A great cover image will showcase what your product is, help illustrate what it does, and in some cases, even demonstrate its purpose. Learn how you can optimize your cover images to show off your digital product in its best light.
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A clear, eye-catching cover image is the best way to represent your Digital Product. That image will appear as the cover for your product page, a thumbnail in Skillshare search results, and even in places like Google Shopping. With the upcoming ability to add multiple images to your digital product, you can leverage this additional imagery to share more details about your products or show the results of putting your product into practice - so don’t worry about fitting all of those details into the cover image. Less is more in this case!
Best Practices for Cover Images
- Use minimal text: We recommend adding only the title of the product and small amount of sub-copy as needed. Hint: any text on your image should be readable on a smartphone, not just desktop!
- Ensure it's high contrast: If you include a title on your image, ensure it's clear, legible and stands out from any background imagery.
- Show, don’t tell: As much as possible, your image should reflect the style or purpose of your product so you need fewer words to describe it.
- Invest in great design: When you’re selling a product to creative types, beautiful, legible design goes a long way.
Additional Cover Image Tips
Ensure Most of the Image and Information is Centered
Cover images and thumbnails within Skillshare display at the aspect ratio of 1200x700, but thumbnails in search (i.e., on Google) will show up slightly differently. Your best bet is to check that the majority of visual information is conveyed in the center of your thumbnail. For example, if your image is 1200x700, preview a cropped version of your thumbnail at 700x700 centered. If words are getting cut off, they may also be cut off in Google search results.
Preview Your Thumbnail at 250px Wide
If your thumbnail is viewed on a smartphone, this is the typical size they’ll see in search. Make sure words and information conveyed in your thumbnail is clear, high-contrast, and legible at this size.
Consider Adding Alt Text
To make the image of your product as discoverable as possible, and to aid in the use of accessibility products, please include alt text for your images. You will need to do this using your photo or image editing tool—please consult your software guide for how to embed this in the image file. The three most important things to remember when adding alt text:
- Alt text is for people who are unable to see the photo, or at least see it well, so the alt text needs to be descriptive while also not getting into teeny-tiny details, like describing every item of someone’s clothing, or every person in a crowd photo.
- It’s not necessary to start with “Photo of …” or “Image of …” or “This is …”; Just jump right into the description of what's in the photo.
- When someone hears the alt text description through text-to-voice software, they’ll also have heard the caption. They’ll have that context, so there’s no need to repeat the caption in the alt text.