Whether it is a stock image or the writer’s own, photographs really make a blog pop. Photos will grab the attention of the casual passerby or may convince a doubtful person to read your post anyway when the photo is combined with a stellar headline. Images are crucial to increase your blog views, but sometimes it is difficult to find the right image for your post. Let’s take this opportunity to look at the importance of images and three things you should consider when using them.
Are Images Really That Important?
Short answer: yes, images are important. Copyblogger says the reason images are vital to blog posts is because one simple image can create an emotional tie with your audience. Images also bring in readers who might not have read your post initially, but that image sure did catch their attention. Whatever the image does, whether bringing in an emotional tie to current readers or bringing in a new reader, it should always sum up your blog post. It might seem weird that a photo can do that, but we all judge whether or not a blog topic is interesting to us by the image the blog uses.
One of the best ways to learn is to have live examples. Several popular sites out there utilize images to gain the best results possible. Visit Buzzfeed, Mashable, MOZ, and Hubspot to see some great examples of using images in a powerful way. In addition, we utilize stock images for our blog posts and we have found some truly astounding images that relate with our content perfectly. This is attainable! Start looking through images and adding them to your blog posts to see incredible results from readers.
What to Consider When Picking Images
When choosing an image, there are many different things you will need to consider. Here are three things to think about as you use images on your site:
1. Do You Have The Rights? Rights to photos are crucial when you choose an image for your blog. If you steal someone’s photograph off Flickr or Google, you could be setting yourself up for some legal trouble in the future. Many artists will let you use their photos if you simply ask, but not asking is unethical, reflects badly on your company, and can cost more than a monthly subscription to BigStockPhoto.com. The best way to know if you are able to use an image is if it is listed under “Creative Commons.” You can use photos under CC as long as you properly attribute the photograph. If you are unsure, you should do some detailed research into the topic. You don’t want to be caught unaware and have legal problems regarding a simple image you pulled from Google.
2. Are the Photos Relevant to Your Topic? When choosing the right photo for your post, you must make sure it is relevant to your blog topic. You don’t want a photo of an adorable looking house cat if you are blogging about wild tiger and lion sanctuaries in the States. That would look very strange and wouldn’t give readers much confidence that you are a leader in your field if you can’t tell a regular house cat from a tiger or lion. Make sure the image you choose has an obvious tie-in with your blog content and attempt to make the photo a summary of your post. The best way to do this is to select the photo after writing your content.
3. Is It High Quality and Appropriately Sized? Another important element to consider is making sure your photo is high quality. You don’t want a low quality, pixelated image for your post because that will look sloppy and readers will click away quickly. Find images that are the highest quality possible to ensure that they are stunning and will grab your readers’ attention. We all love a good high quality image and we are more likely to click on a link that utilizes one for their post. Stock images are great for finding truly high quality images that will look great for your blog posts.
Images Are Expensive, What Should You Do?
A big concern for many people is how expensive the rights can be for one photo. A great idea to save money and budget appropriately is to set up a monthly or yearly subscription to a stock image site. This will help you allocate appropriate funding and will grant you access to hundreds of high quality stock images that will go with just about anything. This is what we do with our images and we are able to find some great ones our clients enjoy! Stock images are a great investment for copywriters and companies, and can provide you with many different photos from which to choose.
Starting a blog and maintaining blog writing these days often stems from the need to generate income. You CAN earn a living using a blog. Whether you’re using a blog to attract visitors to your business website or you’re writing a blog just to gain income off advertisements, getting real traffic is the first and most important thing for success. After all, if you don’t have readers, your blog won’t serve you much of a purpose.
Blog Writing By Volume
A lot of blog owners ask how frequently they should blog because either they want to know what the bare minimum is for success or because they want to know what threshold they must meet to have a successful blog and maintain blog writing. Whatever the reasons are for you reading this post today, it’s important to know that there’s not a one-size-fits-all answer to how frequently you should post.
First Things First
Before we jump into your frequency for blog writing, we must cover an important rule for blogging: don’t write poor content just to increase your traffic — it won’t work. Your content is judged by readers and search engines, so even if you’re posting twice a day, crappy content could put you at the bottom of the ranks, especially after the release of Google Hummingbird. Learn more about how that can impact you in this article by Forbes. Good content is something that:
Engages the audience
Meets the expectations of your audience
Teaches your audience something
Encourages your audience to come back for more
Content is Key
Your blog is all about the content — literally. The content you publish on your blog ultimately determines what type of reader you’ll get, if they’ll follow and whether or not they’ll share your content. What makes your blog writing unique stems from a combination of your opinion, expertise, your personal style, and your blog’s overall freshness. The frequency with which you post is also tied into your content.
So How Often Should I Post?
The amount of blogs you post and how frequently you post them will ultimately determine your traffic volumes. According to a recent study published by HubSpot, organizations who blog 15 times or more per on a monthly basis get up to five times more traffic than organizations that don’t. Companies that increase their blogging frequency have been shown to double their leads too. For a decent amount of traffic, experts recommend at least three to four 500-word blog posts per week. By just blogging one 500-word blog per day 50 to 80 percent of your SEO rankings could be because of that blogging routine. Bottom line, if you want a high-ranking blog using quality blog writing, you’re going to have to post more than once a month or even once a week. Posting frequency is important and how much you should post is based on your ultimate goals. Some good guidelines to follow, according to About.com are:
Blog a few times per day for maximum growth.
Blog at least once a day for steady growth.
Blog two to three times per week for slower growth.
Blog once a week for very slow or limited growth.
Does Blog Writing More Frequently Attract More Visitors?
Absolutely. Blogging on a frequent basis attracts visitors in two ways:
Frequent content encourages readers to visit your blog on a daily basis to see what you’re offering.
Frequent posting encourages search engines to rank your website higher, which results in higher visitor counts.
Every new post is another opportunity for people to stumble across your blog when they input a new search query.
How Else Can Posting Frequently Help Me?
Posting your blogs and maintaining blog writing on a frequent basis will attract more visitors and encourage people to subscribe to your blog. Also, every time you post a new blog, subscribers will receive a copy of that blog in their email or in their feed reader — giving you more opportunities to encourage them to click and look for more.
How Do Images Help?
Original subscription and stock photo images can significantly help a blog in two ways: adding visual elements, and another SEO element. If you tag the purchased stock image with your keyword, that’s an original image that can be organically crawled in Google Image Search. If you use blog writing management services, make sure they are optimizing and using an original image with your blog along with writing and posting it.
So What Should I Not Do?
We’ve covered what you should do with your blog in terms of frequency and we’ve left the door open for you to decide how often you want to blog (based on your blogging goals). But, now it is time to discuss what you should never do when blogging.
Once you establish a blogging frequency, stick to it. There is nothing more detrimental to your search engine rank than blogging consistently and then dropping off the radar for a few weeks or months. Google penalizes you for infrequent content and taking a hiatus from your blog might actually force you to start all over in terms of gaining readers, attracting readers and increasing your rank.
So, whatever you do, pick a frequency and stick to it. If you’re blogging once a week, do once a week. Got a vacation coming up? Prewrite and schedule your blogs so they still post while you’re on the beach in Tahiti (or wherever you go). If you don’t have the time, consider hiring a professional to do the blog writing and posting for you. You can have your blogs written in batches or submitted daily. In some cases you can even have a company write and submit them for you — so your blog is 100 percent maintained while you focus on operating the core of your business.
Download your Free copy of How To Pick Awesome Images for Your Blog Posts
