You know, when you create a blog there’s a technical checklist of things you need to classify it as a ‘great’ blog. One of those checklist things is images. They may not always seem relevant, and sometimes you wonder why blogs need them, but they are essential.
It can often seem like they go ignored because people don’t really comment on your blog that they like the title graphic you made for it. However. Posts that have images get much more attention than those that don’t. And in this game, attention usually leads to engagement, leading to at least one in-site visit.
But you don’t want to be putting up just any image for your blog. We want to impress an audience not only with the content we choose to publish but the images we put with it. Which means they have to be great images. Maybe graphics, an infographic, something dressed up fancifully.
Creating Great Blog Images
Using Stock Photos
First of all, using stock images? No. Please, don’t. It might be tempting because they’re so easy to find and use, and there’s so many of them. But there are reasons as to why you shouldn’t really rely on them.
The thing is with stock images – they’re not unique. There are so many stock images and that’s the point. Other people would have had the same idea as you and that means multiple posts out there, all sharing the same featured image. Now, that’s not a definite problem aside from the fact that you lose out on posting a unique image. One that would also give unique value.
Stock images, though, will be identifiable by Google Image Search and the likes. Your version of the stock photo isn’t the only one in existence and it’s certainly not just been used one time. Your best bet is to upload a unique image that you can add descriptive and alt text to, keywords, and an image title.
Creation Tools To Create Your Images With
Images are super engaging and can be used just as successfully as blog posts, journals, articles, to share ideas and incite emotional responses. But being a copywriter or only being used to blogging can make it more difficult to approach image creation tools. Our craft lays in the written work, not the designing.
That doesn’t mean that we can’t create our own, though. Especially now that we have access to multiple creation tools, some of which are easy for beginners to use.
Canva
A beginner tool that comes with hundreds of pre-set templates that you can customise, and a full library of images, graphics, animated images for you to truly create something unique. You don’t need any sort of experience or training in graphic design, you can just have a play around to find a template or creation you like for your blogs.
Canva is such a great tool for beginners, and even for non-beginners that just want a simple, non-complicated platform.
Visage
Another great, easy but powerful creation tools, especially for beginners.
You can use Visage to create some professional looking graphics not just for your blog posts but also for your social platforms – LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc,. Even better is that fact that it has professionally designed templates featured and allows you to save things such as logo branding.
Venngage
Everybody loves a good infographic – they’re compact, easy, simple. And the best part about infographics is that they’re one of the best options for non-designers. Though designers would be much more efficient using these creation tools than anyone else.
Complete with multiple templates, fonts, icons, and maps, Venngage has everything a non-designer needs to create a blog infographic. (Just be wary that the free version includes Venngage branded designs).
Awesome Screenshot
Take a screenshot, edit it, add annotations, let people see exactly what you’re trying to show them. Annotated screenshots are so good for blogs! More so for how to’s, guides, and tips and tricks blogs. You can show the audience of your blog exactly what it is you mean which is really handy if it can’t be explained thoroughly enough with words alone.
A holy grail. Although potentially not necessary for those who have this feature already – like how Microsoft Edge does.
PhotoPea
For all you more advanced graphic designers out there.
PhotoPea is an app based entirely online and it’s basically like Photoshop except it offers everything for free. No subscriptions, no free trials. Completely inexpensive. And you’ll learn so much using PhotoPea.
If you have the budget for it, you can always hire someone to create great blog images for you by using graphic design tools. Plus, they’re the experts in their field. They know what they’re doing and can create something that’s HD quality every time.
Tips and Tricks
Break Down Text
Images are a great relief when you have a page that’s full of just plain text without anything else. The text needs to be broken down bit by bit to keep as many readers as possible interested. Too much text and they’ll end up leaving the page.
Spend Time Creating Images
Dedication equals effort and that effort pays off. Think of how much better your blog images will be if you care enough to spend a bit of time just thinking about the creation. And then some time creating the masterpieces.
Have An ‘Asset’ Library
Making unique images is really great but you can also create a library for your own designs and templates you’ve created. It makes them easier to go back to, what with everything being in one place. You can save things like logos, watermarks if you choose to have any, background patterns, your brand colours.
Reach Out to GrowTraffic!
Hopefully, we’ve given you some creative tools you didn’t otherwise know about and have been able to help you regarding blog image creation.
Never underestimate a great blog image… They’re a great way to attract high-quality leads. Good images shows that you care and you put in both the time and dedication to create your own. You may even create your own infographic to put into the blog to go along with the information within your content. This makes your content attractive.
Why not reach out to GrowTraffic today for more information on our services and how we can help you. Whether you want help with the blog images, social media posts, or maybe even web design – we can help you.
For more than a decade, GrowTraffic has been delivering SEO strategies and digital marketing services to people. Put your trust in us – we know what we’re doing!
You can shoot us an email at [email protected] or you can buzz us on 01706 706 0012 to speak more directly with one of our team!
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