More Than Words: How Visual Content Improves Your Blog

Blog posts are one of the most popular and powerful ways to engage your audiences through online content. However it’s not enough to set up a blog, sit back and wait for your audience to flock to you. In order to grow a community of loyal readers, your blog needs more than just quality content. It also needs visual elements to grab attention, reinforce your brand and increase SEO.

Now, the Bennis Inc blog has room for improvement in this area as well! As we strive to do a better job of incorporating more visual content into our weekly posts, we thought we’d share with you five reasons why we know this to be so important. Take a look!

 

Visual content…

Grabs attention, especially when shared on social media

If you want to draw more readers to your blog, it’s important to make your posts look good when shared on social media. Without visual content, people will see a blank square and a snippet of content that may not be enough to stop them from scrolling on by. Set yourself up for social sharing success by always including at least one image per blog that clearly represents the theme of your post, so that when people see it as a thumbnail they know right away they want to read more!

Emphasizes your main points

Visual content is a powerful opportunity to highlight and emphasize the main points of your blog. Much like how we use subheadings to make content easily digested, images and graphics next to each main point help guide readers through your content. Visual content also makes your main points easy to remember and reference again in the future.

Visual content helps shine a spotlight on the main points you want to reader to takeaway.

Reflects the style of your brand

Your blog is a direct reflection of your brand and therefore should use the same quality of images you would feel comfortable publishing on your website or social media. Everything needs to work together to reinforce the same message. Use visual content on your blog to create continuity for visitors who are likely to jump from your blog to your website and vice versa.

Captioning the photo with keywords gives search engines another way to find you

Most people know, but forget to fully utilize the fact that the photos you post on your blog are indexed by search engines. This makes visual content yet one more way you can improve your SEO. Make sure every photo you post is named and captioned with your most relevant keywords. Captions are also important for engaging readers and connecting each image back to your content.

We “love” this photo because we took it ourselves! It’s clean, simple and modern, much like the Bennis Inc brand. Plus, it represents something we get to see in daily life.

Provides an opportunity to insert a personal touch (by using your own photos)

Finally, visual content is a great way to let your personality and brand shine through your words. It’s a smart idea to build up your own stock image gallery of photos that share your story. Then, you will always have these available to use on future blogs. By using your own photos, you don’t have to worry about running into licensing issues, plus you’ll further engage your audience with visuals that are far more unique and captivating than those generic stock images.

How do you incorporate visual elements on your blog or website to attract visitors to your content? Share your ideas by commenting below!