6 Tips to Improve Your Online Content With Images
Nowadays, millennials are more moved by visual content and that is why more content creators churn out different forms of visual content on a daily basis. An image is one of the simplest content that brands can share online to get more traction relative to the needs of the brand in creating a strong online presence. It’s, therefore, not surprising to see platforms like Instagram, Tumblr, Snapchat growing at an impressive rate. Even YouTube has caught in on the fire of simple image sharing by allowing content creators to share images too.
It is also almost impossible to see any blog post or brand website without a single picture, except maybe a one-off post designed that way for a purpose. This has increased the demand for more stock photos that most websites can buy to support content pushed online. This goes on to show that images are essential to the success of any online content today.
Want to start using images to improve your online content? Seeking the help of a content marketing agency will come in handy along with these six useful tips:
1. Use a generous number of images in a single post
Too many images won’t hurt especially if you are not using it to replace something that you could have just written. There are even ways you can use images to say something without actually putting a text next to it. The safe way to gauge this is by using at least one image after or before every one hundred words. Using images sparingly this way will help you grab the attention of the reader especially for readers who are fond of skimming through texts on a post.
2. Use a blend of real-life images
If you have content with a 1000 word limit, you have the opportunity to use at least ten images to support that content. Rather than use all real-life images with real people, you can choose to use a blend of different types of images (even if the content is about real people).
For instance, if you’re talking about couples loving each other, the first image can be a stock photo of couples looking like they are in love and the next can be a GIFs of couples hugging each other. The third can be abstract images of something that looks like two elements holding or talking to each other. The fourth can be an infographics showing the stages couple go through when expressing love to their significant other.
3. Use sharp and color-rich images
The images used to support a content must be as impressive as the text itself, so always chose images with high definition and that has rich colors. Use images that are so sharp and rich that it is irresistible to the eyes at just one glance. If you are bothered about having too many colorful images that will conflict with the overall color scheme you have chosen, you can be selective of the kind of stock images that you use.
For example, you can consider using stock images with white backgrounds which can easily blend in with any color scheme you have chosen. You can design images from scratch by highing a graphics designer to design images that will flow with your preferred color scheme. If you are very good with photo editing apps or software, you can buy stock images or take images yourself with a good camera and edit the colors to suit the scheme you want.
If you are bothered about using images that might be too heavy to load as fast as you want, consider using a plugin. A plugin such as WordPress will help to optimize the images so they can open faster without slowing down the website.
4. Always optimize your images for SEO
A lot of people publishing content online are quite guilty of defaulting in this. Often times, a lot of websites get surprising traffic through images. Someone could be looking for images online and stumble on yours in the pile. This could be because you have done a good job to push out attention-grabbing images that are sharp and color-rich. Your viewer can decide to click on the “visit site” button to check the site out.
If they remain impressed with the rest of the website, they will spend more time clicking through other pages or posts on the website. Always edit the file name of the images as well as the description before uploading it online. To do this you can right click on the image to get the “properties” option, then make all necessary edits and add tags on it also. These are the ways you can boost the SEO of the content online with the images too.
5. Edit the alt text area for all images
This is very essential as it helps to boost SEO as well as helping visitors have an idea of the content of the image that should have shown up in the image area (in the case of poor internet connection). Try to describe the image (if possible) and be sure to include relevant keywords there too.
6. Responsiveness to mobile devices
It is very important that the website itself is responsive to mobile devices because it will affect the overall performance of the content on it. It is also key to ensure continuity you use images that are sharp so that when the images are changing in sizes to suit device it will be displayed on it will not appear to be blurry in any form.
Images used in any content published online should not only draw the attention of the target audience, but it should also help them to understand it better and recall what they have read. It should also be able to evoke some sort of emotion, which is a clear indication that it has performed its job. In addition to these, it should also be able to yield some good returns, in the form of SEO boost and traffic boost, for the brand.