Include an Image in Blog Post: Day 17 of the 2015 October Platform Challenge
As mentioned last Saturday, we’re getting into a rhythm with making at least one post per week on your blog. If you post on a different day than Saturday to…
As mentioned last Saturday, we're getting into a rhythm with making at least one post per week on your blog. If you post on a different day than Saturday to accommodate your previous posting schedule, that's totally fine too. Each week, we have a different focus.
Include an Image in Blog Post
For today's platform-building task, include an image in your regularly scheduled blog post. If you're already doing this, great! Make sure you know why, and how to optimize your images.
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Blogging is a great way to reach new readers, because it’s free and when done well can help writers develop an online writing platform. Of course, the problem is in doing it well. Enter the Blog Your Way to Success kit from Writer’s Digest.
This kit includes:
- 50 Ways to Increase Your Blog Traffic tutorial
- How to Blog a Book e-book
- Build Your Author Platform Through Blogging webinar
- Author Blogs webinar
- And much more!
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Why to Include Images in Blog Posts
Here are a few reasons for including images in blog posts:
- More appealing design. One major reason to include images in posts is that it helps with the design. For better or worse, images draw people in--and the words make them stay (hopefully).
- Search engine optimization, or SEO. Images can help your posts appear in search results, especially if you title the image with the same key search term for the blog post. We'll get into more SEO details later this month, but image file names are a trigger.
- Complements the writing. As a good book cover can help enhance the words in a book, a good (relevant) image can help enhance the experience of reading a blog post. When I interview poets, I include a head shot and book cover (if available). If nothing else, I include my own head shot on blog posts.
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Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Content Editor of the Writer’s Digest Writing Community, which includes editing Writer’s Market and Poet’s Market. He regularly blogs at the Poetic Asides blog and writes a poetry column for Writer’s Digest magazine. He also leads online education, speaks on writing and publishing at events around the country, and does other fun writing-related stuff.
A published poet, he’s the author of Solving the World’s Problems (Press 53) and a former Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere.
Follow him on Twitter @RobertLeeBrewer.
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Check out these other There Are No Rules posts:
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
