When you are working with a boring site, or working with a site that has no spunk or pizzaz, images can turn a site around. Consider this example:

http://cedarcreekkennelssite.com

This site, before I optimized it, was completely boring and could barely be interpreted as a site for Yorkies, Cats, and Kennels. I edited the HTML to support 3 links as opposed to one. Then I removed the basic words for the links and use an tag to put images in there place. I then changed the header for just text, to being more colorful, and included more Yorkies in it.