How does graphic design help in content marketing?
Graphics in content marketing have essentially three functions:
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Decorative - announcements on social media or blog thumbnails. In the articles themselves on most websites, images are used mainly for beauty (well, and a little for SEO). Moreover, the owners of articles set certain conditions: 5-10 images per article of 5-10 thousand characters. Simply because it is better.
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Informative. These are all kinds of tables, charts, screenshots, infographics. It can also include, for example, quotes from experts and famous people in a graphical format, photos of the step-by-step process of creating something, and much more.
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Entertaining. Some kind of memes or comic strips. Such pictures contain information (text), but it's only for entertainment purposes. Although comics can be meaningful.
Graphic designs attract attention, they are useful, and they are willingly shared. In addition, they are easy to distribute on social networks.
Benefits of graphic design in content marketing
Graphic designs have many obvious and non-obvious benefits in content marketing. Mostly, it is valued for the following qualities.
Graphic design is easy to perceive
The content of most websites consists of text. The advantage is that it adjusts to different screen sizes and is easily tracked by search engines for SEO purposes. But if you add graphic designs to the text, it can "dilute" the monotonous paragraphs and make your point without putting your audience to sleep.
Graphic designs can make even the most boring topics interesting. What would you prefer to see - ten pages of research consisting only of the text, or a colorful image, which summarizes all the main ideas? The answer is obvious.
Graphic design gives value
Structured information is always valuable. If graphic design answers the questions people are asking, it's bound to be popular. To create something unique, it's worth researching current topics, popular requests, and other graphic designs dealing with the same ideas. This is done to find out what users want. The combination of great information and visually appealing illustrations will make the graphic design really valuable and maybe even viral.
Graphic design simplifies content
Graphic design is more than just a pretty picture. It also allows you to explain complex information by breaking it down into visual fragments, and makes it easy to understand. That's why graphic designs are so popular in content marketing.
Full paragraphs are reduced to one line, icons replace long sentences, statistics become images, and pictures tell stories. This way you can fit any complex message into one screen and make it easy to understand.
Graphic design is suitable for SEO promotion
Search engines don't just work with users' keyword queries in text form. Images also play a big role in search engine optimization. A picture with a title and corresponding replacement text will also rank when searching for images on a particular topic.
It's also a great tool for creating backlinks. Attractive, interesting graphics shared on social media drive traffic to the website. And if your graphic design gets a lot of reposts, search engines will help it rank higher for relevant keywords.
Graphic design helps you stand out
According to Ivory Research, people pay attention to things that are different than usual. That's why visuals are popular in content marketing, allowing you to stand out among many similar articles. The same goes for social media - visual content is shared more often than text content. Make your graphic design visually appealing and compelling - this will help you beat your competitors at the start.
Graphic design increases brand awareness
Graphic design can use any color and font size as well as icons, illustrations, and branded graphics. You can also add your logo, website address, and company information. All of these elements, combined with a memorable image, allow you to promote your brand more effectively and increase its quotability and recognition.
Graphic design promotes the brand on social media
People love to share interesting visual content on social media. If you want your content to spread and even go viral, graphic design is one of the best ways to do that. All you have to do is add a link to your website to attract more traffic.
The visual aspect of graphic design means that people will see it before they even begin to engage with your main content. Plus, it can be used multiple times and in different forms.
Conclusion
The topic of graphic designs in content marketing is so vast that we could talk about it endlessly. But the best thing to do is to get practical and start implementing your own ideas right now. It doesn't even matter that you don't have a penny in your pocket, and you don't have the talent of an artist.
Rebecca Willis is an active freelance writer. She is interested in teaching, self-education, and writing. Regularly touches on the topics of self-development and modern trends. Her goal is to provide quality and inspiring content.