How To Use Images To Boost Blog Traffic

I talked yesterday about how using images helped me build traffic. You can read the post here if you missed it. The question of how you can use images to boost your traffic is still a very relevant one. So, here are my top tips on how to use images to boost traffic.

Having them!

This sounds like a weird heading I know, but it's true. I'm not sure how or why it works, but just having images in your posts improves traffic. For me, posts with images get around 4x more views than those without. Personally, I think it is because the image captures people's attention and piques their interest. I could be wrong, but whatever the reason, it works!

 

 

 

 

For me, apart from making your posts visually appealing, one of the main ways to bring traffic in through images is via social media.

 

 

Twitter

Twitter is, in my opinion, the best social network to promote your blog posts. However, Twitter is busy, and it's fast. Your tweets need to grab people's attention. How do you ensure people see your tweet within the 100s of other tweets going out every minute? That's where your images come in! When you write out your promo tweet, add an image from the post. The image will stand out far more than just text, ensuring it is seen by more people. Pair this with a catchy post title, and you'll find more and more people are clicking through to your posts.

 

Instagram

For Instagram, every update is a photo or graphic. There are no text only updates on here, so if you don't use images, you won't be able to successfully post your updates! Be aware that all the pictures are a standard size and are all square - this doesn't mean all your blog post images have to be square. Just be aware that you need some detail in a basic square shape that will work as a stand alone image.

 

Pinterest

Pinterest fascinates me. It's like everything you could imagine wanting to see in one place, and I think it is still massively under-rated as a promotional tool for bloggers. You can pin any shape image, but portrait ones work best, especially for mobile browsers. The beauty of Pinterest is, unlike the other sites, your window of opportunity to be seen isn't limited to two minutes as it flies past! Pinterest works almost like a search engine - people look for things they want to pin, and when they find them, they generally click through to have a read. I have found a few great bloggers this way!

 

 

General tips for amazing images

1. Use good, clear images that aren't blurry.

2. Use images that are large enough for the details to be clear, but not so large they become pixelated.

3. Try to use at least one portrait style image so people will pin it (add a Pin it widget to your side bar, the easier it is to share your material, the more people will do it). I often do this by making a portrait collage of the smaller images I've used and adding the post title.

4. Utilise the alt text. Remember, this text is displayed with your image on Pinterest. Use your post title rather than IMG1234!

5. Have fun! Play around with photo editing software to design and create great images. I use Pic Monkey, it's free and easy to use.

 

Have you got any top tips for using images to increase your traffic? Share them in the comments :)

 

You can find me here: Twitter Bloglovin Pinterest and Instagram Please do stop by and say hi!



Why I Started Using Images And How It Helped!

I think everyone has heard the saying "a picture paints 1000 words" at some point. I get it - it makes sense. But (there's always a but isn't there?) I'm also a firm believer that carefully chosen words can paint not just a picture, but a movie.

I like looking at pictures as much as the next person, but sometimes, I like to paint my own picture, decide for myself what the person is describing and how it would look.

When I first started my blog, I made the decision on day one that I wouldn't be using images. I figured a lot of the posts I write (all of them really at that point) were my opinions on various things, so they didn't require images.

I read all the posts telling me why I should use images, but I still wasn't convinced. In hindsight, I should have listened sooner - these posts were written by people much more established than me. It's not that I somehow thought I knew better, I just figured images weren't my thing.

Because I'm quite wordy, I'm happy to read a long post, even if it's just text. The mistake I made was thinking everyone else feels the same. I learned that they don't. People think visually and are more attracted to a post with images than a body of text.

With all that in mind, I then wrote this post and it didn't look right without images. I realised I had a choice to make - scrap the post or use images. It seemed pointlessly stubborn to scrap the post, so I caved and used some images, still not convinced it would make a difference.

That post received almost 4 times the views my posts were averaging at that time! I knew that couldn't be a coincidence, so I started doing a few more posts with images - and all of them did consistently better than those posts without images, regardless of the topic being discussed.

And that's when I had my epiphany moment!

- I realised the images don't detract from the words, even if the topic is a serious one, they add to it.
- I realised I could use images to show people my interpretation of the topic, but they would still read the words and would still be able to form their own vision of it!
- I realised that I preferred the look of my posts when they had images in them.
- I realised that I had opened a door to people who liked the post sharing the image on their Pinterest boards, something that had previously been impossible.

I would never have thought I would say this, but I am converted. If someone had told me at the beginning I would one day write this post, I would have laughed at them, but here I am writing it.

I now make sure I have at least one image per post, but I often have more.

That's not to say that I think a blog without images can't be successful - I don't believe that at all. I also don't like to tell people what they should or shouldn't do on their blogs, I just think if you don't use images, and you want an easy way to bring in more traffic, it's a definite option.

Tomorrow's post will talk in more detail about how to use images to boost your traffic.

Do you use images? Do you find they increase your traffic? Let me know in the comments :)

You can find me here: Twitter Bloglovin Pinterest and Instagram Please do stop by and say hi!