First impressions of a website make a massive influence in the next steps a visitor will take. Using

images effectively will increase your loyal readership and decrease your bounce rate. People connect with images emotionally but they also set the scene for the post, so give your readers a visual feast and see how your readership improves.

Linking The Image To The Post

When using images it can actualy be detrimental to your blog if you use them incorrectly. Images are much more stimulating than text so if a person arrives at your site and there is a very interesting image followed by boring text then quite often that is all it take s to turn a reader off.

The paragraph following the image should hook the reader in. So work on that following paragraph. You also know that you don’t want to confuse your reader so I would advise that you make it clear in the following paragraph what the link to the image is.

Be Creative

Sometimes when I am looking for an image to use and I don’t know where to start I go

to google image search and just type in the topic of the post.  Then while browsing the images, there is usually an abstract one that is loosely tied to what I am talking about. I take that idea and go find a free image to use.

So if  my post was about cool tattoos and I searched for cool tattoos and the photo to the right came up, you know what I am going to use. Yeah, not a photo of a cool tattoo, that one.

Once you find the image you like you can enhance it by adjusting the colours and adding text over the image. As you can see in the example. I like to use text that links the image to the post:

Find A Source Of Quality Images

We want to improve the aesthetics of each post quickly and easily. If you are spending 30 minutes to find the right picture I would suggest you need to streamline the process. There are plenty of great image sources out there with free content if you only know where to look.

Here is a link that outlines the common resources, Free Images For Blogs,

However my new strategy for finding images is through Flickr

Here’s how to find images from Flickr that you can use for your website without infringing any copyrights.

Go to Flickr Advanced Search

At the bottom of the advanced options there are options for Creative Commons. I select all of these boxes as I usually edit the images a little bit and add text over them. Usually images that are cleared for commercial use are cleared for editing too.

SEO Your Images

As far as search engines are concerned an image is only as good as its meta data. The meta data is the Title, Caption and Description. Pay close attention to these attributes when you are uploading your photos. They are places where you can insert your keywords. By having great SEO on your images not only will your regular search rankings improve but also you may get some traffic from image searches. Read How To Dial In Your Keywords and 8 Essential Strategies To Improve AdSense Cashflow for more info on finding keywords that pay well.

Resources (sponsored)

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Digital Photography Secrets
Tricks And Techniques For Better Images With Your Digital Camera. Everything The Professionals Know, But Dont Want You To Know About Using Your Digital Camera To Take Stunning Photos.