How to Fully Engage Your Readers’ Brains with Images

This is an ode to your visual cortex.

It’s a little unsung hero that sits, unassuming, at the back of your brain.

It’s small — almost hidden — but it dominates your senses and creates the world around you.

And it’s hungry.

You see, your visual cortex is fast. It processes visual information faster than the rest of your brain processes words.

That’s why one of the most important things you can do to put a finishing touch on any piece of content is to add an image.

The image you add to your next post, podcast episode, or social media missive may connect with your reader in 13 milliseconds (or less). You’re able to convey meaning before a single word is read.

Images are powerful communicators.

Are you fully engaging your readers’ brains with images? If not, read on. We’re going to talk about how to find, choose, and use images so you can harness their power in all of your content.

Use an image to boost understanding and retention

On some level, we all know that images help draw attention to written words, even if just from our experience of paging through a website or looking at a social media platform.

Great images tend to make us stop and look.

There’s proof for this, actually. A 2013 study by MDG Advertising showed that content featuring compelling images averages 94 percent more total views than content without.

But there’s more.

Images don’t just draw eyeballs. They boost understanding (and memory), too.

Text and oral presentations are not just less efficient than pictures for retaining certain types of information; they are way less efficient. If information is presented orally, people remember about 10 percent, tested 72 hours after exposure. That figure goes up to 65 percent if you add a picture. — John Medina, Brain Rules

Images are powerhouse vehicles for boosting retention.

But if you don’t consider yourself a “visual person,” how can you get started using images in your content?

In the next section, you’ll find a short course on choosing and using great images.

First, avoid these types of images at all costs

Let’s start with what not to do, shall we?

The tips here will help you recognize the types of images art directors and graphic designers never pick when they’re looking for images to pair with written content.

Avoid the obvious stock photo
You know this image when you see it. It’s the overly posed, perfectly lit photo that doesn’t look anything like real life.

Stay away from the patently ridiculous
Seriously? Who comes up with these photo concepts?

Sadly, in my years as a designer, I have waded through approximately 17,314,237 images like this one:

Resist images that are unrelated to your topic
It’s tempting, isn’t it?

You find a gorgeous image, and you really, really want to use it — even if it has nothing at all to do with your post topic.

Resist.

Images work best when they work in tandem with the words on the page — when they complement and add meaning to the words you use.

More on this below.

Avoid busy, complex images
Our content lives on our website, but it has an extended life on social media.

And when we share images on social media, they’re often reduced to postage stamp size before they’re clicked on.

That’s why it’s important to use images that translate and can be understood even when they are small.

Simple images do this best because they don’t lose detail when they’re very small.

An important note: read this to avoid getting sued

Please repeat after me:

I will not use Google Image Search to find my images.

You know what Google Image Search is good for? It’s good for looking up what things look like. Like, “What does poison ivy look like?”

It’s good for learning something when only a picture will do. Like, “Where is the visual cortex in the brain?”

It is not good for finding images to use in your content.

Finding and grabbing an image in Google Image Search and using it in your own content is an excellent way to invite a lawsuit.

Images on Google Image Search are pulled from websites and displayed for search purposes only. It was never meant to be a place to find images to use.

Images you find on Google Image Search are created and owned by someone. And that entity has every right to sue you for copyright infringement when you grab their intellectual property and present it as your own.

If you’re using Google Image Search to find images, please stop immediately.

It’s time to “go pro” with your image searching skills and learn how to find images you have permission to use for any commercial purpose you’d like.

Keep reading, because I’m going to share what to look for in an image and my favorite image resources, too.

The most effective types of images

Here’s what to keep an eye out for when you’re perusing the options on a stock photo site.

Look for images that look like real life
Search for images that feature people who look like they could be your reader (on a good hair day).

Hunt for images that “say” something about your article
The ultimate goal of your image is to engage people with your content, so your image should complement your content title.

When you do this right, you get a “double whammy” effect: both your image and your words communicate the same thing.

