the art of great blog visuals. a bloggers guide
TRANSCRIPT
By Andy Merchant, Co-founder of Bloggers Required
A Beginners Guideto the Art of GreatBlog Visuals
A Beginners Guide to the Art of Great Blog Visuals
Every successful modern blogger incorporates of images into their blogposts. Why are they important? What visuals should you be exploring?What are the tools available to help you manipulate the media for betteruser experience? We will answer all these questions in this article.
Why are visuals important?Why are visuals important?The reasons to include visual content in your blog today outweigh thereasons not to.
1. It increases the number of views – An MDG Advertising study foundout that if you use photos when publishing a press release, you canincrease the views by 14%. Another study by Skyword shows that yourcontent views can increase by 94% on average if you use the relevantvisuals. Increasing your blog views will increase your blog’s appeal toadvertisers giving you a chance to monetize the blog or earn more money.
2. It increases your blog’s social media engagement – Every blogger wantsto increase the odds of visitors sharing the content on social media as itmeans more exposure and ultimately tra c. Using visual content will dojust that. Zabisco also indicates that 40% of the people will respond tovisual information better than text. Allowing visitors to share the visualcontent itself can boost the number of shares for your blog.
3. It increases leads for businesses – Businesses are looking towardsblogging as a marketing channel and those using visual content arewinning. Including a video and a photo on that press release will increaseits views by 45%. About 60% of the consumers will most likely contact or atleast consider a business that has images online. It builds trust; so sharethe photos of your business online.
A Beginners Guide to the Art of Great Blog Visuals
4. Helps visitors process the information – If you want your blog visitors tounderstand some information better, use visual art. The Optimal Targetingblog used an infographic to illustrate this point showing that up to 90% ofthe information that is transmitted to the brain is visual. This information isfrom 3M Corporation and Zabisco, who also indicate that the brainprocesses visuals 60,000X faster than text.
5. It allows you to say more – Not every blog visitor will nd time to gothrough your blog. If you can say more with less, the better. What betterway to do that than with visual art. According to Visual.ly, you can boostyour post engagement by 60% if you keep it below 250 characters.
6. According to SEOmoz blog posts with videos attract three times moreinbound links than plain text posts.
Popular bloggers using visuals wellPopular bloggers using visuals wellMany bloggers have mastered the art of using visuals. They captivate theiraudience knocking their competitors off the park. Here are some of them.
a) Information is Beautiful – This blog uses infographics to inform whileinspiring your next data visualisation, layout, or colour scheme. Theirinfographics are also interactive which make it fun. It is simply artistic.
b) Infographics Showcase – This blog shares infographics collection fromaround the web. The content is mainly infographics with minimum texts(exclusively for the title and a brief introduction).
c) This is Indexed – This blog uses wit to convey serious information andlessons. A quick browse on their blog might end up with you sharing theirsimple, yet powerful post on your timeline.
A Beginners Guide to the Art of Great Blog Visuals
Types of VisualsTypes of Visualsa. Images – When it comes to visual art, photos are the bare minimum.Choosing the right photo for your post will help drive your point home. Theimage can illustrate what the blog is describing or so simply inspire youraudience. It can be thought provoking or expressive. Use original imageswhen you can. You can also free images on sites like Morguefile.
b. Videos – Videos are ideal for informative or descriptive blogs. Videosenable your audience to relive a moment or see it actually happening. Youmight be a very talented writer but sometimes, there are no words todescribe some things (like a music performance), and you can just loseyour audience when explaining a point (like an exercise variation). Theyhave to see it, to believe or understand it.
c. Infographics – Infographics helps make complex data and statisticsmore understandable. It makes otherwise boring content morecompelling. Infographics are more likely to be shared due to theirintelligible visual displays. Using an infographic reduces the word countwhich is good for you and your audience.
d. Memes – A variation of images, memes are images with a humorouscaption. Humour is a good way of engaging your audience whether onlineor o ine. A good meme can easily go viral so you may want to watermarkyours to create more awareness of you blog.
A Beginners Guide to the Art of Great Blog Visuals
e. Presentation – Presentations help break up complex and lengthy contentinto small, understandable slides. They make communication moree ective. You can make a presentation on tools such as SlideShare andembed it on your blog.
f. Cinemagraph and GIF – What if you can use video or animated contenttogether with a still image? Well, you can with cinemagraph. You can usethis visual art to enjoy best of the both worlds. You can also incorporateeither an image or video element to form a GIF. GIFs are, however, usuallyused for light moments.
g. Emojis and Emoticons – If you love feedback on your blog why not askyour visitors to click or use an emoji instead of text. They will most likely bemore receptive to your request as emojis allow them to expressthemselves accurately. A study found that almost 70% of people say emojishelp express their thoughts more precisely. You can also substitute theemojis for the much simpler emoticons or stickers.
A Beginners Guide to the Art of Great Blog Visuals
How to create visualsHow to create visuals
Now that you know all the main visuals and their importance, how do youcreate them? Well, you could hire a designer who is an expert in creatingthem or do it yourself. You will rst have to decide on which type of visualis more appropriate for your blog post. For example, if you have businesscontent, a slideshow would be more professional while comedic contentwould work well with a meme. Mixing up those will be disastrous.
Decide on the call to action if any or just think about what you want thevisual to communicate. You can hyperlink your visual and if you want to,think about the landing content. Think about the content on you visual ingeneral and get it. Ensure that this content meets your goals. Ensure thatthe nal visual adds value to your blog post. If you are creating the visualyourself, there are many tools out there that will help you create theperfect visual once you settle for one.
