Creating Visuals to Accompany Blog Posts

I’ve never considered myself a visual person. I can pick out designs I like when given a choice and I know what kinds of colors I prefer, but I have difficulty putting things together myself. As a writer, I figured that my lack of visual talents wouldn’t really be an issue. That has changed though; in the growing world of digital media, images are important.

I read a statistic that if you don’t feature an image in a blog post, your chance of getting it read can go down by as much as 50 to 60 percent. Readers (including me, to be honest) are drawn to beautiful interesting, or even humorous images (think about the photos you see on Instagram), and appreciate infographics and other design elements that break up text.

For example, if I hadn’t taken photos to go along with this blog post I wrote for a parenting magazine website, it wouldn’t have packed as much of a punch. The colorful photo added to the whimsical nature of the blog post—places to bounce with your children.

I used to rely on free images I could find on stock photo websites. I still use those, but I’ve also been working to catalogue my own images to use. Several years ago, I started taking photos (some with my camera, some with my phone) of nature scenes. I’ve found those are often evergreen enough to use with blog posts or online articles. I’m particularly fond of beach photography:

Pictures of things you find in the everyday can be just as beautiful. This scene caught my eye walking through the historical village of Old Salem and I had to capture it:

Another thing I learned recently? How to embed an Instagram photo (this only works for images that are public) into a post and have a corresponding hashtag. This has been really helpful when writing blog posts that talk about specific businesses or popular places in town. For example, I searched hashtags for one of the zoos in our state and found this gem:

My Lil' Bear getting close with a Polar Bear. #asheborozoo #jasperturns5

A photo posted by Sarah Pike (@spikeart77) on Jan 10, 2016 at 4:34pm PST

Do you try and use images in your blog posts or online articles? Do you take your own or find them in other places?

Renee Roberson is an award-winning freelance writer and editor who is enjoying the world of digital content more and more. She blogs about books, movies, music, celebrity gossip and more at Renee's Pages.