Don’t be afraid to use humor
Sometimes, headlines lend themselves to using a humorous image. This isn’t a solution you’ll want to use for every piece of content because humor has more impact when it’s unexpected.

But when the topic can be communicated with a humorous image, it’s a nice way to get your reader smiling before they’ve even read a word of your content.

Where to look for great stock photo images

Now that we’ve established that you will never, ever look for images using Google Image Search, let’s examine some reliable resources for free and paid stock photo images.

Where to find free images
There are some amazing stock photo sites out there where the images are completely free to use.

In some cases, though, you’re asked to add attribution to the image.

This means adding a photographer credit, and often a link.

Image by Joshua Earle on Unsplash.

It’s important to read the license on each site carefully so you give credit if it’s needed. Many sites don’t require this, and those are the ones I prefer because using one of their images is easy and fast.

Favorite sites for free stock photography:

• Pixabay
• Unsplash
• StockSnap

Where to find high-quality paid stock images
True confession: I get impatient with people who don’t want to pay anything, ever, for their stock photography.

It’s a direct result of my professional experience.

I have organized and art directed more photo shoots than I care to remember. And I’ve experienced the arduous behind-the-scenes work that needs to happen to create those beautiful images we use.

Memorable images are a mixture of logistics, patience, creativity, a well-trained eye, and technical mastery.

And I think that’s worth paying for.

When you’re ready to make a very small investment in getting professional photography that you have the rights to use for any commercial purpose — and that you can run without adding any type of photo credit — take a look at these paid stock photo sites:

• Bigstock
• Shutterstock
• Getty Images

Try taking your own photos

The majority of us are walking around with cameras in our pockets in the form of smartphones. And with each iteration of these devices, the quality of the photos they take goes up.

Think about how you could represent your business visually. Spend some time brainstorming topics and subjects.

Then walk through the world with an eye toward building a library of images you can use in your content.

It’s the best way to guarantee your image will be 100 percent unique to your business.

The three elements of Copyblogger’s new editorial images

You may have noticed that our image style on Copyblogger changed about six months ago.

We’ve had lots of questions about our new images, so here’s our step-by-step image creation process:

1. Start with an image that adds meaning to your words
We look for images that add a sense of meaning to our words — especially ourheadlines — since that’s the closest text to the image.

Here’s the image we’re using in this post:

2. Write the image text
Early on, we had to decide if we’d repeat our headline text on our images, or if we’d write original copy for them.

We ran some tests and decided that we didn’t like the “double headline” effect of images with headlines on them.

So, we set out to write original text for each post image we create. And, it turns out, this image text serves as a kind of subhead to our main headline.

The net effect is that at the top of our posts you see:

1. A headline, which tells you something about the post
2. An image, which tells you something about the post
3. Image text, which tells you something about the post

Basically, at the top of our posts, we give our readers not one, not two, but threeinvitations to engage with our content.

For this post, the image text is:

How to make your images say more

3. Apply text to image
When it’s time to position our text on our chosen image, we use consistent elements:

• We use a colored bar over most images to make text easy to read. We select one of our three brand colors for consistency.
• We always use the same font. Our images feature Proxima Nova, our brand font.
• We format the text the same way. Our text is formatted with a line of smaller capitalized text followed by larger text that often bolds a few words for emphasis.
• We add a watermarked logo to each image. On every image, you’ll find a small Copyblogger logo. If our image gets separated from the post link, people can find their way back to our site and discover the content it refers to.

Here’s what our finished image looks like:

Tools you can use to create similar images for your own content

We use Photoshop and a custom template we created to build our post images.

Having a pre-created template makes the images quick to create and keeps them consistent over time.

But you don’t need to invest money and time in Photoshop. Two services I like for creating content images are:

• Canva: Canva is free with some paid upgrades. It’s easy to use and has a wealth of image controls.
• PicMonkey: PicMonkey is also free and has low-cost “premium” features you can pay a small fee to access. It’s fun and easy to create beautiful images using PicMonkey.

Go forth and create great images

If you haven’t been fully engaging your readers’ brains by using images with your content, the time to start is right now.