What tools are used to create visuals?What tools are used to create visuals?A. CanvaYou could always go for the popular Photoshop to create images but Canvais a cheaper alternative. It is also easier and fun to use, and you can use itto create social media images to boost your blog. It comes with theFacebook, Twitter, Instagram, among other image sizes and types tochoose from. It also comes with backgrounds, banners, layouts, templates,fonts, and even free images to choose from but you have the option to useyours too. You can also use Pixlr, BeFunky or PicMonkey as an alternativeto Photoshop.
A Beginners Guide to the Art of Great Blog Visuals
B. PiktochartThis is a tool to create infographics easily. It saves you time, and you do nothave to be a designer to create the infographics. They have over hundredsof professionally-designed infographic templates for you to choose from,and they are constantly updating the library. They also have numeroustemplates for posters, presentations, and reports. You can add charts,maps, icons, videos or photos to the infographic. They also have severalfree images for you to choose from. You can also use Infogr.am to createinfographics or charts.
C. ThingLinkPlain images can be dull, but this tool makes them interactive. It allows youto add an informative icon on a picture or video. These icons will appearwhen you hover around the visual.
D. Haikudeck
When it comes to slideshows, you can either use PowerPoint, Slideshare orHaikudeck. Haikudeck is a free tool to create simple slideshows orpresentations. They o er free backgrounds, but you can upload one too.Haikudeck allows you to embed the presentation on your blog.
E. PowToon
If you want to create an animated video or presentation but you do nothave any animation skills, you can use PowToon. Animations are fun, andthis tool enables you to create them for free although you can upgrade formore functionalities.
F. QuickMeme
If you want to use memes instead, you can create one on QuickMeme. Allyou need is a good caption as they have all the popular templates.
A Beginners Guide to the Art of Great Blog Visuals
Where to source visualsWhere to source visuals1. Free Icons
If you are looking for free icons, The Noun Project has over 500,000 ofthem. While they have a NounPro where you have to pay $9.99 per monthfor unlimited access, they also have a free membership where you candownload icons for free
Other alternatives include: iconfinder.com, findicons.com andiconarchive.com
3. Free Images and Graphics
There are many sites to get free photos and Death to the Stock Photo isone of them. You can sign up and receive free, high-resolution photosmonthly to use in your blog. If you are looking for free historic pics, you canget them at New Old Stock. For the bloggers looking for free graphic les,you can get them at Free Pik.
Pixabay, Magdeleine, Good Free Photos, Public Domain Archive, andMorgue File are some of the other good sites to get free images.
3. Free Infographics
Piktochart & Canva allow you to create compelling and attractiveinfographics for free using their templates. These tools are easy to use,and you do not have to be a professional designer to create them. Theyalso o er you a free stock library if you do not have images to use on yourinfographic
A paid option is infogr.am. Prices start from $19.00 per month.
A Beginners Guide to the Art of Great Blog Visuals
4 GIF
Your rst stop should be giphy.com. Find GIFs with the latest and newesthashtags! Search, discover and share your favourite Gify GIFs.
Alternativesinclude: gifgifgifgifgif.com, gifbin.com and reddit.com/r/gifs
WP plugins to help source and create visualWP plugins to help source and create visual
1. WP Smush
This plugin allows you to compress images saving you space and speed upyour website. Many agree that it is the best plugin when it comes to imagecompression and optimisation. The images can be optimised eithermanually, automatically or in bulk.
A Beginners Guide to the Art of Great Blog Visuals
2. Video Thumbnails
This plugin makes it easy for video thumbnails to be automaticallydisplayed in your template. It supports sites such as YouTube, Vimeo,Facebook, Vine, Dailymotion, TED, among others
3. Infographics and Charts Plugins
Plugins such as Venngage Infographics , Infogram, and NVD3Visualisations allow you to create and share creative infographics andcharts on your WordPress site.
4. Embed code page generator
A plugin to show the embed code for a proper link to a graphic/image
5. Easy watermark
Allows to easily add watermark to images automatically on upload ormanually.
A Beginners Guide to the Art of Great Blog Visuals
6. Pixabay Images
Find quality CC0 Public Domain images for commercial use, and add themto your blog with just a click – attribution is voluntary.
Ideal images size for your blog and socialIdeal images size for your blog and socialWhat is the ideal size of a picture? Adding the wrong size of an image toyour blog can slow down your load time. This makes many people avoidadding images on their blogs to improve the speeds. However, using theright size of visual content when blogging will increase the user experienceas the load time will be acceptable and the content exceptional. One thingto note when uploading images is not to exceed the blog content width.
When it comes to uploading photos on social media, it depends on theplatform. Instagram’s display size is 1,080 pixels by 1,080 pixels, Twitter –1,024 x 512, Facebook 1,200 x 628, LinkedIn – 700 x 400, 735 x 1,102 forPinterest, and 800 x 1,200 for Google+.
Recent social media developments have shown us the importance ofmodern visual art. Furthermore, the growth of smartphone users meansthat users can now access such content seamlessly even when on themove. Adding visual art to your blog can increase your audience. Addinggreat blog images is an inexpensive exercise that you can do yourself, onceyou follow the steps outlined in this guide.
A Beginners Guide to the Art of Great Blog Visuals
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