Here’s how you can massively increase your content marketing results, by using the power of images.
Content marketing: Why pictures matter
A good picture or image has the power to immediately grab someone’s attention. This has always been important, but never more so than today.
If, for example, people share your blog posts on services like Facebook or LinkedIn, the image included in your post is automatically attached and visible. This can massively increase the click through rate of that shared link. People’s eyes are drawn to images, so when a post shows up on Facebook or whatever, with a great image attached, more readers will notice the link to your post.
In my own tests, blog posts with even very average images included can out perform equally good posts with no images. If you take time to find an interesting looking image, this can increase the number of times a post is read and shared by (literally) hundreds of percent. So, if you want more people to click through when they see your posts on social networking sites, use a great image (and credit the photographer!)
Pictures quickly set the scene
Pictures have an amazing ability to quickly change what we are thinking. This is because we all think in pictures. Newspaper publishers have known for decades that if they get the front page picture right, they will sell more copies. The same is true for book publishers, where a great cover design can massively boost sales of a book.
The pictures or images we use, create a level of expectancy. They act a little like a great headline, in that they set the scene for what follows. If you want people to think your blog post, web page or email marketing is worth reading, use an image that grabs their attention and then sets a powerful scene.
Then, let the power of your content marketing do its stuff!
Photo: xtheowl
It’s always a good idea to incorporate an image into your content. It really can’t do anything to hurt it. Most likely it will help to get the attention of more readers and encourage them to click on it and continue reading.
Yo Jim, thanks for your post a few day’s ago where you compared ‘cheap’ with not crediting photo’s properly on your blog.
It’s a bit more work, but it’s certainly worth not putting out a cheap product and looking douchey… That’s a new word I learned from Gini
I’m an now committed to handling the photo’s I share on my blog properly. Thank you.
Have a great weekend my friend!
Glad you found it useful, sir!
[...] The power of images This post explains that pictures matter in content marketing. Images have the power to immediately grab someone’s attention. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE [...]
Pictures do make a big difference. I have noticed that I have had more readers to blog since I started using pictures, although it was also at the time that I increased my frequency of posting. Great reminder, thank you.
Thanks for the feedback, Nicky. When you change 2 things at once, it’s hard to know what created any change in your stats.
There is, as you say, a direct link between the number of times you post and overall traffic to your site. By increasing the number of times you publish fresh content, you increase the number of times your subscribers and regular readers will return. People also have more fresh material to share via their social networks, encouraging more traffic again.
Part of the extra work is finding the right photo, then putting in all the right tags, etc. I find that the greatest traffic draw with my photos comes from IMAGE searches. And, for that you need to have the right words (another example of the need to be a good wordsmith).
Question for you: how rigourous should one be about photo with rights? For my online presentations, I have taken care of having the rights, but on the blogs, I have been a little slack
Your thoughts?
Hi Minter.
I always credit a photo, less because of the legal issues and more because I want to show recognition for the person, who made the photo freely available (I use creative commons attribution images only.) This lists all such images on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/by-2.0/
I think it’s important to give attribution on your blog. In many cases, it’s also a condition of using their image.
Understood. It’s just that I started my blog many moons ago without a full appreciation of the rights story at the beginning … and I am loathe to call all the way back and re-copyright… monster task.
[...] by a post by Jim Connolly at Internet Marketing Jam, that talks about the power of the image, I thought I would take a different spin. Yes, I fully [...]
Hi Jim….I agree completely. Images are very powerful. I often spend more time finding the right image than I do writing my post. Thanks for stating this so eloquently.
Thanks for the kind words, Nancy.