The Importance of Images in Content Marketing

It’s hard to imagine modern content marketing without pictures and infographics. Today, it’s hard to ignore users desire to see more and more graphics and visuals. Social media and other sites are now the main competition between companies. Images and videos are the keys to winning in this area of the Internet. So let’s figure out how to gain a competitive edge through visual marketing.

Why Visuals are Important for Content Marketing

Images are a important in marketing on any platform, including: websites, banners, advertisements, magazine posters, and everything in between. The ability to upload high-quality photos has resulted in companies increasingly using visual content in their marketing.

Images in advertisements bring on more emotion. Because of this, visuals in social media are often used to promote products, services, and brands. This is because of the physiological properties of our brains, which absorb images better, and faster, than text. More than 90% of the data processed by the brain are images. The brain can also remember and understand text better when pictures are next to it.

Images attract attention, evoke emotions, and stay in the memory longer. Typically, articles and other content with photos are more likely to be commented on and shared than with just text. For example, on Facebook, visual posts are interacted with 50% more often than text posts.

Images and photos are effective tools to bring about emotion in users and helps to form an idea of the product, and increase sales. However, if the images on the site are wrong, the overall perception of the site goes down. Users have questions about the quality of the products, and the level of trust in the seller drops.

Therefore, choosing quality images for the site is very important. Any effective content creation strategy confirms this. Images should match the overall concept of the site, fit the chosen color scheme, and agree with the subject.

How to Choose the Right Images for Websites and Other Content

Finding the right photos for content is no easy task, however, it can help to stick to some key tips.

How to create content with images? There are three ways: find free images, buy photos from special resources, or make them yourself.

You can use images for ads from photo stocks. Depending on the license, these sites offer images for non-commercial or commercial use.

Popular photo stocks include:

• Pixabay: Large database of free photos. You need to register to download;
• Unsplash: This service has a lot of atmospheric photos (landscapes or subject photos are more common);
• Freeimages: A free resource for downloading images, with a searchable collection;
• Pexels: This is a database of free high-quality images. You can search by subject or photographer.

You should be careful when choosing images at stock sites as many pictures are already used on other sites. Also, there are stale pictures on photo stocks with smiling people who do not evoke any emotions.

Using images found on Google is not legal as the images are protected by copyright. However, using such photos is possible by applying a special license filter.

In addition to free photo stocks, there are paid resources where you can buy photos. The most popular photobank is Shutterstock, which offers many quality images, videos, and illustrations on any subject.

Taking your own photos and using unique content can help you to attract the attention of customers, and stand out from competitors. With the help of such images, a company can present itself on the Internet as a reliable organization that cares about its representation. Marketing strategy images can be ordered from a professional photographer or made by yourself.

 

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What Images Can be Used in Content Marketing

Several types of images can be used in modern content marketing.

Infographics

Readers use text to solve problems: looking for answers to questions, learning interesting facts, or wanting to have fun. Mix up the material with infographics to make it easier to absorb the information. This is a way of presenting text in a graphic image.

Infographics are often used to format boring statistics, chronologies, comparisons, and visualization of algorithms. Data can be presented as drawings and as charts, diagrams, and schemes. The main thing is to design competently: an informative picture should also be attractive, and vice versa.

Memes

This format is still at the top of user content. Using memes in content marketing helps you speak to your audience using the same language as friends, rather than impersonal business commodities. In addition, laughter is a positive emotion that makes you want to share the picture with others. It’s also a very pleasant association with your brand.

Screenshots

Screenshots are the main tool for designing instructions, recommendations, and tips. For example, you can use it to add a fragment of a conversation to explain to the user how to perform some action. This is a great way to demonstrate any web product: from a game review to a designer’s portfolio. People like visibility and trust screenshots, so using them appropriately can increase engagement.

Stock Photos

A few tips for choosing stock images that can help increase conversion rates:

• Don’t use trivial associations. They cause the audience not interest but irritation.
• It is better to insert a photo that the reader can relate to themselves—for example, a portrait of a student in a school brochure, or a nurse in a hospital pamphlet.
• Pictures with an emotional message increase conversions.
• Use new photos: choose images by the date they were uploaded. The newer the picture, the more likely it is that no one has used it in their design yet. You also can edit them with the services like this site.

People respond better to visuals. They are more active in liking, saving, and sharing content with their friends. You can create useful and interesting content for any audience. The main thing is to track and make note of what your readers like best. Lovers of good humor like memes, and a more serious audience prefers statistical infographics, while product buyers may be more interested in reviews. Don’t be afraid to experiment until you get the response you want.

How to Promote Visual and Textual Content

We’ve described the importance of pictures in content marketing, as well as tips for selecting the right ones for your publications. Unfortunately, even the most interesting pictures in marketing strategies do not attract users from search engines. Organic traffic is only possible if several factors are met, including the uniqueness of the text and the use of the guest posting. You can improve the SEO parameters of your site on your own by using different tools. For example, backlink service linksmanagement.com. With the help of such services, you can create a link base for your site.

Wrapping Up

When creating a visual, where and how it will be placed is important. Here are some tips for using pictures in content marketing:

• Large sections of text tend not to be read to the end. Dilute articles and long reads with photo content to improve the perception of the text.
• Users view the page in parts. Try to divide the site into meaningful blocks, and create separate areas that attract attention.
• Images of people can help improve the perception of the content.
• Visual content should be linked to textual information.

In any case, images in content marketing are very important. This is one of the key components for text materials, websites, interfaces, and social media posts. Because of this, the demand for creative designers is growing every year. But don’t forget that the text should also be interesting and engaging.

For more information on how to incorporate images into your site, please contact us here or though the fore below.