This is part two in our four-part series about shaping up your content. Read part one (blogging) here.
So you’ve got the blogging beast under control. You know what you’re going to write about and how often you’re going to publish that writing. Wonderful!
But a successful blog post requires more than a clever title and some well-placed bullet points. Content that includes images is 94% more likely to be shared. Ninety-four percent! Let’s harness some of that power to bring traffic and sales to the blog posts you’ve worked so hard on.
1. Use beautiful, high-quality images.
You’ve got a polished, professional site; your blog posts and social media updates deserve equally polished, professional images. Thanks to the internet, you can get those images for pennies – or free! In fact, here are 53 places you can find gorgeous free images.
2. Size them correctly.
The images that do well on Pinterest are not necessarily the images that do well on Twitter and a big part of that is sizing. Each social media platform favors different sizes and image orientations; it would be a pity to carefully craft a great blog post only to miss readers because the Twitter image got cropped awkwardly! Here’s a breakdown of image sizes for every social media platform.
3. Edit them + make them more engaging.
Of course, I could accompany this blog post with an image of a photographer or a laptop, but if someone pinned this post, how would other people on Pinterest know – at a glance – what I wrote about? Simple, user-friendly sites like Canva and Picmonkey allow you to crop, edit, and add text to your images – without an M.A. in Photoshop.
4. Optimize them.
That sounds intimidatingly tech-y, doesn’t it? An image that’s been optimized has been saved and labeled in such a way that when people are searching for images, they’ll find yours – and the accompanying article. Instead of saving your image as ‘859hi9.jpg’ save it as “working smarter not harder.” Use the title tags of your images to increase your SEO and make your images and posts even more find-able. Here’s how.
Here are some examples of people who are doing amazing things with their images:
Life coach and therapist Dr. Danielle Dowling
Each of Danielle’s posts is accompanied by a pretty, Pin-able image that perfectly matches the branding of her blog. Even better, she also creates Twitter-sized versions of those same images to promote her blog posts there.
Leadership coach Susan Drumm
Susan uses Pin-able images with each of her blog posts, increasing engagement and SEO. Images are especially important for abstract, potentially dry topics like hiring and firing!
Photographer Leslie Plesser
But then it makes sense that a professional photographer would include plenty of her own beautifully-lit images! Leslie’s images make her posts more click-friendly but they also serve as a reminder that you can book her and have her shoot equally gorgeous photos of you!
Do you feel confident using images with your blog posts and on social media? If you’re struggling, leave your questions in the comments and I’ll answer them!
P.S. Before you do any of this, you’ve made sure your website is mobile responsive, right?
P.P.S. If you want to make sure you don’t miss any posts in this series, be sure to subscribe to my newsletter and I’ll send them directly to your inbox!
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The post Create Website Content that’s Impossible to Ignore: Images People Want to Click appeared first on Connect Interactive.