Dreamstime
What is a vital component of any well-rounded marketing campaign? Content marketing.
The benefits are twofold: 1) Your content marketing exposes your brand to potential customers, 2) it enhances your off-site SEO efforts by providing backlinks and brand mentions. This then reinforces with Google, and other search engines, your reach, and authoritativeness.
But what if you aren’t ensuring the content within your marketing is high-quality? Having relevant, professional images embedded in your content marketing offers many additional advantages.
Are you ready to hear more? Let’s dive in.
Visual Engagement
Here are the facts: humans are visually oriented creatures. It can be hard to capture the attention of potential clients with words alone. Especially these days, when time and attention spans are in short supply.
Adding compelling images to your content can immediately convey to readers a sense of what the article is about. No matter the subject, Dreamstime offers millions of images (over 183 million as of this writing!), covering thousands of subjects and topics.
You’ll have no problem finding the exact images you need to compliment your content marketing pieces. Place an eye-catching banner graphic at the top of your article, along with a few images throughout the body, to keep readers engaged.
Professional Appearance
In addition to images capturing attention and prolonging engagement, using the right images can give your content pieces an extra layer of professionalism.
What is the right image? The right image is, of course, any image that is relevant to your content and target audience. The right image is also one that is clearly the work of a professional photographer or graphic designer. Anything less than a top-notch quality image will make your content appear amateurish.
Top-notch images are where Dreamstime excels. Images at Dreamstime are created by professionals at the top of their game – then curated by top-quality image editors. You don’t have to waste time wading through hundreds of sub-par images – you’ll find the perfect image in no time.
Great images are constantly being added, too. The community’s forum is home to photographers and designers, who help each other get even better at their craft.
Expanding Search Engine Visibility
Humans aren’t the only audience who likes images.
Search engines like Google and Bing are acquiring one more piece of valuable information about your business with every image. These search engines are massive drivers of quality, targeted traffic to websites.
Ensuring your content is full of relevant images will allow you to draw new potential customers in.
Images Can be Active
Adding images to your content marketing won’t just improve your search engine visibility.
Using images to highlight calls to action can turn passive readers into active participants. Attractive, well-designed illustrations with “Learn More” or “Sign Up for Free” are a great way of encouraging readers to keep viewing your content. This is how you create new customers.
Images Create Emotional Connections
All good content marketing should do one thing: connect with its audience.
It’s not enough to simply supply information to readers, you want them to care about the information you’re providing. How does it affect them directly? How can they put your information into action in their lives?
Enhancing your content with effective images can generate an emotional response. You’re showing your audience examples of what the information in your words is conveying. The mental images people create while reading isn’t always the same, and they may not be exactly what you’re trying to convey.
By using professional stock images, you can help produce the exact emotional impact you want – reducing opportunities for misinterpretation or lack of connection.
Consistent Use of Images Helps Readers “Follow the Scent”
There’s a term in content marketing, known as “follow the scent”. What does that mean?
Essentially, if your reader encounters a piece of content marketing on the web, and then encounters the same message on your website, it helps them create a mental connection between the two. It builds trust that your website is the source of the content they’d encountered elsewhere.
Not effectively aligning your content to your website can be jarring, confusing, and potentially viewed as spammy. One great way to help readers follow the scent is by using similar imagery in both your content and landing pages.
With Dreamstime, you can do just this! You’re free to use images in content, in your emails, and on your website. Create a visual connection that’s easy for new customers to follow and recognize across your entire brand identity.
It’s Affordable
Despite the benefits mentioned above, you may be concerned that acquiring professional imagery might be too expensive. As a freelancer, this is a completely understandable concern – ideally, you’re looking to save money where possible.
Marketing budgets can’t always be as big as you’d like, so you need to make sure every expense matters. The good news? Despite the exemplary quality of the images at Dreamstime, the price is extremely affordable. Oftentimes, images are as low as $0.20 USD per image. At that rate, you can easily populate your content pieces with visual media to take it to the next level.
Plus, with purchase options in the form of credit packages, subscriptions, and custom plans, you’re sure to find a budget-friendly option.
Conclusion
Let’s wrap it up. If you’re not using high-quality, professional images in your content marketing, then you may be missing out on a lot of visitors.
Images create connections with readers, encourage engagement, and can lead to sales when used as calls to action. They offer additional information that search engines love and can open your content up to new sources of organic traffic.
Best of all, adding images to your content marketing is extremely cost-effective. No matter your budget, large or small, it’s a truly game-changing marketing tactic.
So, what are you waiting for? Are you ready to create a content marketing plan that wins over your audience?
Ready to get hired? At Twine, we have dozens of top-quality jobs being posted each and every day. From design to marketing, development to copywriting – there’s a job ready for your skills. Join the marketplace of diverse creative talent here.
Michelle Payne
WordPress.com
Becca
