Picking photos to accompany blog content isn’t always the easiest thing. It can be hard to find the perfect image that sets the mood for your writing but it could be the most important part of your post. It not always about how many alt tags, keywords, or internal links you have on your blog post. Sometimes you need to invite the reader in with a visually appealing image, as the old saying goes; “a picture is worth a thousand words”.

Here are just a few tips for you to think about when you’re looking for images next time.

Emphasize Bright Colours, People, and Shapes

We’re all naturally drawn to notice and recognize bright colours, people and faces, and unfamiliar shapes. Try to find photos that have these characteristics when you’re looking for images to use. You want your blog post to stand out visually and to complement the content. Sometimes the photo that explains the most doesn’t look the best. It’s important to draw the audience in with visuals and then from there you can add informative photos throughout the post.

Writing With Images

A lot of the time when I’m stuck thinking about where to take a blog post, I’ll search for images to use before. This can help you target and pair your writing with a photo to make them both informative and relevant content together. Images don’t always need to work with the entire page content, photos for specific titles or headlines can often add variety into your blog post.

Use Your Own Photos

Lots of online content resorts to using stock imagery for their photos. It’s quick, it’s easy, there’s really no problem with it, but you can create your own original photos almost just as easily. Take a minute to learn a little about staging and lighting and you’re off to the races. It doesn’t need to be expensive either, cell phone cameras can deliver a great quality image for your blog post.

Create Graphics or Drawings

Not all images have to be photographs either. Try creating infographics to relay your content’s information in a more visual form or photoshopping photos together to get a point across. You can even use illustration, animation, and video to add value to your blog post. Creating your own drawings may be a little more time consuming but since most content marketers aren’t doing it, it can be a good way to individualization into your content marketing.

Screenshot The Technical Stuff

If you’re trying to explain a technical process with only words you may run into a little resistance along the way. What might make sense to you, may not make sense to your readers. Help them out by taking screenshots of exactly what you’re doing or just capture your process step by step along the way. You can even add in arrows, text, and other supporting graphics to the screenshot afterwards for more clarification.

Be Consistent

When you’re adding images to your writing it’s important to be consistent in the quality and size of your images. This can help make you blog posts look more organised and cohesive, in turn giving the audience a pleasant reading experience.

Don’t Forget Alt Tags and Titles

After all that hard work you’ve put into writing content and finding an image you want it to be read. Remember to always add important search phrases in your images titles and alt tags. This SEO tactic helps Google understand what your image is and allows readers to find it easily when searched.

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