click. The Assistant Vice President for the Eastern U.S. Click, click ... click. Hey, that’s the intern that changes the toner in the copy machine.  Your visitor has reached the last slide, number 32, and  she’s still looking for the button to choose the next slide!

Not only have you added 31 page views to your website’s tally, you’ve suddenly become a hero in the eye’s of every team member who’s given his or her star turn on the pages of your site.

A Quick Secret to Better Photos

If your digital camera has an optical zoom, here's a professional quick tip that will immediately improve all of your photos:

• Set your camera's optical zoom to its widest setting and leave it there -- permanently

Three reasons this works

1. The wider your lens setting, the closer you must get to your subject. This lends a sense of what photographers call "immediacy." In other words, you are drawing the viewer into the scene. (Just don't try to get 6 inches from your subject's nose, or you'll wind up with a very unflattering portrait.)

A Surprising Switch for Better Photos

Capable professional photographers deserve every penny they earn. Unfortunately, when the budget or time is tight, we design-challenged writers often find ourselves behind the camera. Here’s a surprising switch that will dramatically improve your photos:

(Really) Free Photos from Flickr

Photos sell stories, both to editors and readers. Unfortunately, even so-called "free" stock images often require payment for commercial use. Flickr, on the other hand, offers a database of millions of images that are truly free. All that's required is that you credit the photographer. Here's how to find the photos you need and some tips for making the results really pay off.