Commonsense.
Many seasoned bloggers and content writers will tell you that you must have a glaring big headline picture at the top of your post. But is it really worth it?
Almost of the headline banners and sliders attached to the top of posts are repurposed stock images, or the result of stealing an image after a 1 minute search on Google. You’ll know the ones I mean, a smiling woman pointing to something whilst explaining it’s deep significance to a black man in glasses standing next to her. Or a series of words stacked to look like something important. Or some fuzzy, ill-defined picture that shows nothing at all.
A picture is worth a thousand words
Mostly they’re irrelevant tripe. It’s certainly wasteful of resources and generally low-quality filler in a world where we need less filler and more real information. If you want to use a picture then make sure:
You have the right to use it? Just because you can download it from the web, or that you selected the “marked for commercial re-use” box you still need to take the time to establish if you have the correct rights. Organisations such as Getty are getting quite switchy about suing people and companies.
Think quality. Make sure it’s a good image, correctly sized and works on all devices. Nothing speaks cheap like a crummy image that is unviewable on a mobile device.
Relevance. The image needs to fit the subject and enhance the writing – the better the writing the greater the demands of the image. Choose carefully as the image also needs to be striking and compelling.
