Are you struggling to get traffic from social media sites? Are you wondering what it is that everyone else is doing that you are not?
In this article, I’m going to share **a very important element in every blog post that can help you **drive more traffic to your content .
Blogging is more than just writing plain text on a page; a good post is a combination of text, images, and various other multimedia elements like videos, charts, slideshows, etc.
When I started blogging 10 years ago, I made it a habit to use at least one image in every post. Why? Because an image is worth a thousand words.
Moreover, this kind of eye-catching content can make your blog posts look more visually appealing.
I’m going to share with you some of the best reasons why you should start using images in your blog posts . I’ll also share some cutting edge tips on how to use the right images in your posts .
Why You Should Always Use Images in Your Blog Posts
I’ll outline a lot of reasons here, but let me start with the most important one.
Visual appeal
“A picture is worth a thousand words”.
Images can make content look more visually appealing, but they are only appealing if the right images are used to convey the message . The image should be relevant to the content of the article and should be related in some way.
Nowadays, we all use “Related Articles” with thumbnails, or display “Popular Articles” in the sidebar. All of these use the article’s image (usually the featured image) to display the thumbnail. This will not only help you get a higher click-through rate, but also reduce the bounce rate .
Image search engine traffic
Images can also help you get a lot of traffic from image search engines. But to do that, you might need to optimize some things like Alt text and image descriptions .
Initially, when I added pictures, I never cared about the picture name. It was always something like "screenshot.jpeg" or "DSC023.jpeg" .
After learning that images help attract search engine traffic, I started using keywords in the Alt text and descriptions of my images.
- You can use the SEO Friendly Image WordPress plugin to help you optimize images for search engines.
2016 was the year of social media, and social media users love visual content.
Not only will it compel users to share your content on their social media networks , but it will also help you drive more traffic from your social media sites .
A key point here is ***to ensure that *when your readers share your blog post on social media sites, that shared post should contain the right images that are optimized for social media.
Remember, no user wants their social media wall to look ugly. If your picture isn’t high quality or makes someone’s wall look ugly, they won’t want to share it. Would you share something that makes your wall look ugly? I didn’t think so.
At SidelinePlay, I use the Yoast SEO plugin, which allows me to select images to share on sites like Facebook, Google+, and Twitter . It’s a simple yet powerful plugin that can drive viral traffic from various social media platforms.
Increase the length of the article
Using images in your articles helps make the post look longer. It doesn't increase the word count of the article , but it helps make the article look more detailed.
If you are writing a short post, adding an image or two will help your post look better.
explain
Remember when you were a kid and could remember something just by looking at a picture? Most people don't lose that skill as they grow older.
Images can help people understand what you are talking about. For example, if you are writing a tutorial post, adding some screenshots will help readers understand the tutorial better.
Check out my post on how to install WordPress on Bluehost . I explain everything in words and screenshots to make it easy for anyone (newbie or pro) to get started with WordPress on Bluehost.
How to add images to your articles: tips and tricks
Now, before you start adding any random pictures to your articles, read the following tips to learn what other factors you should keep in mind when adding images to your content.
Resize an image
This is a very important factor that you should keep in mind when uploading your images.
Most of us make the mistake of uploading large images and then resizing them using WordPress’ built-in image editor. Doing so can bog down your site with large images and cause loading time issues.
To ensure that your post images don’t affect your blog’s loading time, you should resize them before uploading them. There are many software programs that can do this.
I use Snagit (available for Windows and Mac), which lets me take screenshots and resize the images.
Compressing Images
This is another very important aspect to avoid images from compromising your blog posts . Make sure to compress your images before uploading them to your server.
If you are using WordPress, you can use a plugin called ShortPixel which will automatically compress your images, thus reducing their size. If you are a Mac user, you should use a free application called “ ImageOptim ” which is a very powerful way to compress images on Mac OS .
Now that you’ve learned these two important techniques, there are a few more things you need to know before using images in your blog posts:
- Don't use Google Image Search and find some random images to use in your post. If you do this, you could be violating someone else's copyright and someone could file a legal complaint against you. Instead, you can use this trick to find free images from Google to use.
- Whenever possible, try to take your own screenshots instead of using someone else's.
- You can also consider creating your own images. There are many excellent online tools that anyone can use to create professional images for their blog or social media site. PicMonkey is one of them. Canva is another.
I mention this plugin specifically because it can take care of all your image needs.
This is a free plugin.
It will let you find free images that you can use for your posts .
You can get this plugin from the official page here .
This is a great plugin that you should consider using when creating your own images.
This plugin automatically watermarks your images , helping you protect them from pirates and free riders.
You can download this plugin from here .
Flickr
Flickr allows you to quickly find images that are licensed under Creative Commons. I prefer Flickr to other sources because the Flickr image database is much larger and has more variety than any other image database.
In most of my blog posts, images are sourced from Flickr (with proper credit, of course).
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If you haven’t added images to your blog posts in a while, hopefully this article will convince you to start adding images to all your new posts. If time permits (and you really mean it!), you should also go back and edit all your old posts to add images to them.
You might be surprised to see an increase in the number of social media shares because now, your readers are more visually engaged by your posts.
I’ve shared with you some of the most important reasons why adding images to your posts is a smart move. I’ve also shared some tips on how you can do this more easily and better serve your readers. If you know of other reasons why adding images is important or have other helpful tips, let us know in the comments below.
If you found this post useful, please consider sharing it (including pictures) on your favorite social media site!
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