This, That, and The Other

Dr. Tanya at Salted Caramel, is continuing her series on Blogging Insights, and in this one, she wants to know how we feel about images. She asks:

1. How important are images to a blog post?

In my opinion, they are very important. When I write a post I will generally search Google, Pixabay, Unsplash, Pexels, DeviantArt, and/or my own photo library for an image that perfectly illustrates or complements my written words. Sometimes it takes me longer to find just the right image than it does to compose the post. And, it’s important to credit the artist or photographers whose images you use in your posts.

And then there are picture/image prompts that are used to stimulate a blogger’s imagination and creativity by prompting stories or poems crafted about the presented image.

So, bottom line, whether an image is used to complement the words in a post or is used to stimulate a story around the image, I think they add value to a post, which is why I never publish a post that doesn’t have some visual image as part of it.

2. What is the role of images in blog traffic and reader engagement?

I don’t have any scientific data about the role of images in either blog traffic or reader engagement, but I would venture a guess that it has a positive impact on both.

3. How many images on average do you use in a blog post?

For most of my posts I use just one and it’s usually at the top of the post. For some Q&A-type posts, I might illustrate more than one of my answers with images.