It is hard to overestimate the importance of photos in your blog as sometimes, they are even more important than your posts. High-quality and attractive images can surely influence engagement. You have only a few seconds to engage your audience and make them read your posts. And this is where all is fair. Remember that catchy images improve readership by an astounding 95%! Let’s figure out the main tips that might help you choose top-notch photos for your blog.
- Use Only Relevant Photos
- Avoid Using Too Generic Photos
- Respect Copyright Rules
- Learn the Basics of Formatting
- Control Your Budget
- Optimize Your Photos for Search Engines
- Think about Mobile Traffic
Use Only Relevant Photos
When looking for photos for your blog, you need to be doubly sure that they are relevant to the theme of your blog. For example, if your blog post is about the main tips on how to improve productivity, you can’t use an image with your logo. Your readers won’t understand your goal. But if you add a graph that displays the theme, you will surely attract the audience.
Avoid Using Too Generic Photos
Remember that your overriding purpose is to attract followers to your blog. And this is where you need to think of what image will fit most of all. Use interesting and thought-provoking photos. Such images have more chances to grab the attention of your targeted audience. When you use too generic photos, your readers won’t understand what you mean and just scroll your post.
Respect Copyright Rules
If you are using photos made by other photographers, you need to give credit to them. When you buy stock images, this doesn’t require crediting your source. But when you use free images, you have to indicate the author. But it is much better to make your own photos and use them.
Learn the Basics of Formatting
Even if you have not the slightest idea of how to edit photos and how to use post-processing software, you need to find spare time and learn how to properly format your photos. We mean the rules of alignment within your posts, resizing, adding a simple border, etc. In doing so, you can be doubly sure that your images readily fit into the theme of your post.
Control Your Budget
No matter whether you are looking for royalty-free sound effects for commercial use or images for your blog posts, really cool photos isn’t cheap. And this is where you need to set your budget. Photo stock images aren’t always cheap and you need to make sure that you aren’t investing more than you can afford. To prevent this from happening, set your budget. In doing so, you will never pay more than you have!
Optimize Your Photos for Search Engines
This is where you simply can’t do without alt tags, must-have tools for HTML standards. When you properly name your photos with a suitable file name and add the corresponding alt tags, you’ll optimize it and make it search visible.
Think about Mobile Traffic
It is of utmost importance for you to remember that today, people use mobile devices more often than desktop computers. Therefore, your traffic mostly comes from mobile devices. You need to think about how your photos will appear when viewed on the screens of mobile devices. The internal text should be easy to read. When looking for photos for your blog, always keep the mobile top of mind. Beyond this, you should also remember that mobile images also allow users to enlarge photos if they want to take a deeper look. Therefore, make sure your photos are of high quality.
All these tips will surely help you choose the best photos for your blog. When you follow all these pieces of advice, you’ll improve conversion and reader engagement. And all this leads to increasing the number of followers!