Images, pictures, photographs or graphics are powerful weapons in the arsenal of a blogger. They are eye catching and amplify the contents of your post or article. They need to have the correct settings and they need to be treated before they benefit the article and ultimately the blog featuring it. We will go through a detailed run down of what to do with images. At the same time we will also cover the often asked question of how to do SEO of blog images.
Why does a post need images
Images are good to grab the attention of your readers. As per your theme, your post needs at least one image to be used as a featured image. Also when you share your article link to the social media, the featured image will be displayed along with the link as a thumbnail. Hence it is important that your best image is selected as a featured image. If one can summarize about images and type of articles, here is what can possibly come up.
- An article or a poem, a single image to bring out the essence or gist of your subject.
- A recipe, a picture of the ingredients and the steps to be followed. Once the dish is completed a few photos from various angles. One among them can be selected as a featured image.
- A product review, a series of images from different angles bringing out the features.
- A trip coverage, photographs of important landmarks and the destination.
- A tutorial, a series of screen shots covering the steps. You can also have a bulleted list in a slide show. The same can be placed at the end or shared on document sharing site.
You can also create your own graphics using the basic Office software like Microsoft Office or Open Office and save them as pictures to be used as blog images.
Source of images for your posts
Bloggers covering events or launches, or those going on trip or writing about a recipe, it is critical that they click their own photographs. Choice of DSLR or simple point and shoot camera depends on whether you want to learn photography or not. If not, then a good camera or even a high end smartphone should suffice. A few basic points for bloggers with a lens.
- Choose an option with powerful image stabilization features. Outdoor coverage does bring in the shaky hands.
- Charger or extra battery for the smartphone and spare batteries for the camera. A battery grip for the DSLR brings in two batteries instead of one, strongly recommended.
- Basic photo editing software or app is important. Basic touch ups do wonders.
- Indoor photos for food photography or product review needs some extra effort for lighting. Small investment gives rich dividends.
For the other categories like fiction writing, poetry or even generic topics like parenting or inspiration or house keeping tips, it is better to borrow or buy images. Search for sites with royalty free images or images with creative commons license.
DO NOT SIMPLY COPY IMAGES FROM OTHER WEBSITES. IT IS RUDE AND YOU WILL LOSE YOUR VIEWERS.
DO NOT FORGET TO GIVE CREDITS WHEREVER DUE.
In post SEO for blog images
Before you upload an image be sure to name it properly. Default image names esp if clicked from a camera or smart phone will be named as IMG_275.jpg or worse IMG_2384768_384756.jpg. It will be better if the image is renamed a more appropriate word like say a tree for the image shown below. Even better the name can be as descriptive as possible without being too long.
The image we shall consider is been used in thetimelock at the following URL
and the following meta data was provided along with the image.
- Title : Tree in a forest
- Caption : Tree at the edge of Ridge forest, New Delhi
- Description : Tree without leaves at the edge of Ridge forest, New Delhi
- Alt Text : tree in a forest in Delhi
Make sure that Alt Text is filled in since that is the field which is crawled by search engines apart from the caption. Description appears on the attachment page, if it is viewed by your readers. So made sure it is as detailed as possible. It also appears in a lightbox enabled slide show for images on your post
Read this article for a complete rundown on In post SEO for images.
Publish your post to social networks
Once your article is published, you will get a URL. In the permalink setting make sure the URL looks something meaning full like
and not something like this
or
You can paste the URL directly on social media sites like Facebook or Google Plus. The featured image will be displayed along with the link and a summary of your article also called as excerpts.
If your site settings are not configured properly, then only a link will be displayed.
When your article is ready, with the relevant images in place post them on the social media. If possible add the post URL too. If the featured image is not displaying properly, add it manually. If it is possible do include a couple of lines to describe in more details.
Social media gives you lot of coverage for your blog and posts. But it is all in vain for there is not two way traffic with your followers. Connect with your audience. A simple thank you note can suffice. Network with fellow bloggers and people with similar interests and interact with them. Interaction means more visitors to the link which you post to the social media.
Do not shoot down the messenger
Messenger apps like Whats App or Line are a rage these days. Pictures, Clips and Text messages go viral within few hours. Thats the popularity of these messenger apps and you should not be waiting to share your blog links on them. While posting the URL note some points though
- Make sure the featured image and excerpts are in place and are displayed properly in the messaging app.
- Do not spam the group of your friends with links.
- Join groups with similar interests, but you might not get easy access to such groups.
- Membership to groups is not exactly advertised online, but you might get lucky.
BEST OF LUCK WITH YOUR IMAGES!