Cultivating an extensive, reliable and informative online content repository is one of the biggest aspects of successful brand marketing and growth. For many, blog posts and articles are one of the easiest ways to provide information, persuade readers, entertain audiences and otherwise grow any digital presence.

While written content remains one of the most popular types of contents for users and brands alike, incorporating various forms of multimedia in this content is crucial. In particular, images provide an easy way to further describe ideas and concepts, while also breaking up the monotony of longer form content.

Let’s examine what you should consider when choosing the best images for your content.

Use Unique and Original Images

There are plenty of posts and pages using high-quality stock images and professional photography, but believe it or not, these do have drawbacks. For starters, they are generally very vague or generic, making it less likely that the images truly enhance the quality of your content. Additionally, the cost of using select stock images can add up over time – especially if there are free alternatives.

Using your own photos or custom-made images often will produce better results in terms of engagement, so use this option whenever possible.

Be Specific

All too often, brands, blogs and businesses settle on pinging websites with placeholder imagery rather than specific images that enhance the value of the content. This is especially true in the case of tutorials and other how-to content. What is a good option to circumvent this common faux-pas?

Where possible, the use of screenshots and walkthrough images provide lasting value that also accomplishes a common goal of image use (i.e. breaking up the monotony of content). By providing readers with a step-by-step walkthrough of the content in question – enhanced by the images included – you’ll automatically outdo a good percentage of your competitors’ efforts.

Consider the Tone and Context

Different posts and different audiences require different considerations when dealing with images. A younger audience browsing a more laissez-faire piece of content may appreciate cartoon images, animated GIFs and other forms of entertaining imagery. A formal content offering aimed at a more professional or mature audience, on the other hand, may be better suited for a different type of image inclusion.

Whatever the choice, be sure that your images fit with the theme, tone and context of the content in question. Otherwise, you might miss the mark and fail to improve the content’s overall quality.

Summarize Content

There’s nothing better than a detailed and informative piece of content, but have you considered using images as an secondary way to provide such information? With those who prefer to read alongside those who are visual learners, ensuring that your content is useful to as many as possible should be a top priority.

Images such as infographics can be a great way to add multimedia to any written form of content while also providing meaningful summaries of the information provided. Not only this, but information-infused images also tend to be more widely shared, pinging websites with links back to you and helping your brand to improve visibility.

When, where and how to use images in content remains a somewhat subjective debate, but there are clear yes and no situations for each type of image. By using unique images, providing relevant imagery, summarizing content via the images themselves and always being aware of the tone, you’ll get the most out of each piece of content when including them.