Having been blogging for a few years (on and off, on different platforms) before I started this one it shouldn't have surprised me how much of the actual time of blogging goes into taking and editing photographs. But
Are pictures a must for a good blog post?
I don't know. Maybe, yes, no? Let me explain. Beautiful visuals are appealing to the eye. Things that are appealing attract people, readers. So beautiful pictures on your blog attract readers. As far as opening statements go, I think we can all agree on that. But once you get readers on your site (probably with those appealing pictures) you want to keep them there, and that's where words come in. Because really, blogging is still about writing good content, right? I've been feeling lately like if you don't have those amazing instagram-ready pinterestable pictures on your blog your content is not good enough. And that makes me sad/angry, because sometimes all I want to do is write, share things, talk about what's bothering me, tell you what made me happy, ... without having to worry about the clean and neat look of it all. Blogging is a way to express yourself in text, but lately I've found myself wondering if maybe it's just about the visuals.
I see blogs with lesser quality or no images but great writing and content get no attention at all and blogs with beautiful images but rubbish writing style or hardly any text get all the attention. I do love me some good pictures but still, I think words deserve credit too. Agreed, some topics are more suitable than others to add a bunch of amazing visuals: recipes, lifestyle posts, outfits, make-up looks, DIY projects, etc. For all these topics it's fairly easy to take photographs that will suit the post. And those photographs really will make those posts better. But often I find myself wanting to write about other things: advice, life philosophy, situations that happened to me once, ... It's a real struggle to come up with an idea for a suitable image, let alone photograph it. You could use photos of others that are under a Creative Commons license but I'd like to make all the content for this blog myself so then the question rises: how am I going to get that suitable image for said post?
Get creative
So even if I'm writing a philosophic-style post I want/need some pictures in there and then I get a little creative. Sometimes the images I add to the post have nothing to do all with the content of the post. And sometimes it works out well and I love that vibe the pictures add to that post. A good example of that is my post about "the illusion of growing up". Other times I will add some quotes in image form, most of the time with my laptop or phone, like in my post about "21 reasons why you should love yourself". So it's not that it's impossible to add pictures to every post but I wonder: is it really necessary? Even for this post I just couldn't not put a picture on top. For the simple reason I explained earlier: images attract readers.
Value the words
I think what I'm trying to say with this kind of ranting post is that it's time to value the words. Value the writing of blogs instead of drooling over pictures. Okay yes, I also find myself drooling over pictures and you can. But as a blogger I also don't want to be afraid to drop a very long, word packed post on here. I want there to be room for variation. Some posts deserve 10 pictures and more, because really, who wouldn't want to see all those amazing shots of your last day trip? But I also want to be able to just write, rant, philosophize without worrying what it's going to do to my "blogger image" (no pun intended, or maybe a little).
So what do you think, does every blog post need a good picture? More than one? Or can we bloggers get away with just writing? Let me know in the comments how you prefer your blog posts or tweet me @aheartyhome!
