You may have noticed that I have at least one image in every blog post I make. Yes, this is mostly because I’m a graphic artist and wish to promote myself, but it also serves another purpose.

In the online community image is everything. While content is the most important aspect of your web site, the look and feel of your pages, blogs, and ezines also play a part in converting one time visitors into returning visitors.

Images in any web page or blog post act like white space, especially when you have a lot of text. They help to break up the text giving the visitor a break from reading. They also help to make the page look more appealing to the visitor and increase the visibility of your articles.

However, you can’t just slap any old graphic in there and leave it at that. Some important things to consider when adding images to your blog are:

• Does the image relate the topic you are discussing?
• Is the image a convenient physical size?
• Is the image properly optimized for quick online viewing?
• Is the image in a format that is easily viewed by all browsers
• Is the image royalty-free?
• Along the same vein, is the image copyrighted by someone else?

I should explain. Royalty-free images mean that you do not have to pay a fee to someone every time you use that image. It does not however mean that they are not copyrighted. The artist may have specific instructions regarding their artwork such as requiring a link back to their own site and receiving proper credit in each post.

You can use your own photos, find royalty-free photos and images by doing a search on a search engine, or you can commission a graphic artist to create a custom-made image for you.

Pam Sargant
Graphic Artist/Illustrator/Writer/Song-writer
Owner of Delaney Imaging
Author of Mother’s Survival Kit and Christmas Survival Kit (Coming Soon!)

Share This