How to use images to style your blog posts

Adding images to your blog posts is one of the simplest, easiest and most effective things you can do to grab and hold the attention of your readers, make your blog articles easier to read and make your blog look better.

What it means to have photos in your blog posts

It is surprising that many bloggers do not use images. By using them you can differentiate your blog and make your blog articles memorable to your visitors. Images enhance your blog posts in several ways:

• Images can improve the look of a blog post and make it look more professional
• Images capture attention and make your content visually appealing
• Images make your blog content more scannable and easier to read
• Images add to the reading experience and improve usability
• Images get your readers more involved into your blog post

Where to find images to use in your blog articles

You need to find images that you are permitted to use. By using Flickr you can narrow your search results to the Creative Commons license only.

With creative commons license you are free:

• to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
• to Remix — to adapt the work

Under the following conditions:

• Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor.

This basically means that you can use any of the images you find in creative commons as long as you credit the source with a link. I usually credit the source of my image with “image by” link at the end of my articles.

Styling the images to optimize the look

Flickr gives you several sizes for each image. When you find an image you want to use click on “All Sizes” and this will bring you to the Available Sizes menu. I usually go for the 500 pixels wide option as that fits well with my blog content column.

When you have your image, WordPress makes it easy to upload it to your server and to align with your content. Use the “Add an Image” option in the menu when writing new post.

Use a filename that includes the keyword phrase. Also make sure the image title tags have relevant keywords in them. You can also use descriptive text near the image by writing an image caption. All this will help you index in Google Image Search and hopefully send you new traffic.

Some of the images you find can be pretty large. And if you use one image per blog post, it can add up and make your blog slow to load. Photoshop has the “Save for web & devices” option which can drastically reduce the size of your images. The two images I used in this post have been reduced to about a third of the original size without losing much quality.

Conclusion

Having images in your blog posts and having an eye-catching blog header can bring your blog to another level. Try it out, your readers will like it!

Image by James Wicks