Images speaks more than just plain text. You need to write hundreds of words to express your thought many times but a single image can express your thought easily. It is very rightly said that the images speak a thousand words.
Many publishers miss to add images with their articles as they write just for Search engines which is not always good because texts don’t engage users much but attractive images whether free or stock images can attract a lot of users.
Instead of writing thousands of words, you should use images to make things clearer even with lesser number of words. While you write a how to guide, you need to take screenshots, mark the points with some text over them and then add it in your article. It makes the guide easy to understand. Isn’t it?
Did you ever like to read a how to guide without images and screenshots? Probably not! Me too, I never like to read articles of any kind without images.
Let me list down the benefits of adding images in your articles:
- It adds attraction in your image. When an article link is shared over social media, do you ever put much attention over the text? I say NO! Rather your eyes stick to the images showing there and if it looks interesting you click to read the article.
So here, adding an attractive image in your article creates better chances of getting clicked and hence more traffic.
- Images add more SEO value. There are so much competition when it comes to rank your site with targeted keywords. Many SEOs forget to optimize images and lack image traffic. When you add an image in your article, always put keywords in the Alt section and give image a name which is either your keyword or related word so that they can drag traffic from Image search for you. I always do it with my blog posts and I get immense traffic from Google image search.
- Many times you are not able to write more than 300-350 words on particular topics and your article looks empty but you cannot help with words there as there is nothing to write more on the topic. In such condition, you can add images to make it look better and attractive.
So you can see how images can add more value to your blog both from SEO and attraction point of views.
How to find the best images?
There are many stock images websites where you can find the images and use it on your site but make sure to give them credits. Also before using any stock images, check out their licensing information. Google advanced image search is also a good option to find free images.