Blog Images: More than Hunky-dory

Fun For Hunkydory Little Golden Book cover

Can you recall a cover image from a favorite book that you read as a child?  One of my favorite children’s books was a Little Golden Book titled, “Fun For Hunkydory.”  After all these years, I can’t forget the book’s cover image of a cute little puppy playing in the grass.

And, consider the popularity amongst adults of the new social network site, Pinterest.  Talk about images galore!

Without doubt, pictures and images within books and media for children and adults convey meaning and can make lasting impressions on readers and users.

But, what about blog posts?  Why should a blog author include images inside a post?

I can list two reasons to include images within blog posts:

1.  Visual Learning – Many individuals who read blog posts are visual learners.  The visual learning Wikipedia entry cites an Institute for the Advancement of Research in Education study titled, “Graphic Organizers: A Review of Scientifically Based Research,”  which concluded that “visual learning improves student performance in the areas of retention, comprehension and organization.”  If you’re trying to convey a concept within a blog post, including a relevant image will likely help you be more effective in that effort.  Also, including images within your longer posts may help keep readers interested in reading the entire post.
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – After attending a recent SEO workshop sponsored by QIC Learning and led by SEO expert Phil Buckley, I was reminded of the fact that crawling search engines today respond favorably to tagged images on blog and standard Web pages.  Properly tagged images within blog posts can help you optimize your Web site for SEO and increase the chances of your blog content surfacing higher in organic search results at popular search engine sites like Google.  The Digital Graphics Inform post, “The Importance of Tagging Photos for SEO,” provides tips for successfully tagging images for SEO purposes, and, if you’re seeking royalty-free images for your blog, check out DailyBlogTips.com’s post, “Where to Find Images For Your Blog.”

According to Dictionary.com, the word “hunky-dory” is an adjective meaning, “satisfactory. OK. fine.”

When it comes to visual learning and SEO, blog images are anything but.