The laptop of someone ready to use images in blog posts on their business website

Do you use images in blog posts?

I always thought it was a no-brainer, and yet I keep bumping into incredibly offputting text-only articles.

At the same time, chucking a bunch of random images without resizing them nor following a strategy isn’t going to benefit your company blog either.

So, let’s look into how to do it properly.

Should blog posts have images?

Yes, blog posts should DEFINITELY have images… unless you want to scare your readers away with a huge blog of text, that is!

No wonder articles with pictures get 94% more views than those without them.

Adding images to blog posts comes with quite a few benefits:

Business owner adding images to blog posts

They complement your written content, helping readers visualise certain concepts, find visual summaries, or make the most of infographics
They break meaty sections of text, making it easier to read long articles
They offer SEO opportunities through their alt-text tags (more on that later)
In some cases, images in blog posts can even help you reinforce your brand

What type of images should I use in my blog posts?

Photographer shooting images for blog posts

You have several options when it comes to looking for and using images in your blog posts, and they mainly depend on your time and budget.

So, don’t worry:

if you’re just starting out or have already invested a lot of money in something else, you DON’T necessarily need to pay hundreds of pounds every month for custom images. I promise!

I’m gonna give you different options on how to create or find images for blog articles… for all kinds of needs and budgets (including £0).

Stock images

Stock photos are a fantastic way to start adding images to blog posts, and I’ll be honest: in many cases, they might be all you need.

You just have to make sure that you’re not using someone else’s pictures illegally.

Some terms are confusing—which doesn’t help—so let’s clarify them once and for all:

Royalty-free images aren’t necessarily free: they just mean that you don’t have to pay an on-going fee to use them, but you might have to buy the images in the first place. For example, you can find royalty-free images for which you only pay a one-off fee on Shutterstock
Copyright-free images can be used without limitations. While there might be fewer and less specific options compared to paid royalty-free platforms, you can still find a ton of free images that you can use legally without getting in trouble. For real. Some of my favourite websites for high-quality free images for blog posts are Unsplash, Pexels, and Pixabay

If you want to take your stock images to the next level to maintain a cohesive feel that’s on brand, you could also:

Look for photos including your brand colours
Use pictures with a similar palette (e.g. all with a white background or pastel colours)
Stick to a specific vibe, such as minimalist pictures with a single element or two

Shoot your own

If you have the resources for it, you can stand out even more by shooting your own pictures.

For example, you could use photos of your own restaurant or food items even if you’re tackling wider culinary topics.

In many cases, it’ll even make sense to include your actual product pictures. Maybe you’ve written an article on “the benefits of linen bedding” and you actually sell linen bedding yourself… it’d be crazy not to include a picture of it and a link to its product page, right?

Include screenshots in tutorials

Sometimes, screenshots might be relevant for your blog posts, and that’s especially the case for online tutorials.

If you’re explaining to your readers how to edit a picture on Photoshop, it’d be much easier and more effective to add a screenshot with arrows and circles that highlight the next step… rather than trying to explain everything with words.

Use editing software or platforms

If you have enough time to dedicate to them but not a great budget, you can create your own images using either free or paid graphic tools.

These are especially useful for infographics—an excellent type of highly shareable images for blog posts!—as well as graphs and images that summarise key concepts.

Although you can pay for premium features, Canva is the most popular free option. Other alternatives to create your own images for blog posts are Visme, Adobe Creative Cloud Express (formerly Adobe Spark), Design Wizard, and Easil.

Commission them to a graphic designer

Would you rather save time than money? Then the best and most professional option is obviously to get a professional to create images for your blog posts, and especially to keep them on brand.

This could be an in-house graphic designer, a freelancer with whom you only collaborate when you actually need some new images, or platforms to which you pay a monthly retainer (like Design Pickle).

Best practices when using images in blog posts on your business website

Professional choosing images for blog posts

So, we’ve established why you should totally use images in your blog posts and understood where to find them.

Is that enough to use them successfully?

Nope.

Here are some steps that you just can’t afford to ignore.

1. Only upload high-quality images

Some badly cropped or pixelated pictures aren’t going to do you any favours!

Remember: you’re not using images in blog posts just for the sake of including them. You’re using them to add value to your readers.

Would Coca Cola or IKEA use crappy images on their website?

No, and neither should you.

Stick to high-quality options that help you look professional.

2. Resize & compress your blog post pictures

Super high-quality images are a must… but they can actually backfire if you don’t upload them correctly!

This is because they’re heavy, so they’ll end up slowing down your page loading time. And nobody has got time to wait an additional three seconds online in the 21st century.

So, here’s what to do before uploading these images:

Resize them: no point in using a huge and heavy 4000-pixel image when the average screen width is 1920 pixels. And your images might not need to be that big either: maybe your blog page is actually a little smaller? Maybe you’re adding text around them so they’ll only need to be 700 pixels or so in width?
Compress them: even after being resized, pictures are heavier than they should be because they carry additional information that you don’t actually need. Websites like TinyJPG allow you to get rid of them without compromising on quality
Use plugins: this might be more or less relevant depending on what platform you’re using to host your business website. For example, when you add photos to WordPress blogs, it’d be handy to use plugins like EWWW Image Optimizer or Imagify
Consider using a CDN. This isn’t just useful for images: it simply helps you reach users worldwide with the fastest loading speed possible, but it’s even more relevant if you’ll be using lots of images on your website since they all add up. Some of the most popular providers are Cloudflare and CloudFront

3. Understand where to use images in blog posts

Here are my main tips on how to place images in blog posts strategically:

Include a blog post header image: this will be the main picture for a specific blog post, and it’ll appear above the fold (before your users scroll down)
Use your images to break up your body of text
If your platform doesn’t automatically use your header image on socials, include a social sharing image, too: that way, when you or your readers share your blog post on social media, it’ll appear with a relevant picture rather than your logo

4. Include relevant alt-text

Remember when I mentioned that images are good for SEO?

This is because they offer you yet another chance to include relevant keywords through their alt-text tag.

This doesn’t mean that you should just repeat your keyword over and over again!

Only when it actually describes the picture.

For example, if your main keyword is ‘styling vegan dresses’ and you’re including a picture of someone showcasing one, your alt-text could be ‘model styling a vegan dress with a denim jacket’.

Basically, when you do it properly, using images in blog posts will benefit your SEO, readers, and overall content strategy!

Need a hand with the blog on your female-founded business website?

Are you guilty of forgetting about the blog on your business website for months? Not sure how to optimise your articles for SEO so that they can actually reach people via Google?