Guest post by Rachel Horwitz
Lisa is a big proponent of blogging for authors. Blogging helps you build a following, engage with your readers—making them loyal and supportive–and it’s a great way to improve your SEO for your entire website and get more visitors.
Lisa’s even had a client contacted by a top 10 publisher just because they saw his blog!
Here’s a tip for increasing readership and viewers: Add pictures to your posts.
Pictures help readers connect with your written content instantly. A picture can be bright and eye catching or can be more topical picture to help readers them understand the subject matter. People love pictures. Here are some tips about how to get the most from your images:
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Pin the images on pinterest, bringing a direct link back to your blog (engaging new readers and links help with search engines).
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A picture post on facebook with a link to your blog can get more people clicking through.
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On Twitter, images are more likely to get clicked than a regular link.
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60% of readers are visual learners. (Hubspot)
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Photos help to convey the tone of post.
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Photos help viewers understand metaphors or examples explained in your post.
Photos send you on the fast track to gaining more blog followers and increasing your traffic. Returning blog readers will be continuously engaged by the visual content and new blog visitors will stick to your page and possibly even subscribe to your posts if your visual content draws their interest.
The more photos in your blog post that are relevant, interesting and can make your audience smile, the better.
On a related subject, gifs or short and snappy videos can also help convey your message to readers in a way that they can understand faster than reading through your post. Gifs are a short clip of an image that replays, whereas videos can be used as a call to action.
Any subject can be sparked to life by images, and for any author with a blog, adding and using visual content will grow the reach, virality and popularity of your blog.
Here are some incredible stats courtesy of Hubspot:
- 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000X faster in the brain than text. (Sources: 3M Corporation and Zabisco )
- 40% of people will respond better to visual information than plain text. (Source: Zabisco )
- On Facebook, photos perform best for likes, comments, and shares as compared to text, video, and links. (Source: Dan Zarrella )
- Pinterest drives sales directly from its website — of people with Pinterest accounts, 21% have purchased an item after seeing it on Pinterest. (Source: PriceGrabber )
- Viewers spend 100% more time on pages with videos on them. (Source: MarketingSherpa )
Ask your questions about blogging here or share your own experience of using images in your blog posts.
Where do I get photos that are free and without watermarks? I no longer have graphics software/equipment and programs.
I want to use photos, but it seems that’s the main thing missing. Is there a way I can tailor my blog to gain more readers even without photos? I’ve already used my own graphics to create the look and feel of the blog I wanted at the time. My blog has been stuck for a long time. I really need some help on what to do when you DON’T have a budget to work with, and you’re trying to create one. Please help
Hi Andrea!
You can use pixabay.com for free stock photos. But higher quality and a better selection will be found on the subscription sites. It is great in a pinch though.
Since people are drawn to photos, I would encourage you to continue using them on your blog. Try to personalize a few with picmonkey.com which is a free editing site with great features.
Best of luck!
Thanks for the advice. I have been trying to engage with audiences on Twitter but haven’t been as successful as I would like. I didn’t know that pictures are more likely to get clicked than regular links on Twitter so I will be sure to try that. Thanks again.
I realize this now, but I ask myself a lot of these questions before I publish something.
But all of the are important
Great post! I too am a visual learner, so when I first started blogging I always tried to incorporate images into my posts and when engaging on social media sites. I get my photos from istock. They have great quality photos for less.
Thanks this is my first time here and really your blogging tip for authors is great and very useful I think that most authors are not familiar with SEO So I would recommend them to learn basic SEO tips and tricks to boost their blog rankings
Learning SEO Tips is excellent advice, but “Tricks” can be tricky! If someone uses a technique that Google considers “black hat” (i.e. cheating), the site can be penalized. So, be careful about tricks!