So I'm on blogger, and I click on the "blogs of note". Granted, these are more personal blogs, but there's one thing I noticed about them, and that's that they have a lot of pictures posted in every post. Does this actually help? I mean, all I hear is "content is king" - which I believe it is. But all these other ones just load up on the pictures. What are your thoughts?
Pictures can certainly be beneficial as they may help captivate visitors into actually reading your posts. It really depends on what kind of blog you have though and what audience you are targeting. Images can also help you get traffic if they get indexed by Google.
Oh believe me, traffic vise it helps a great load! i have a blogger blog i made ages ago, loaded with funny pictures, haven't updated that for a year or so and it still gets some traffic to it! all from images.google.com not much, but up to 60 UV per day. Still something. Now i redirect the traffic to a dating aff lol. No conversions at all. Will have to think of something else for that blog.
I can simply say .... Users can view the pictures and understand what it says. However, the Search Engines cannot read and understand what the picture trying to say. Think like ... let's say you want to show the members how google adsense code can be added in this forum. which one you will choose and why ? if you say you will show the picture of User CP > Options page and showing where the member has to edit the ad code. It is easily understandable for the user. however, in that case the SE's are not. I suggest you to use both if possible. do not stick on one method.
I often put a small image in my posts 150 x 150, dont have it filling up the post, but if its relevant, i also always name the image as relevant as possible. Sometimes i cant find a suitable image though or if the blog is not such an earner i wont purchase a stock image for it, but for others i would.
it's just a lot nicer on the eyes too so you're more apt to keep a reader. Regardless of how engaging material is, if it's hard on the eyes (ie, text heavy) you will lose people.
Content is king but ppl like Images too. Its way of attracting ppls. But too much img are not good, becoz ppl visit ur blog for reading text content.