CentrioHost Blog

Having a blog where you can share valuable information with your audience can prove to be essential for your business. A blog is a great source of content marketing and, if you do it correctly, benefits may prove to be higher than expected. Ever wonder why you see all these companies pumping out content? That’s because when done right, content marketing works. In fact, it is three times more effectivethan paid search in regards to leads and ROI for your business.

Also, people are more likely to get to know your company or brand through content marketing. 68% of the Internet users spend time reading about brands and 80% of them appreciate learning about companies through custom content. This is probably the main reason why small businesses with blogs get 126% more leadsthan businesses that do not engage in content marketing.

Importance of Visual Content

However, content marketing is not and should not be just text. Visuals are an important part of a marketing campaign. They have the power to attract and retain your audience. They have the power to enhance your entire campaign and make it successful in the long run. Why do you think is that? Why are visuals important for a blog?

According to a report published by Social Media Examiner, 38% of marketers say that blogging is the most important form of content for their business. Visual content comes in second, as 37% of marketers admit it to be the most important part of their content marketing strategy.

Also, the same report states that 68% of marketers use blogging for marketing purposes while 74% use visuals as a common type of content. Overall, content marketing gets you six time higher conversion rates than other types of marketing.

However, we should also consider that people tend to retain only 10% of what they hear. However, if you pair written text with relevant images, 65% of that information is retained three days later. Impressive, isn’t it?

The Featured Image

When it comes to visuals on your blog, the first thing you should start with is the featured image. This type of visual is even more important when you publish blog posts that are mostly based on textual information, without screenshots, graphs, charts and other types of visuals. Also, the featured image is important if you engage in social media marketing as well. Why? This is the first thing a Facebook or a Twitter user sees when you share a link.

How to Add a Featured Image in WordPress?

If you are blogging from a WordPress based blog, and I imagine you are, things are quite simple. Most of today’s themes already feature this option. If not, try to update the theme or ask a professional coder to help you include the featured image option.

The process is similar to that of a traditional image upload/insert into a post. There is only one slight difference. Once the image has been uploaded, you should click on the “Featured Image” button instead of inserting the image into the post.

Visuals to Include in Your Articles

Now that you know how to add a featured image and why it is important to do it, let’s discuss the other types of visuals that may be paired with the texts you publish. What visuals can you use as a blogger and how to use them according to your overall content marketing strategy?

A. Screenshots

They are your best option if you want to describe certain operations and processes performed on a computer or a mobile device. “How to” guides are popular amongst internet users and screenshots will help you make them more easy to understand. In fact, according to a study, people who follow directions with texts and illustrations, understand and perform 323% better than those who follow the same directions without illustration.

B. Graphs and Charts

According to yet another interesting study published by Nielsen Norman Group, people pay attention to information-carrying images and tend to ignore decorative images. What does this mean?

Well, in order to catch the viewer’s attention, you need images that provide a form of valuable content to him or her. Graphs and charts fall into this category, as they help the audience better understand your numbers and stats and at the same time, memorize the information provided easier. Check out how to create graphs and charts in WordPress.

C. Photos

Photos are recommended in case you have something specific to share with your audience. Travel blogs especially need great visuals of the different places they talk about in order to attract and please the audience.

In case you cannot shoot your own photos or, in case you don’t need anything else than generic visual representations to publish along with your texts, you may choose to use stock images. They make great featured images for green content blog posts.

Where to get stock images and how to deal with them?

• Well, the first thing you need to do is to create a budget. There are several premium stock images services available out there, such as Dreamstime and Stock Expert but they all cost money.
• If you don’t have a budget, consider getting your visuals from free sources. There are many options in this area as well but there’s a catch: most of these images are not free of copyright. You get them for free but you should also credit the owner. Check out these 10 places to get free images.
• Always respect the copyright requirements for each photo you use on your blog. This is important if you want to avoid legal problems and of course, if you want to be acknowledged as a professional.
• Don’t just take images found with Google search or other search engines. In case you find the one you need via online search, try to find out who this picture belongs to and ask them if they want to sell the usage rights to you or, maybe, if they allow you to post it for free with credits to the author.

D. Product Images

If you want to market specific products, whether they are from your shop or from a partner’s shop, yo