Because it turns out that just like everything else in life, you’ll get more proficient and professional with your image creation the more you do it.

Take the tips in this post and work on your first image today.

And watch what happens when you fully engage your readers’ brains with compelling images!

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How to Select Memorable Images for Your Content Marketing

How much more memorable are visuals compared to text?

One oft-referenced answer is that people remember visuals 6 times better than text—an answer referenced in Buffer’s article on the anatomy of a perfect blog post and an answer that led to a lot of great discussion. After reviewing the original research, it’s clear that pictures are more memorable than words. So the next question became:

People remember visuals better than text. But which visuals exactly?

I’ve spent some time collecting the best research and science on pictures, images, infographics, and more, and I’m excited to share with you what I’ve found—along with some specific ways to use these insights in your marketing!

Quick stats on the power of visuals

While attempting to verify the “6x more memorable” stat (it seems quite validated that images trump text, though it could be anywhere from 6x more memorable to 2x), I found all sorts of additional interesting information on visuals. Here are some numbers I can verify:

• Research determined as early as 1894 that pictures are more memorable than text. This eventually became known as the Picture Superiority Effect.
• Sixty-five percent of us are visual learners. This means imagery helps 65% of us understand and remember information.
• A picture is worth approximately 84.1 words, according to cognition scientist Alan F. Blackwell. In his research, subjects created visuals to convey information and then described those images in words. The average number of words it took them to describe their images was 84.1. So a picture may not equal 1,000 words, but using an image in place of 84.1 words is still an impressive shortcut. This means less information for your brain to process and remember.

While it may be hard to pinpoint exactly how much more memorable visuals are than text, it’s safe to say visuals definitely aid memory. So let’s look at what makes an image memorable and how you can use that to your advantage.

Why visuals are more memorable than words

While President Abraham Lincoln may be remembered in part for his eloquent words, he was known to be fixated on one particular image.

The image was an 1861 map of the South depicting counties’ slave-owning populations in shades of black, gray and white.

In fact, the image was so important to him, it was included in Francis Bicknell Carpenter’s portrait of Lincoln and his Cabinet members (seen below on the bottom righthand side).

It literally gave Lincoln a picture of which states he could expect to secede and which might be persuaded to stay with the Union. It’s also an early example of an infographic.

Visuals do the same for us today as they did for Lincoln back then: Help us process complex information quickly.

In fact, roughly half of our brain is devoted to processing visual information, according to The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Psychology, which explains why we’re able to decode visuals so quickly.

In fact, we retain 80% of what we see or do but only 30% of what we read and 10% of what we hear.

All of this is to say, images are easier than text for us to process and remember, but not all images are created equal. So below I break down what makes a visualization memorable to help you optimize your image selection.

1. Choose harmonious colors

Colors help us process and quickly identity what we see, according to one study. In discussing choosing colors for your brand, Leslie Harrington, executive director of The Color Association, notes:

“Color is the most memorable sense. Before anything else, [we] see color.”

In fact, color increases brand recognition by 80%.

Consider Tiffany & Co.’s robin’s-egg blue color. It is so synonymous with their brand, they’ve trademarked the color, and it’s now known as Tiffany blue. Or, for you sports fans, there’s the University of Tennessee’s vibrant orange, which Pantone calls UT Orange. In both of these cases, color is an intrinsic part of the brand.

Not only does color aid brand recognition, it trumps black-and-white imageswhen it comes to memory. But that doesn’t mean you should go color-crazy. Images are more likely to stick if they resemble what we see in nature (so easy does it on the neon).

Something else to keep in mind: 8% of men and .5% of women are colorblind, according to the National Eye Institute, and have difficulty discerning between reds and greens. On the other hand, nearly everyone can see blue, which works out really well for hyperlinks.

If you’re opting for a multicolor image, professors at the University of South Florida determined that harmonious colors are more memorable than non-harmonious colors. Think different shades of green instead of an array of pink, yellow and blue. Harmonious colors are easier to process, making the image more likely to be remembered.

