7 Ways to Incorporate Photographs Into Your Blog

Photos: 5 Reasons Blogs Need Them

While photographs can take your blog from dull to dazzling, the main reason to incorporate photographs into your blog is your readers. Photographs quickly and succinctly convey information to your audience, whether they’re prospects, customers, social media connections or the public, better than words. This is critical since your readers’ time is valuable and limited.

Here are five ways photographs can enhance your blog’s attractiveness.

Photographs are eye candy. Humans are visual beings and photographs attract our attention. On your blog, they’re like a stop sign that gets readers to find out more.
Photographs are easy-to-use. Photographs don’t require additional writing. You must be able to select or curate the optimal image for your content.
Photographs support sales. They enable you to show your product in context while delivering useful information. Go one step further and ensure readers can click through to products on your website.
Photographs help search optimization. As long as you associate the appropriate text with your blog’s images, they help pull new readers in by appearing in search results.
Photographs give readers a reason to share your content. Especially with the growth of photograph-oriented sites like Pinterest and Instagram, photographs provide readers a reason to share your content on social media platforms. (Here’s more data on social sharing.)

Here are seven ways to integrate photographs into your blog posts to increase readership and social sharing.

Use photographs at the top of each post to lure readers in. Where possible, skip the stock photography since most readers can tell them a mile away. They’re boring and probably have been seen elsewhere. Understand that photographs don’t need to be literal. Consider how to use different photograph options but don’t forget to align them with your branding. Here’s how Spin Sucks highlighted my photograph for a guest post.
Create post content solely from photographs. Many photographers do this. The Satorialist is one of the best examples by a fashion photographer. Brainstorm how you can portray your brand through the use of photographs. Bakers do this as well. Cake Wrecks is fun site with photographs of cakes gone wrong.
Incorporate screenshots and graphs into your content. Use these images to provide a visual representation of information. This makes it easier for readers to grasp your point. This post is an example of how to use this tactic effectively.
Include an author photograph so readers know who’s talking to them. This humanizes your content. Here’s Nina Garcia, Marie Claire’s Fashion Editor, making a guest appearance on Target’s content.
Interview experts in your category. Extend your blog beyond your own voice. One way to do this is via an email exchange. This is another opportunity to liven your content with the speaker’s photograph as well as a photograph of their book or business.
Spotlight customers and their projects. Depending on your offering and customers, this can be a great way to get customers involved in your content while letting them show off how to use your product.
Show step-by-step instructions. Since it can be difficult to follow what a customer service representative is saying, use your blog to highlight each step of the instructions with a photograph. Even better, make your product the hero and link to specific product pages. Don’t these King Arthur Flour photographs on their blog make you hungry?