Blogs have become more and more popular over the years, and rightfully so! Not only are blogs a great way to keep your sites viewers informed on your industry, but they are also a fantastic tool to boost SEO. Below are a few tips to keep in mind when choosing imagery for your blog posts.
Tip #1. Make Sure Images are Royalty Free
In a perfect world, you could go right into google, search for a relevant image, and upload it to your site without any consequences. Unfortunately, that world ceases to exist. Before you go an add any image off the web to your blog post, you are going to want to make sure that image is royalty free. Shutterstock is a paid service that provides you with an endless list of royalty free stock imagery, but for the common man, sites like Unsplash and Pixabay are a great start. You can also great imagery for your blog using Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop.
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Tip #2. Apply Alt Tags to Images
Image alt tags are used when an image does not load, or if a visually impaired user is viewing your site. If you go to an image on a website and hover over the image, a text description of the image should populate if an alt tag is being used. Google’s search engine result pages deliver just as many image results as they do text-based results, so adding an alt tag to all of your images will give you an extra SEO boost.
Tip #3. Use Imagery to Break Up Content
A lengthy, Microsoft Word-looking post with a seemingly unending scroll will most likely turn away readers. Depending on the size of your blog post, using images to break up content sections is a great way to make your blogs seem less daunting to users. Incorporate relevant images to break up large paragraphs of text so the reader isn’t just looking at a wall of copy. Make sure you’re choosing images that are relevant to your content!
Tip #4. Make Sure Images are Optimized
Before you go in and add a photo you took with your DSLR camera to your blog, you’re going to want to make sure the image is optimized first. Images are a great way to drive home content, but an image that is too large can slow down your site. You can do this manually, but plugins such as SMUSH WP will optimize images for you automatically. This ForegroundWeb article breaks down suggested image dimensions based on how they are being used on your site.
https://buildthis.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-optimization.png
Whether you’re adding infographics to help illustrate a topic, or adding stock imagery to help break up a lengthy post, image selection and execution can go a long when it comes to user retention and SEO. Looking to add a blog or news section to your current site? Head over to our Contact page and fill out a form!
Blogs have become more and more popular over the years, and rightfully so! Not only are blogs a great way to keep your sites viewers informed on your industry, but they are also a fantastic tool to boost SEO. Below are a few tips to keep in mind when choosing imagery for your blog posts.
Tip #1. Make Sure Images are Royalty Free
In a perfect world, you could go right into google, search for a relevant image, and upload it to your site without any consequences. Unfortunately, that world ceases to exist. Before you go an add any image off the web to your blog post, you are going to want to make sure that image is royalty free. Shutterstock is a paid service that provides you with an endless list of royalty free stock imagery, but for the common man, sites like Unsplash and Pixabay are a great start. You can also great imagery for your blog using Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop.
Tip #2. Apply Alt Tags to Images
Image alt tags are used when an image does not load, or if a visually impaired user is viewing your site. If you go to an image on a website and hover over the image, a text description of the image should populate if an alt tag is being used. Google’s search engine result pages deliver just as many image results as they do text-based results, so adding an alt tag to all of your images will give you an extra SEO boost.
Tip #3. Use Imagery to Break Up Content
A lengthy, Microsoft Word-looking post with a seemingly unending scroll will most likely turn away readers. Depending on the size of your blog post, using images to break up content sections is a great way to make your blogs seem less daunting to users. Incorporate relevant images to break up large paragraphs of text so the reader isn’t just looking at a wall of copy. Make sure you’re choosing images that are relevant to your content!
Tip #4. Make Sure Images are Optimized
Before you go in and add a photo you took with your DSLR camera to your blog, you’re going to want to make sure the image is optimized first. Images are a great way to drive home content, but an image that is too large can slow down your site. You can do this manually, but plugins such as SMUSH WP will optimize images for you automatically. This ForegroundWeb article breaks down suggested image dimensions based on how they are being used on your site.
Whether you’re adding infographics to help illustrate a topic, or adding stock imagery to help break up a lengthy post, image selection and execution can go a long when it comes to user retention and SEO. Looking to add a blog or news section to your current site? Head over to our Contact page and fill out a form!