Over the last several years I’ve seen the trend that all blog posts and articles have a featured image, when I was writing posts for my wedding blog I found myself making an image specifically for this, and other posts I found myself searching online for stock photos to feature, I did this without thinking about it, because I thought I had to. Why did I think it was mandatory? Do they add to the article in any way? Can they hurt articles by taking focus or authenticity away from the content? Not all articles need featured images.
I’m lucky to be in an industry that’s defined by its creativity and it’s people being problem solvers, and they like to share their work. So it’s no mystery that design blogs are very image heavy, it’s show and tell for adults. I also find this pattern in newspaper articles. You’ll always see a front page picture, an analog featured image. There are a few newspapers that don’t use this pattern and run large typographic headlines instead. The one I can think of off the top of my head, the thebolditalic.com, its blog posts rely heavily on typography instead of a features image as an attention grabber (although they do have an image for every article). They are both well designed pages that draw attention to the content without using a pointless photo. This is good on several levels, first, is the fact that it draws less bandwidth, and it doesn’t distract from the content. It sounds simple but of course it’s never simple. Most people on the internet follow the rough pattern of an F when reading content online,
The F
According to The Nielson Group people don’t want to read what you have to say… but they’ll look at it. For a few seconds. So the real question is, why? I think it could be because it’s a pattern created from using search engines, which output just lists of links (think Google and yahoo) so to find what we’re looking for we end up just skimming the first few results than change the search terms if we didn’t find what we are looking for. Lefts suppose this pattern got ingrained in every internet user, not so much the F reading pattern but the instant delivery of information when requested. So it’s really its our own fault that our attention span rivals that of a fruit fly.
So having a featured image is great for getting attention, but you still need great content to back it up. But secondly having a featured image is necessary for social media and “sharing” a link to the content. Without thumbnail images, pintrest would be a failed wall of text which we’ve already discussed. And on Facebook people would not even notice that you’ve posted anything beyond a status update. Which recently have become less engaging, that’s the realm of twitter, text heavy content is everything in the twitter sphere. The featured image is the foundation for sharable content. Not every article or blog post needs one, but they are so valuable for sharing potential and can be the difference from unseen content to becoming viral.
Featured images aren’t actually mandatory, but absolutely worth it. Next question
What about irrelevant featured images.
Aka the annoying click bait.
we’ve all seen it, and even have clicked a few links with enticing images or headlines. at best they are a funny distraction, at worst they end up installing some type of malware on to your computer. What is pretty common in those type of sites is the fact that the content is either worthless, or the thumbnail doesn’t match the subject of the content. from an SEO standpoint this can be bad since it can increase your bounce rate, and it’s frankly quite annoying. also if you link to spammy sites that are full of click bait can lower your SEO rating, which is obviously bad.
So for anything I post, I know it’ll be at least thought out and relevant to the content.