How to Select the Perfect Image for Your Next Blog Post

By now, you've probably heard about the importance of visual content. Social networks are displaying images more prominently in their feeds, and视觉内容往往会产生更多的参与度than text-based content. It's not surprising -- our eyes naturally gravitate toward images, and content is much easier to consume when it's broken up by visual components.

曾经单击一篇文章，请查看一块巨大而令人生畏的副本，没有图像，标题或格式，并在开始阅读之前就完全放弃了？我也是。

To prevent your blog posts from suffering that same fate, here are the six most important things to consider when you're selecting images for your blog content -- particularly the post's featured image like the one you see above.

选择完美博客文章图像时需要考虑的6件事

1）您有权使用它吗？

让我们首先解决这个问题，因为这可能是图像选择中最重要的事情。您甚至允许使用它吗？是的 - 并非网络上的所有图像都是公平的游戏，并且violating image copyrights can cost you and your company quite a bit of money。

如果您不知道关于可以使用和不能使用哪些图像（或如何正确归因于它们）的第一件事，this post会给你一个好的底漆。通常，只要您正确地归因于创意共享的许可图像是免费的（但是you'll want to read this first). There are also free stock photo services available that allow you to download and use images free of charge. In fact, Getty just came out with access to some of its stock photos for free --although it comes with a price。请记住，“免费”不一定等同于最大或最佳选择。如果您不满意，则需要考虑购买订阅Istockphoto或Getty（ThinkStock）等股票照片服务。

To get you started, HubSpot has some free stock photos available for downloadhere，，，，here，，，，andhere呢

2）有意义吗？

Is the image relevant to the content? It should have a fairly obvious tie-in to your post -- or even just the words in your post's headline. Think about it: The headline and featured image are usually the first thing someone sees in social and email promotion. If the connection between the two isn't clear, it can make your post look unprofessional, and it may negatively impact clickthroughs to your content.

如果您在选择图像方面遇到困难，那么一个提示是操纵您的帖子标题，以合并一个自然而然地适合相关，有趣的图像的单词。有时，这只是意味着交换一个具有与之相关的明显图像的形容词。例如，以下帖子可能与橙子无关，但是图像可以起作用，因为该帖子的头条新闻谈论“切片和切割”和“分割”。不要害怕发挥创意！

3) Is it compelling?

这还不够相关。您选择的图像也应该引人注目。换句话说，它应该引人注目，有趣，吸引人 - 您明白了，对吗？请记住，当人们在Facebook，Google+和LinkedIn上共享您的内容的链接时，您的博客文章中的第一张图像通常是被吸引的。根据您的博客软件，它也可能被吸引到您的bob电竞官方下载blog subscriber emails。The point is, your post's main image is often the first impression someone has of your content. If the one you choose is boring and unremarkable, you'll risk losing out on valuable clickthroughs.

4) Is it high quality?

这可能不用说，但是图像质量高吗？分辨率如何？它是像素化的吗？如果是这样，您可能需要继续搜索。该图像可能有可能引人注目，但是如果不是高质量的话，它将失去所有信誉。

5) Is it appropriately sized?

请记住，像素化图像和分辨率是方式的图像之间有一条细线too高的。选择后者将意味着您的图像文件将需要很长时间才能渲染，从而减慢了帖子的整体加载时间。并考虑Akamai的报告that40% of people will abandon a web page if it takes more than 3 seconds to load，，，，you definitely don't want to slow down your page load time with hefty images.

页面加载时间取决于a number of variables除了页面上的图像，但作为基准测试，请尝试将图像尺寸保持在100KB以下。如果您的图像更大，您将需要使用像Photoshop这样的照片编辑工具来调整图像大小。（注意：您可能已经有一个免费的照片编辑工具，例如Microsoft Office或Mac的预览。）Keep in mind that resizing images in the HTML editor of your blogging platform won't do the trick since that only changes the image's appearance on the front-end rather than modifying the image's actual size. Instead, use an external photo editing tool, and upload the resized image to your post.

6）是否针对所有屏幕尺寸进行了优化？

As you're well aware, the desktop isn't the only screen you need to consider these days. Given the widespread usage of smartphones, tablets, and everything in between, you need to make sure the images you select are optimized for all screen sizes. This means that if you decide to overlay text on your images, you need to consider what that text will look like when the post is viewed on a smartphone. Will your readers have to squint to read it? What about that screenshot you decided to feature as your main image? Will it be so teeny tiny on mobile devices or tablets that the reader won't be able to tell what they're even looking at? These are all things you need to keep in mind.

（（Tip:HubSpot客户使用COS Blogging tool可以使用博客编辑器中的“带有设备的预览”功能在不同屏幕尺寸上轻松预览其博客文章的外观，以确保所有设备上的图像看起来都不错。例如，这就是本文中的特色图像在移动设备上的外观。)

考虑到主题，为此博客文章选择出色的图像存在很大的压力。所以...我怎么样？您还可以分享其他哪些图像选择技巧？