Blogging is all about creating high quality content for your readers. That is what will ultimately drive traffic to your site and get your website noticed. People only want to link to and share good quality content, so it is beneficial to you to make your posts as good as humanly possible. One way to instantly improve your blog content is to include different types of media. Not only will this make your posts more visually appealing and interesting, but it also brings on-page SEO benefits that will help your content rank in the SERPs.
Why Multimedia Content Is Good
Everybody thinks that blogging is all about writing. That may have been the case a few years ago, but these days writing is just one aspect of blogging (albeit a very important one). Blogging is all about providing quality content to your readers, and that content can be in many different forms. Videos, images, audio, slideshows, etc. are all examples of content that you can publish on your site that will engage with your readers and get them interested.
What is even better though is when you combine multiple types of content together. By doing this, you create a single resource full of useful information that people will be interested in, rather than separate pieces of content. People are much more likely to share a single, helpful resource with their followers than lots of individual ones. The added benefit of doing this is that multimedia content is much more visually appealing to your website visitors and it helps with SEO.
Visually Appealing
It doesn’t matter how brilliant your writing is, big sections of text on its own can be quite dull. People unfortunately do judge a book by its cover, so it is vitally important that you add other content in your articles to grab your reader’s attention. Any visual aids that you can add into your posts that complement what you are saying are well worth including. They can help to explain things much easier and break up large portions of text.
On-Page SEO
One of the best ways of driving traffic to a site is via search engines and to do that you need to implement on-page SEO factors. In order for search engines to send traffic your way they need to know what your content is about. They do this by crawling your content and looking at the keywords/keyphrases that you have used.
As well as looking through the written content that you have published, search engines look at the other media that you have added. Including your keywords and keyphrases in your image/video names is one way that can help with SEO. They tend to notice these other types of media more, as they have a big impact on the overall post. That is why having them all relate (via the use of keywords) helps.
Search engines LOVE content that includes different types of media. They value it much higher than regular written articles as you have taken the time to include other useful content for your readers. The added benefit of including other media is that your content can turn up in the search engines themselves. For example, any images that you add to your posts can also be found on Google Images. This all helps people to find your content in the search results and ultimately drive traffic to your site.
What Content Should I Include?
So, what types of content can you include that will help make your content more appealing? Well here, we look at some different types of media that you can add that your readers will love.
- ImagesPeople love images; after all, “a picture speaks a thousand words”. Any images that you can add to your articles that help describe what you are talking about are always worth adding. A good example is if you are writing a tutorial, any screenshots that you can add can help people understand what you are referring to. This could be something as simple as letting people know where a certain button is located or how something should look after they have completed the steps that you have guided them through. It all helps to make things more understandable.
Infographics are a great way to present complex data in a visual way to your audience. Not only can they make statistics more visually appealing and easier to understand, they can be shared by your readers. If you created the infographic yourself (or own the rights), then anyone using it on their own site will have to link back to the post that they got it from. This can help build links and drive traffic to your site.
Social media is vitally important to a websites success. You want people to share your content with their friends by Tweeting and Liking your post, but by adding images, people can also share them. Pinterest allows people to pin images from websites and add them to their own boards that they have created. Not only can this help your spread the word about your content, but it can also build links and send traffic.
- SlideshowsIf you have lots of images that you need to add to your posts, adding a slideshow is a great way of including lots of pictures without taking up lots of space. There is nothing worse than getting halfway through an article, only to then have to scroll down past 20-30 photos to continue reading. It doesn’t just have to be a set of images though. Many people create PowerPoint presentations when they want to explain things in a visual way. Why not turn your presentation into a slideshow and let people flick through it at their own pace. A great site to use that will let you upload your presentations and share them (both on your website, social sites and their own site) is SlideShare.
- VideosVideos can be an even better way of making your content more visually appealing. If people are given a choice of whether to read about a subject or watch a video, then the vast majority will choose to watch a video. Let’s say that you were writing a tutorial of how to use a piece of software. Whilst you could write an article explaining certain features, you would be able to explain things a lot easier by creating a video guiding them through the whole process. People would be able to watch you using the software and follow the tutorial step-by-step.
It doesn’t just have to be tutorials though. You can talk about any subject in a video and people will be much more likely to watch it than read a lengthy post about it. A great example of this is SEOmoz’s whiteboard Friday, where they talk about and explain a subject in a video. You don’t just have to use your own videos though. Embedding relevant videos that other people have created can also help to make your posts more appealing. The creators will appreciate the exposure that their video will get (as well as the additional views) and you get a video to back up what you are saying.
Yaro Starak talks about creating pillar articles, where he talks about the importance of including different types of media. Again, people can share the individual videos that you have used in your posts on their social media sites. This could include a link back to your site, helping to drive more traffic.
- AudioWe live in a busy world. We are all pressed for time these days, especially at work, so not everyone will have the time to sit down and read through your content every time you publish something. One way to get round this is to publish an audio version of your posts. Why not record yourself reading your posts, or use some automated software and let people listen to them whilst on the go. This way, people could listen to your content whilst on the commute to work, driving in the car, whilst at the gym, etc. If they like what they hear, they may want to come back and read the post for themselves when they get chance.
Recording audio posts can also make your content more accessible. People with visual impairments would really appreciate it if you made it easy for them to listen to your content. A great way to easily record your posts in an audio format is by using SoundGecko. This site will let you convert any text or website URL into an MP3 file that you can listen too. You can even add it to your website or share it on social media.
Podcasts can be another medium that you can add to your posts to make them more engaging. Instead of just reading your posts word for word, perhaps you record a weekly Podcast for your site talking about related subjects and adding it your articles where appropriate. You could conduct interviews with people, get people to send in questions that you could answer, run competitions, etc. Encourage people to subscribe to next week’s Podcast and it will help you to get return visitors to your site.
Summary
It doesn’t matter what type of content you add to your posts, just add something! The more multimedia content you add, the better it is for your site. Not only does it make your published content more visually appealing, but it helps with SEO and can encourage people to share your content on social media. So if you are a blogger, stop thinking of yourself as a writer, instead think of yourself more as a content creator!
What types of media do you like adding to your posts? What kind of media do you like to see on other people’s sites? Please let us know by leaving a comment below.
