Ultimately, blog posts with pictures can lead to increased traffic and engagement.

By featuring quality images that are related to the published content, bloggers can create more appealing and noteworthy experiences for readers.

Pictures play a crucial role in enriching the whole reading experience for readers. When you use imagery in your blog posts, you’ll gain a higher readability score with search engines.

Blog posts with pictures also, quite simply, look nice. Without them, a huge reem of text can be daunting. With them, a blog post looks more welcoming.

Posts that are more complex in subject matter benefit from graphics and photos. Essentially, they can help to explain the topic and back up the points of the author for those more visual learners.

Here are some more in-depth reasons why you should include pictures in your blog posts.

Why blog posts with pictures work harder

Better readability

Pictures can improve the readability of a blog post by helping to illustrate concepts, ideas, or steps in a process. They provide visual cues that help readers understand the content more easily and retain information better. Images can simplify complex topics, making them more accessible and enjoyable to read.

Aesthetics

Pictures capture attention and make a blog post visually appealing. They break up long blocks of text and provide a visual break, preventing readers from feeling overwhelmed or disinterested. High-quality images can make a blog post more inviting and encourage readers to stay and explore further.

Enhanced comprehension

Pictures can complement the text by providing additional context or examples. They can clarify abstract concepts, provide real-life demonstrations, or showcase visual evidence to support the written content. This helps readers grasp the main points more effectively, reinforcing understanding and boosting the overall comprehension of the blog post.

Social media sharing

Including visually appealing images in blog posts makes them more shareable on social media platforms. When readers come across an intriguing image within a blog post, they are more likely to share it with their followers, expanding the reach and visibility of the content.

Emotional connection

Pictures have the power to evoke emotions and create a connection with readers. They can evoke curiosity, excitement, or empathy, depending on the content and purpose of the blog post. Emotional engagement keeps readers invested and encourages them to continue reading, share the post, or leave comments.

Pictures and search engine optimisation (SEO)

Search engines understand that humankind appreciates a picture. So, not only are they great for enhancing the visual appeal for humans, but blog posts with pictures are also impactful when it comes to SEO.

What’s the big deal with SEO?

In brief, SEO is a strategy used to help a website appear in the top results of a search engine. The top search engine results are often highly trusted by people when using the internet to find the answers to their questions. Therefore, if you can get your website in some top search results, you’ll gain brand awareness and could turn your page visitors into leads. This is why SEO is essential for business.

Here’s why pictures are important for SEO

Pictures can drive traffic to your blog through image searches. Optimising images with relevant alt text (see below for more details on this), descriptive file names, and surrounding text help search engines understand their context and relevance.

The images you use must be relevant and engaging to improve the overall user experience of your blog. Users are more likely to engage with and stay on a page that incorporates visual elements.

When users spend more time on your blog, it sends positive signals to search engines, indicating that your content is valuable and relevant, which can positively impact your search rankings.

This contributes to lower bounce rates. When pictures are included, visitors are more likely to stay and explore further. A lower bounce rate tells search engines that your content is meeting the needs of users, which helps improve SEO performance.

When users share your content on social media platforms, it generates backlinks and exposure, which are important factors for SEO. Images that are visually striking and relevant have a higher chance of being shared, expanding the reach and visibility of your blog.

Pictures are important for SEO as they can drive traffic through image search, improve user experience, reduce bounce rates, and encourage social sharing. By optimising images and incorporating them strategically within your blog posts, you can enhance your SEO efforts and increase the visibility and discoverability of your content.

How to optimise blog post pictures

Writing alt text for blog post pictures improves SEO and accessibility. Here’s a guide on how to write effective alt text:

Consider accessibility

Alt text serves an important purpose for people with visual impairments who rely on screen readers. Write alt text that provides a comprehensive description of the image, allowing those users to understand its content.

Be descriptive

Alt text should provide a brief accurate description of the picture. Describe what’s in the image as well as the context behind it. It should be simple enough to understand by someone who can’t see it. Include details such as subject, colour, action, location, objects, clothing, and any other relevant elements.

Keep it concise

As descriptive as you should be, alt text should also be straight to the point. Aim for a length of around 125 characters or less so it doesn’t get cut off in search engine results. Alt text should focus on the most important details of the image. You don’t need to include text that is already used in the surrounding article or captions. Stick to describing the visual aspects that are relevant to the content.

Be specific

An example of descriptive but concise alt text copy is as follows: “three men wearing hardhats dig in a field while smiling at the camera”. This is a lot more meaningful and visual than simply typing: “men digging”. Another example is: “Bouquet of yellow roses in a clear glass vase against a green background”. This is more descriptive than “a bunch of flowers”.

Use keywords

Relevant keywords should occur naturally in the alt text. Only use them when it makes sense to do so. Try not to stuff keywords in just to make search engines happy. Focus on providing helpful information for the humans reading it rather than Google bots.

In conclusion

Using images in your blog posts will help drive engagement and make them easier to read.

Writing descriptive alt text for the images you use will enhance the accessibility of your blog, improve SEO by providing relevant information to search engines, and ensure that your images are properly indexed and understood by search engines and readers.