With the audience being busy and yet wanting to learn with the least possible efforts might get tricky to get them hooked up on your content.
In this competition between time and knowledge, you need to give your audience a reason to keep them engrossed in your story, and one easy way to do it is by including visual elements.
For once, the words may not fascinate the audience but, the visuals like images, gifs or graphs, immediately catch an eye.
Images break up text into smaller and digestible pieces. Reading a post or article with huge paragraphs makes it tiring and the readers may not be ready to invest longer times. Adding images breaks the blog and makes it readable.
Adding images to your post also shows how you are different than other bloggers and that you are well versed with the topic as it helps in supporting your statements. Adding images is like another skill to show.
Use of Relevant Images
When using an image in your text, make sure the image is relevant to your writeup. You may use a picture of beautiful scenery while talking about how important visual communication is but will fail at communicating the message or retaining the readers’ attention for a longer time.
When you add photos:
- Make sure they provide meaning to your text.
- They emphasize the message you want to convey even more.
- Use photo editing software to clean them up or resize them so that they appear uncluttered and neat.
- If the photographs aren’t original, they state who owns the copyright.
Some readers skip the introductory paragraph and to engage them, adding images is a great idea. It is an efficient way to gain the attention of a busy audience.
Optimization for Google
The loading speed of your article is an essential factor when it comes to Google as it helps in site rankings. Readers prefer reading blogs that load fast.
The images on your blogs need to be optimized in such a way that they ensure fast loading.
You can take the help of Adobe Photoshop or Affinity Designer before uploading the images. There are WordPress plugins too that allow automatic optimization of images with no drawbacks of quality.
You can also check the website loading speed with Google. There are plenty of tools that are available to do so.
Note- Some tools help in testing speed and focus on load time instead of the scores.
Use of Graphs
When you give your audience a paragraph with many numbers and percentages, it tends to get confusing. Processing all the numerical and comparing the data without graphs is next to impossible.
Not all graphs are the same and some might be poorly made or unhandy.
Graphs make reading and understanding complex data easier.
However, graphs may simplify or complicate the data, depending upon the use and type of graph. The graph you use should be relevant to the data you want to share.
The different types of graphs you can use are-
- Bar charts: A bar graph is a chart that presents data with rectangular bars. They are suitable for minor works for comparing between categories of data.
- Pyramid charts: Pyramid charts help in visualizing hierarchical, proportional and foundation-based relationships, process steps, organizational layers or topics interconnections.
- Pie charts: Pie charts are to be used when you are trying to compare parts. They do not show changes over time.
- Line graphs: Line graphs are used to track changes over short and long periods. For small changes, line graphs work better than bar graphs. You can also use them to compare changes over the same period for more than one group.
Sources of Images
You can download images for free from a few sites to avoid any copyrights issues.
Some services might be blocked or might have guidelines that block or restrict you from downloading images or visual components. There are, however, ways to overcome these obstacles. A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is an app that allows you to change your IP address and connect you to another country. By doing this, you may be able to pass the geo-restrictions.
Tools like this make you reach more information by including visual components.
Read: Five Tips to Design Your Blog Posts for Effective User Engagement
Conclusion
A blog with no images will find no or fewer readers. No matter how well-written the blog is, readers may find it monotonous.
Not only pictures, but you can also use infographics to enhance your blog.
The combination of images, gifs and a well-written blog makes your article attractive and increases its chances of being shared and read.
The use of graphs while listing the statistical part of the article makes it easier for the reader to understand and gain attention.
Keep using images in your blogs!
