If a picture or is worth a thousand words, or rather a thousand clicks, images on your website are as important as the content itself. Including them is an excellent way to make your content more interesting and appealing for your website visitors. This is critical when people are surfing online, they tend to have short attention spans!
You want to stand out from the competition and all of the noise online.
The right images can give a feeling to your site and how you want the visitor to see you and your defined brand. You don’t want to give them the wrong impression.
The majority of your readers will never read an entire blog post, instead they may search through the content looking for key information that is useful to them. By breaking up your post with interesting images, it will help drive home the point that you’re making, and push them along through the content, while keeping their attention.
Why Are Images So Important?
The brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than it does text. (Source)
Researchers found that colored visuals increase people’s willingness to read a piece of content by 80%. (Source)
When people hear information, they’re likely to remember only 10% of that information three days later. However, if a relevant image is paired with that same information, people retained 65% of the information three days later. (Source)
46% of marketers say photography is critical to their current marketing and storytelling strategies. (Source)
34% of marketers selected visual assets as their most important content, behind blogging (45%) and before videos (19%). (Source)
Content with relevant images gets 94% more views than content without relevant images. (Source)
What Is The Right Image?
First off, free images are the right ones for me. For my niche I don’t really need to buy images. You may not either, check out the free ones before spending any money.
Finding an image that speaks to the content that is not too literal, but compelling, even a little abstract, is what you should look for. The more interesting the better.
You want to keep your reader engaged with your content so they will stay longer, and interesting images will help. Please try to avoid the sterile, overused stock photos you see online.
Go with your gut. When looking for an image, I usually go for the one that gives me a reaction and stays with me.
I like to wait until I’ve finished the piece before I look for images. There is always something in my content that an image speaks to and helps with the decision making. It does give me something to look forward to at the end, too. I find it fun perusing through all the images. There are some interesting photographs out there!
I’m sure I’m on the verge of falling in love with photography. Which is a good thing. I could then take my own photographs for my content. All in good time!
I highly recommend it, if you’re into photography. Taking your own photos will give you an opportunity to really show off your personality and brand.
Smart phones can take some beautiful pictures these days. It might be worth experimenting!
But for now, if you are looking for some interesting, quality, royalty free images, here are some sites you can check out:
- bossfight.co
- thestocks.im
- stocksnap.io
- minimography.com
With the type of images you are using be consistent. If you are using beautiful photos of landscapes on one post and the next you use silly cartoons that don’t make any sense, your audience may not get you. Stick with what your brand represents.
Size Matters with Images
You want your largest image at the top of your page. If you are using WordPress you would use the “Featured Image” button and grab your image.
When placing an image in your content you want it bigger than a thumbnail. ipiccy is a free, easy, online tool to help with sizing and other effects.
Conclusion
Make sure you fill in the title and alt tags for your images for good SEO.
Have fun with it! We all have unique perspectives and varying ideas on what is interesting and compelling. Can’t wait to see what you come up with!
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