First impressions matter. People form their opinion in milliseconds based on visual appeal; this is what influences a viewer the most when first visiting a website.
Maintaining visual appeal is crucial to attract and maintain visitors. You can read all about “First Impressions Matter: The importance of Great Visual Design” in this article:
http://conversionxl.com/first-impressions-matter-the-importance-of-great-visual-design/
A first impression depends on many factors but well-designed graphics will add professionalism to your website and also catch people’s attention on social media. Using great images and graphics can draw people to your website from Instagram, Facebook and other social media. Research shows that visual posts receive 94% more page visits than plain text posts:
http://blog.wishpond.com/post/70300587846/10-reasons-visual-content-will-dominate-2014
What to avoid:
Complicated graphics. A messy design is distracting and will most likely send your visitors right back to where they came from – and away from your site. If you present a clean website it’s easier to understand it’s purpose.
Fancy fonts, lots of emphasis, inconsistency, bad color choices and wrong color contrast. Readable text, is one of the more important aspects of web design. It affects how users process the information presented to them.
Where to choose nice free images:
Thestocks is a website where you can browse through different free photo websites in just one place.
How to create nice images with text:
Contrast
Use images with significant contrast to the text. Use darker images with lighter text or lighter images with darker text. You can always overlay an image with filters to create a greater contrast.
Some nice examples of use of contrast:
Size and Position
Try to contrast the text size and position in relation to the elements on the image.
Depth
Images with a depth of field allows a smoother background for text. Which in turn improves the readability.
http://globalwaveconference.org/
Subject Choice
Choose images that relate to the content or message you want to transmit. Don’t confuse your visitor. Being edgy and funny works for some – but fails for most. So keep it clear and simple.
http://women.specialized.com/us/en/
Typography for the Web
Choose a typeface that corresponds to your type of business/service. Use web fonts like google fonts, Typekit or Fontdeck. They are supported and compatible by all modern browsers and SEO friendly. Plus it’s free.
Want to learn more? Then check out this article about the best google web font combinations:
http://theultralinx.com/2015/04/best-google-web-font-combinations/