Marketing Your Blog with Images

Images play an important role in your blog’s overall success.  Not only do images help the overall design of your blog, but they also help build traffic.  And what blogger doesn’t want more traffic?

Bloggers spend a lot of time marketing their blogs in order to boost their traffic, but the simple technique of adding images to your posts can add traffic organically.  There are two primary ways images can help you market your blog:

1. Traffic: In the simplest terms, images extend your blog’s reach by providing additional opportunities for searchers to find you.  For example, I have been watching the site traffic reports for two of my business blogs’ closely, and determined that Google image searches consistently drive more traffic to my blogs than Google keyword searches.  For one of my business blogs, Google image searches drove 300% more traffic to my blog during the past month than Google keyword searches, and for my other business blog, the difference was 40%.  I’m not an SEO expert (I’m a marketer), but the lift is considerable and not to be ignored.  Of course, the difference is not typically that large (usually, it’s about a 20% lift), but the potential does exist to bring in significant traffic through Google image searches.  At the same time, it’s important to remember that your images need to be named strategically for searchers to find them.  Take some time to think about how you name your images just as much as you think about how you name your posts.
2. Design: Images help the visual appearance of your blog.  First, they add interest to your page and can help catch a reader’s attention.  They also help to break up pages that are very text heavy making those pages seem less overwhelming.  Additionally, images might tempt readers to stay on your page and read more of the content on your blog.  When adding images to your blog, remember to remove the link associated with them if it’s not helpful to your readers, size your images consistently and place them in consistent positions within your blog posts for the maximum visual appeal, and include margins around your images (Vspace and Hspace equal to at least 10) to provide visual relief through white space between the images and text.  

Of course, it takes some time to add images effectively in each post, but it’s a good habit to get into to help reach your traffic goals.  And every little bit helps, right?