A friend of mine loves documenting life through photographs and whenever anyone is looking for a picture of a particular gathering or event, no matter how long ago, he’s our go-to person.
This same friend always reminds me that a picture paints a thousand words, and he’s absolutely right.
Not everyone likes to be confronted with walls of text, but who can resist a good image?
That’s all very well, but how do I find the images I need for my business blog posts? – I hear you ask.
Here are some ideas.
Product images
If you sell products, you probably already have or are building up a library of good quality product images.
These product images could be perfect for use on your blog, especially if they have a distinctive style that makes them look unusual or bespoke.
Even if the topic of your blog post doesn’t relate specifically to a particular product, you could still use your product images but re-purpose them in some way.
Perhaps by making them into a collage or combining them with quotes from your blog post.
Your own photographs
You may have a library of your own photographs that you’d like to use on your blog posts.
Choose eye-catching photos that fit with the message you’re happy for your brand to convey.
Make sure that they convey the overall look and feel that is a good match for your brand, even if the content of the image is abstract.
You could even test different types of images, to see whether certain images receive better engagement.
You may find some images do better on visual platforms such as Pinterest.
Commissioned photography
If you’re lucky enough to be in a position to commission the photography you need (or you’re a photographer), this is an ideal situation to be in.
The world of image is literally your oyster and you can access bespoke images that are tailor-made for your blog posts.
To make the most of the image options available to you, you could try testing the images to see which types of image resonate best with your target audience.
Stock photography
Stock photography, whether paid or unpaid, can sometimes provoke reactions that are as strong as the love/hate marmite adverts.
But if you don’t have access to images of sufficiently high quality, is stock photography worth considering?
Absolutely. As long as you’re selective and avoid the many clichéd images that are widely used. If you do enough research into the right images, there’s no reason why stock images shouldn’t work for you.
At a later date, if you fall out of love with the images you’ve chosen or you have other options, you can easily make any changes you need.
So far I’ve only discussed photographs, but there are other types of images you could add to your blog posts.
Call-out quotes
You could highlight specific parts of your blog posts by turning some of the information into graphics as call-out quotes.
Call-out quotes work well for smaller amounts of text and are a great way to highlight important information and make it memorable by making it visually appealing.
Infographics
An infographic might be the best way to present the information.
Infographics use a combination of symbols plus colours, size and shapes to convey information that is persuasive, visually appealing, easier to understand and memorable.
Infographics cover three main areas:
Data visualisation uses design to filter data and present it in a visually appealing format that makes it easier to understand.
Information design uses graphic design to present concepts or processes in a visually appeal format.
Editorial infographics uses graphic content, also known as ‘charticles’ to present thought leadership content e.g. about an industry or trends within an industry and as a way of bringing attention to your blog. The aim being to provide interesting insights from different sources, but steering away from being advertorial.
Before using images on your blog…
Here are a few things to check before publishing your images (photographs or graphics):
>> Correctly sized (for example on this blog, the featured or main image is 1280 x 853 pixels)
>> Optimised – (to reduce the size of your image file)
>> Compressed – (to crunch down the size of your image file by up to 40% or more without losing quality)
>> Have alt tags (to make your images accessible – so that screen readers can identify them)
>> Marked as your copyright (if you own the images)
>> Observe copyright conditions (whether the images are copyright free and/or attribution free for commercial use)
>>> Where do you source your images?
