College is a great time to launch a blog. You can share your experience and pro tips. And there is a great audience to attract. Of course, there are many ways to increase a blog’s popularity and engagement. But the focus of this article is visuals of all sorts.
Some bloggers might disregard them as a valuable part of success. After all, isn’t it about writing? Well, blogging is not as simple as just being a good narrator.
Incorporating visuals is a necessity to attract more readers and followers. If you want a quality piece, order a custom essay writing by Essayservice.com for your assignment and use your free time to research the visuals. Read this coverage of the benefits of visuals, the science behind it, and the types to use.
Just Text Is Not Enough
According to a Nielsen Norman Group report, the online audience reads only about 20% of the text of 600+ words. It is incredibly hard to hold one’s attention these days with just words.
The audience’s attention span has also decreased in recent years. So even a well-researched and easy-to-read post is not enough on its own. Here is where visuals can help.
People Prefer Illustrations
91% of the audience prefer visual content. Think about the popularity of social media that focuses on it – YouTube, Instagram, TikTok. Pinterest has almost exclusively pictures, yet it is extremely popular worldwide. It is much easier and more entertaining to consume visuals than any other type of content.
Our Brain Is All About Visuals
It has to do with the way our brains work. 90% of information humans retain is visual. Half of our brain is devoted to its fast and easy processing. Data received visually is processed 60,000 times faster than text!
Students don’t have a lot of free time. It is easier for them to communicate important messages, key points, or numbers via vision.
It Is Easier to Remember
Visuals information is much more memorable. According to recent studies, just three days after reading, users could only remember about 10-20% of the information. And this is in case they’ve read it fully attentively. On the contrary, they were able to retain 65% of the information given in the visual form.
Want something to be remembered in your post? Make it into an infographic!
It Makes Long Posts Enjoyable
It is not a secret that blog posts with 3,000+ words do better. The reason is simple – people want to get all the necessary information in one place instead of skimming through a multitude of sites.
The only downside is that such posts can be very scary if they are not formatted correctly. A wall of text without paragraphs, pictures, or at least bullet points doesn’t look appealing.
Overall, even pictures or photographs from free sites like Unsplash are going to make any post more enjoyable. It helps to break the text down into reasonable chunks of information and give the reader a rest. Embed a picture approximately every 400 words and the audience will spend more time on your blog.
It Makes Blog Skimmable
Such mediums as infographics are amazingly effective. They allow making a post skimmable with a focus on the most important data. Even if a reader skims through, they can get a pretty well idea of your key points or ideas.
It Helps to Explain Difficult Concepts
As a result of all mentioned above, people understand visual information much better. So if you are working with difficult concepts and theories, infographics or charts are the best way to explain them.
A simple pie chart is much more comprehensive when it comes to statistics and numbers. It allows making any data vivid, graphic, and engaging. Otherwise, those are just boring numbers that say little about the ideas in the text.
It Is Great for SEO
Google has an image SEO feature. So it is another way to rank higher and get more exposure as result. Of course, you’ll have to optimize the imagery with SEO-friendly captions and use reasonable sizes so they do not load for ages.
The good thing is that there is a decent variety of imagery to choose from, like:
- Photos;
- Infographics;
- Screenshots;
- Illustrations;
- Quotes;
- Social media posts;
- GIFs;
- Memes;
- Videos.
It Is Sharable
Pictures are more likely to bring engagement and shares. Infographics can easily go viral while being shared on social media platforms. The same goes for any original type of visuals. You can embed pull quotes, charts, screenshots, etc.
All these shares are free exposure and brand awareness as well as a way to generate a lot of backlinks. Just do not forget to use distinctive design and branding, watermark, or other ways to show users that this original content is from your blog.
In Summary
The imagery of all kinds can make any blog more entertaining, memorable, and exciting. Infographics help to explain difficult concepts, visualize data, or establish your credibility. Photos and illustrations break down the text into manageable chunks. Videos and quotes diversify your content and allow ranking higher in search engines.
