Blog posts aren’t just about words. Imagery plays a huge role, too.
It’s important to remember that a blog post is there to tell a story, and while you can - and should - do that with words, supporting those words with great imagery will really draw readers in and keep them engaged.
Research suggests that blog posts with images enjoy 94% more views than those without. But if you’re still not convinced, here are 5 reasons your next blog post needs some imagery alongside the words.
This is a simple one. A blog post that’s just a great big collection of paragraphs and headings might be easy to skim, but it doesn’t look particularly pretty.
Throw in some great images (whether they’re original photos, stock images or illustrations), and your content marketing effort suddenly becomes a far more handsome beast.
Google loves images, but it particularly likes images that have been optimised for SEO.
The best news? You can add titles, tags and descriptions to the images within your blog posts that include keywords. In turn, this will help your performance on Google immeasurably.
If you write blog posts that feature lots of statistics, quotes or insight from highly technical areas, images will help break down that information for the audience.
You want your readers to understand the technical detail in your blogs, so why not accompany the words, numbers and percentages with some visual stuff, too?
If you’re undertaking your content marketing in the correct manner, you’ll be marrying it with your social media output.
The great thing about blogs is that they can be repurposed multiple times on social media. Little snippets from each blog can be tweeted and images give you even more excuse to consistently pump out that content to your audience.
If your blog contains just three images, that’s three potential social posts. Simple!
As noted before, it’s perfectly acceptable to structure a blog post purely using words. Well constructed sentences and paragraphs that include headings and numbered lists will ensure readers can find what they want, quickly.
However, images add an extra dimension to this. By inserting images periodically throughout the text (as we have done in this post), you’ll encourage readers to explore and find exactly what matters to them.
A single image can even serve as a much better introduction to your post than a line of text.
Reducing the reading time for your audience is a great way to earn their trust and likelihood of returning to your website in the future for more insight.
If you’ve published a blog previously that didn’t include any form of imagery, we hope we’ve convinced you to start adding that all-important visual element to your words.
The best news? You can find brilliant, original imagery on Content Director to support the hard work that goes into writing your blog posts! Just search for the perfect photo to spark your own creativity.