Posted by Trey Baird. Follow me on Twitter!

The Blogging Age

It’s March 2009, and the blogging age is fully underway.  Everyone and their mama has a blog nowadays, and if you’re one of the millions of bloggers out there, I want you to ask yourself why?  If your reason has anything to do with amassing a large fanbase of readers, then what you need to do is make an effort to stick out among the millions of blogs that are already in existence.

What Makes a Great Blog?

One of the very first things that I notice when I look at the big budget blogs and the amateur blogs is the use of images.  This is what often separates the two, and what will cause an amateur blog to become a professional blog, and what will make an amateur blog APPEAR to be a professional blog.

And by the way, I’m aware that blogging deity Steve Pavlina doesn’t use images in his blog.  Don’t use this as an excuse to not use images.  Pavlina is the exception to just about every blogging rule anyway, so for the love of all that is sacred, don’t emulate his techniques!

In My Case

For the first two months of my blog, I decided not to use images.  This was deliberate, as I wanted to get into the mindset of actually writing, and not take on too many responsibilities at once.  If you’re not used to writing every day, and haven’t committed your writing technique to muscle memory yet, they by all means, don’t fret over images yet.  You need your writing to be at the level where it needs to be before you start adding the bells and whistles.  After all, you shouldn’t be concerned with the icing until you’ve baked the cake.

So after spending a few months working on my writing and getting comfortable with what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it, I’m now honing my skills with my images.  I have taken this opportunity to work on my drawing, illustrating and photoshop skills.  Other blogs usually use photographs taken by other people, but I want Swollen Thumb Entertainment to be a showcase of art, so that’s how I tackle the mission of providing images.  Obviously, this approach may not work for you, but I think that you should at least think about it before you dismiss it.

Just Don’t Treat Images As an Afterthought

So many bloggers seem to just find whatever random picture that they can tack onto their postings, mere seconds before their article goes live.  This is failing to realize the potential that images have.  As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.  Your image can get information across that you might not have been able to with your writing, leaving the article there for the more important information.

If you have to, pick your images BEFORE you right your article, so that you can use the correct form of energy, and not be in too much of a rush to get your writing online.  Maybe you can write with your picture in mind?

Extra Reading

Here are some more resources that you should check out regarding using images in your blogs.  I have chosen to link to these pages instead of regurgitating the information. Enjoy!

Using Images to Take Your Posts to a New Level
Choosing Images
Increase Traffic by Choosing the Right Images for your Post