Imagery is an essential part of blogging as it supports, and even enhances, your blog's readability. You need relevant and quality pictures to make your blog visually appealing and engaging. These 5 tips for better-looking blog images can help you reach a wider audience, drive website traffic, and boost sales.

Adding pictures to blog posts allow you to tell a story, emphasize a point, and create structures to make texts readable. Things like creating moving images, adding human elements, retouching pictures, and using presets can help make a wide range of visuals for your website.

Edit Your Photos

Applying quick and simple edits to your photos can make a huge difference in how your blog looks. Not only does editing make your images look cleaner and more professional, but it allows your photos to be consistent throughout your site.

Even if you're new to photo editing, you can tweak elements such as exposure, white balance, and saturation using programs like Lightroom. You can even apply Lightroom presets and filters to make the editing process even easier. The great thing about Lightroom is that you can also edit whether you're using a phone, a tablet, or a laptop.

Add Explainer Images

The goal of putting pictures in blogs is to explain a complex idea or fact further. By hooking your readers' interest through explainer images, you urge them to stay longer on the website and grow your blog's traffic.

• Use diagrams or graphs where the bars or colors are moving to divide information into easily digestible visuals.
• Pictures don't have to be completely stationary. Use Adobe Photoshop to create GIFs, which consists of a series of photos or frames.
• Combine photos and infographics for data-heavy blog posts.
• Even with a still image, you may draw shapes, lines, and arrows that can lead viewers to the crucial details.
• Use After Effects or Canva to emphasize pull-out quotes. You can also add special effects, elements, and stickers.

Create a Human Element

Faces are unique, making pictures with human elements sell. Readers spend 10% more time looking at images of people on a website than the text associated with the photos.

While stock photos are excellent resources, you would want to avoid photos that feel fake.

Make sure that the images resonate with the viewers, and they relate to the blog post.

Meanwhile, you can try planning what photos would work well with your blog. For example, if you're writing something about food for kids, include your children, nieces, or nephews in the frame to create a sense of movement.

Look for the Best Light

Regardless of it you’re shooting on your phone or a professional camera, one way to instantly make your photos look better is by looking for good light to take photos in. If you’re taking photos indoors, try to open up windows (and even doors) to allow natural light into the frame.

When taking photos outside, look for even, soft lighting. This can typically be found in shaded areas; however, if there’s no shade, place the subject with their back to the sun for even lighting. 

Resize and Optimize Images Properly

Image formatting and optimization are important whether you're using a headline photo or putting pictures within blocks of text.

If you want to add e-commerce photos, a good rule of thumb is to keep the file size below 70kb.

Use vertical formats if you're pinning blog pictures. Pinterest organizes pins into columns, so vertical pins tend to stand out more. In this case, 600 x 900 pixels is the ideal aspect ratio.

A WordPress image size of 1200 x 628 pixels generally satisfies most WordPress themes.

Make sure not to oversize your pictures because it can take longer for your site to load, and this can cause users to bounce from your site.

Conclusion

As the saying goes, "A picture is worth a thousand words". With these tips, you can combine words, videos, and imagery to achieve high traffic, response, and retention for your blog.