During the registration process for a paid listing and/or advert, you will have the option to upload some images. We recommend preparing images for your listings in advance of completing any registration forms. Additionally, these images should be your own photographs where possible. You will need to upload these images correctly formatted as well. Otherwise there will be errors when uploading them.
It is a common misconception that Google images are free to use. Google indexes images in the same as it does text, both of which will carry the owner/creator’s copyright.
Any ‘free’ images you want to use MUST have a public domain license and be expressly useable commercially.*
The best source for images therefore, is to take your own photographs. And to create your own videos. You may use images and videos that are licenced to you by any of your suppliers. But the downside to this is that they will not be unique to your organisation.
Farmgear will not agree to use anything that contains any image, logo, brand name, trademark or other feature that leads us to believe that you do not own the copyright to use the image/material.
We have to insist on correct image formatting to prevent:
There are three main aspects to image formatting:
Digital image sizes are measured in pixels (px). For example 1900px wide x 400px high. When you are preparing images for your listings, prior to completing your form(s), use the dimensions here:
There are two methods of altering image sizes:
Sizes must be precise, so you will need to select images that will fit these proportions well when cropping. For example, a portrait shaped image will not fit a landscape shaped space and vice versa.
As important as the image file’s dimensions are, the image file’s size is critical to the speed of the website. So when preparing images for your listings they need to be in the low kilobyte (Kb) size range, and no more than 100Kb.
It is relatively normal for a photograph from a camera to be megabytes (MB) in size.
In this example the original .jpg image below is 399kb, with a resolution of 300dpi
The cropped .jpg image below is now 143kb, with a resolution of 72dpi
Clearly, the first step to reducing the image’s file size is to set the resolution to 72 dpi. And then, using your graphics software, save them to the lowest quality image that will still look clear online. You may need to experiment with different qualities.
Note that by cropping the above image to be square in shape, we have cut out part of the combine and what was showing of the trailer. If we wanted them to remain in the picture we would have to take the photograph from further away in the first place.
Which is what has happened in the following example, allowing the tractor and its attachments to all show.
The same applies to all images, for example the original photograph here is of the whole table.
But if we were to assume part of the table was untidy, or had people in it perhaps, we can crop just one part of the image to be square.
However, if the only part of the image we wanted to crop was the taller glass we might not be able to get one part of the image to be square.
When preparing images for your listings you also need to plan your photography in advance and do not upload unprofessional looking ‘snaps’ that are not horizontal, are too dark and have random people or messy backgrounds.
Ensure your lighting is correct for taking the photographs, or at least adjust the brightness using your graphics software. This image is a bit too dark.
It is now much lighter and is easier to see the individual parts or the photograph, such as the cactus plant.
If you are adding photographs of members of staff, be sure to take the images all at the same time. With suitable lighting, backdrops and in uniform if applicable.
You should also apply these principles to you own website and/or social media channels.
Additionally the type of file that the image is saved as will make a big difference to the image size.
The cropped .webp image below is 37kb, with a resolution of 72dpi. A massive reduction in file size.
We therefore recommend saving your logo images as .jpg or .jpeg files
And all other images for the gallery as .webp files only. If you do not have a graphics department or member of staff, See below for some suggestions for software to use.
More often than not, the intent of a website is to be found by search engines. Which in turn means it will be found by your target audience. This applies just as much here on your Farmgear listings.
An image can be used in more than one place on a website, but no two images can have the same filename.
Search engines may seem to be ‘all knowing’ but they cannot read images. They will only know what an image is about if the image’s filename means something.
Using our image from above, its original file name was tractor-6587099_1280.jpg.
Which although it contains the word ‘tractor’ it means very little to the search engines. Imagine how many images there are on the internet named “tractor”?
However, if we give it a name that describes the image, and includes your organisation’s name there is a better chance of your listing being found and returned as a search result.
For example: business-name-case-ih-tractor-f35.webp.
If there are more than one image of the same thing, then add a number to the files name with this format:
Ideally upload .webp files but the same applies to .jpg files. So the formats shown above would end with .jpg instead of .webp.
There are various options for preparing images for your listings. However, we would recommend that if you want your listing to look totally professional, then professional software will enable you to achieve this.
An online search shows that there are plenty of options, both free and paid.
Modern phone cameras also tend to include image editing software that can help. Particularly of they contain a take a ‘square’ image setting.
We use Adobe Photoshop for our image optimising. Some other options include:
We have also written an article to help you prepare images for printed materials.
*Farmgear will not be responsible for any copyright infringement or other legal complaints. All complaints will be passed to the listing(s) owner to be answered for. And all your listing(s) will be removed, even additional ones that do not contain any infringements themselves.
If you would like to see your organisation featured here, please complete our Spotlight Business Form and apply.
