How Visual Content Engages Your Readers in Blogs and Social Media
Today’s Internet users are more visual creatures. They are less likely to read through a long block of text and prefer to watch videos or browse through a series of images to gather information. Using visual content as a social media marketing tool will ensure you engage your readers and keep them coming back for more. Internet marketing strategies that don’t fully utilize visual images will not perform as well as one that focuses on it.
Information Transmission is Largely Visual
According to studies, approximately 90 percent of the information that is transmitted to the brain comes in a visual format. In addition, these images are processed more than 60,000 times faster than reading simple text. For this reason, if you have something incredibly important to share with your readers, it’s best to say it with pictures, rather than words. This will ensure more of your readers retain the information.
Images Are the New Headline
The headline you write can play a major role in whether people will click on the link and continue to read the article. The same can be said for the images you choose. Visual content that appears near the top of the page will have a significant impact on whether people continue to view the content. Therefore, it’s necessary to put a lot of effort into finding the perfect image that not only reflects the topic of the content, but also is appealing to your readers.
Search Engines Love Images
Your content marketing strategy needs to implement images if you want to be successful online. Over the years, the search engines have changed their algorithms to reflect the needs of their users. Today, search engines look for relevant images on websites, along with tags that tell them what those images mean. However, it’s important to make sure you are using images properly, including tagging them appropriately to ensure they attract the attention of the search engines.
The Benefits of Visual Content
There are many benefits to using visual content as a social media marketing tool. For starters, images are much easier to share over social media platforms, especially if you’re focusing on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook. In addition, posts that include visual content of some type attract 94 percent more views than pages that may not use images at all or are limited in the number they use. Finally, visual content for websites helps breaks up the content and makes it easier for individuals to read. When the content is easy to read, it increases the chances people will spend the time reading it.
Types of Visual Content
If you want to engage your audience, it’s important to make sure you mix it up a bit. Using the same visual components won’t provide the results you’re looking for. There are nine basic types of visual content you can use in your blog and website:
- Videos
- Photography
- Screenshots
- Infographics
- Memes
- Comics
- Visual notes
- Miscellaneous graphics
Each of these images serves a different purpose. For instance, videos are an effective method of showing your readers how to do something or to get a message across in a unique way. Screenshots can be used as a tutorial as well. Infographics are a fast, easy way to share statistics in an interesting manner that will help your readers remember the information. Memes and comics allow you to share information in a humorous way.
The Rules of Visual Content
As part of your content marketing strategy, there are some rules to using images and other similar content. For instance, you should never use an image for the sake of using images. They should always serve a purpose. They should always be relevant and should never be boring. It’s also important to make sure they aren’t too large to prevent slow loading times.
Internet marketing strategies should address ways to effectively reach your target audience. Visual content for websites is essential to ensure you engage your target audience and keep readers coming back for more. This type of content is much easier to digest and will help you attract and retain readers better than any written content can.
If you’re looking for a content writing service that can help you with your visual content marketing, contact us. We can help you select images and create informative content that appeals to your readers.
