As the nature of online browsing has changed, so has the demand for new and intriguing forms of content. Many years ago, a simple combination of text and GIFs could be enough to convey thoughts and entertain the masses. Today, however, it takes much more effort to reach your audience, persuade them and ultimately entertain them.

Given massive advancements in internet speeds, bandwidth and content creation ability, more people than ever prefer to enjoy visual forms of content. This can come in many forms, including videos, photos and images – each audience will have different unique desires in this regard.

Regardless of your audience, there are plenty of reasons to serve up visual content. Today, let’s take a look at the reasons why you should be doing so.

Visual Content Encourages Engagement

Fundamentally, people enjoy visual forms of content because it is simpler to digest. Whether it be on social media, via email or found through search engines, visual content allows for quick absorption of even complex concepts. Likewise, less time spent on figuring out what a particular piece of content is about leaves more time for audiences to engage with or boost the content in question.

Through social media comments, likes and shares or even the quintessential email forward to friends and family, visual content ensures audiences are pinging URLs and generating other forms of engagement more effectively. While videos often generate the most meaningful boosts in engagement, they do require more effort to produce; even simpler forms of visual content like images and infographics can bolster engagement in meaningful fashion.

Visual Content Permeates More Search Results

Another massive reason why visual content should feature highly in your broader content creation strategy is the fact that it makes for a great multi-pronged search engine targeting effort. With most forms of written content, you can only hope to target generic search results (or maybe news results, if applicable).

With visual forms of content such as videos and images, not only can the pages these forms of content are on rank in search results, but the visual elements themselves can be optimized to appear in image-based and video-based search results. Particularly for search engines like Google (where many use image search to find specific forms of visual content), this can be a big boon for SEO and content distribution in general.

Visual Content Is In High Demand

Ultimately, audiences are seeking shorter and more concise forms of content in a world where they are bombarded with an intense number of messages each day. Whether it be as a form of distraction or a necessary piece of information, pinging URLs to visual content – particularly those that can be digested quickly – is a great way to resonate with audiences.

Many short-form visual content offerings are now very popular, with entire platforms (such as TikTok) existing to promote such items. Fundamentally, using visual content can help you reach audiences that will either rely on you to satisfy their needs or seek out others who will do so.

Visual content is better at producing engagement, in incredibly high demand today and can allow your brand to reach a greater number of people via search results. If any of these reasons sound promising to you, then you have no reason not to embrace this strategy ASAP!