It’s all about visuals. Design is about learning a few guidelines and then practicing what you’ve learned. Words — whether they’re spoken or written — are given meaning inside the language-processing part of our brains. When you combine visuals with words, you get your readers’ brains firing on all cylinders. Let’s talk about how to start using all that brain firepower, even if you’re not a designer and have never worked with visuals before. To help you find that perfect image, start with these three tips. Tip #2: Avoid images that look fake Stock photo websites get a bad rap because of photos like these: So creepy. Instead, look for people photos that give us more information by including the expression on the model’s face. Beyond the minimum: How to put images to work promoting your content If you’re ready to get visual content marketing working for your business, here’s the logical next step. The workshop is chock-full of dozens of examples of these “signature branded images,” including images I developed for the Copyblogger blog.
What if I told you there’s a passageway directly into the brains of your readers — and it doesn’t involve copywriting voodoo, ninja video moves, or podcasting magic?
It doesn’t involve words at all.
It’s all about visuals.
Hold on. Don’t run off just yet!
I know that using visuals can feel intimidating if you’ve never worked with them before.
But just like you don’t have to be born with a pen in your hand to become a decent writer (I’m proof of this), you don’t have to be born with a special “designer gene” to master using visuals.
Design is about learning a few guidelines and then practicing what you’ve learned.
That’s it.
Design is learnable and if you’re willing to practice what you learn, you can start using visuals to give everything you publish more impact and meaning.
What’s “visual content marketing?”
The broad definition of visual content marketing is simple:
Visual content marketing leverages the power of images to communicate your messages.
Rather than communicating meaning with words, we use pictures.
Why bother with visuals?
Words — whether they’re spoken or written — are given meaning inside the language-processing part of our brains.
That part is busy — and slow.
Images are given meaning inside the visual-processing part of our brains.
That part works much faster.
We can understand image meaning in just 13 milliseconds, according to MIT.
When you combine visuals with words, you get your readers’ brains firing on all cylinders.
Let’s talk about how to start using all that brain firepower, even if you’re not a designer and have never worked with visuals before.
If you’re just dipping your toes into the visual content marketing waters, there’s an easy way to start.
Commit to getting really good at finding the perfect image for every piece of content you publish.
To help you find that perfect image, start with these three tips.
Tip #1: Search only where you have permission
Keep yourself out of legal hot water by only searching for images where you have clearance to use them.
Try paid stock photo sites, like my favorite, Bigstock.
Or search on free stock photo sites like Pixabay, Pexels, or Unsplash.
Avoid Google Image Search!
Most images in search results are owned by someone — and swiping them to use in your content could be an expensive mistake.
Google even gives us a reminder:
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