As you’re creating your blog, we know that having good quality content is the most important thing to consider. Google recently updated their recommendations for webmasters to this effect.

One thing to keep in mind, though, is that text isn’t everything when it comes to the actual reading experience of your blog. Pictures are essential to creating visual interest and engaging readers’ attention.

As an example, think about the front page of your local newspaper (those of you who still get a newspaper…). You have the attention-grabbing headline, and typically a nice big picture as well. More than anything else, the photo draws you in and makes you want to read the story to find out what’s going on.

Articles with no picture are typically reserved for the interior stories, editorials, and so forth; items with lower priority than the front page. These stories are what you come to after you’ve already opened the paper. If you think of your blog as a newspaper, though, every article needs to be attractive enough to encourage readers to keep reading. Every new post is its own entity published at its own time; a new issue, if you will.

For another example, consider the following two screenshots:

The post with the photo looks much more appealing, doesn’t it? That’s why on every MWD Web post you’ll find that photo up at the top right.

As an added bonus, pictures make your readers more likely to share your site across their social networks. Straight from Google’s recommendations, they’re looking for “high-quality sites that users will want to use and share!”

This topic brings up three corollary questions that we’ll cover over the next three weeks.

1. How do I choose the right images for my blog?
2. Where do I find these perfect images?
3. How do I edit them to the size, etc. that I need them to be?

Stay tuned for the fascinating answers to these burning questions!

Photo Credit: Skype Nomad via Compfight cc