On top of that, an image with seven or more colors is more likely to be remembered than one with fewer colors. A different study pegged the uptick in memorability occurred at more than six colors. Either way, file that under “more colors than I thought.”

2. Include people in your pictures (the more emotion, the better)

You see that stunning pink sunset above? You’ll likely forget it.

That’s right, according to a study on image memorability, a lovely photo of a landscape will probably fall out of your brain with impressive speed. We’re far more likely to remember an image centered on a person, even something as banal as a man on the subway. Even more likely to be remembered are photos of people interacting. Images that focus on a single object also fare well.

However, there are different levels of memorability for images of people.Essentially, the more intense the emotion of the person photographed, the more likely we are to remember it. Partly because it triggers a response in us.

So aim for relatable over stunning when choosing between images. And select emotional expressions over easily forgotten neutral expressions. Take these kids winning a video game in the photo above. Who can’t relate to that feeling of crazy excitement when you win something important to you?

3. No need to find a beautiful image

Is beauty memorable?

The short answer: No. Not in images anyway.

Aesthetically pleasing images, like the picturesque landscape above, aren’t memorable, while this photo of a decrepit bathroom with graffiti on the toilet is.

As MIT neuroscientist Phillip Isola, one of the authors of “What Makes an Image Memorable?,” puts it:

“Pleasantness and memorability are not the same.”

That said, in one instance, at least, beauty might appear to assist memory. You’re more likely to remember a photo of supermodel Gisele Bundchen than you are Ms. No-Name iStock Model. But in fact, that has less to do with beauty and more to do with prior knowledge. We are more likely to remember something or someone we have prior knowledge of.

This means a visual is far more likely to be stored in our long-term memory if it already has meaning to us.

So in image selection and in design, considering using the familiar to your advantage.

4. Create creative infographics and charts

Infographics are beloved for a reason. These pictorials, along with grids and diagrams, are far easier to remember than graphs. This may be because illustrations in infographics mimic what we see in our world to some extent — for example, the cheeses in the infographic below.

On the other hand, the lines of graphs don’t look “natural” — a graph looks like a graph, not like something we find in our day-to-day life. In addition, at their core, all graphs look more or less the same, and that certainly doesn’t up their memorability factor.

The question of chart junk

Yet “memorable” doesn’t always equate to “comprehensible,” according to a study on memorable visualizations. An infographic can be memorable because you spend some time deciphering it. (That said, it’s still recommended to strive for clarity.)

In fact, in that same study, visuals with “chart junk,” meaning visual additions that aren’t necessary to understand the information, were deemed more memorable than minimalist visuals. But it’s worth noting, that there are varying opinions on whether chart junk helps memory or hurts it.

Above we have a very basic example of chart junk with unnecessary lines both on the bars and on the numbers lining the chart, making them hard to see, plus a brick background. It adds up to more visual information than we need, which may increase its memorability but not our understanding.

Instead, a happy medium would be to strive for “functional art,” meaning designers can get creative to pique interest (and memorability) but should avoid any elaborations that impede understanding. Avoid art for art’s sake.

In short, aim for interesting imagery, not a visual obstacle course.

5. Use multiple images to reinforce your point

According to Janet Brain, a learning disabilities specialist, varied visuals are especially helpful in learning — she cites technology, such as interactive computer graphics and videos as helpful, but you can apply the same philosophy on a smaller scale to your projects. A variety of images aid memory because you’re receiving different visual cues that reinforce one main point. This is what infographics do.

You can also apply this to blog posts. For example, don’t stick solely with stock imagery, instead include a combination of grids, pull-quotes, infographics, vintage photos, artwork and video for optimum recall. You’ll notice that in this post I included President Lincoln’s infographic map plus the portrait the infographic appears in. So you’ve been exposed to this map in two different ways in one post, increasing the chances you’ll remember it — and hopefully, this article.

Also worth noting: While images are more memorable than text, images and text together are most memorable of all. No surprise there considering the popularity of infographics and overlaying titles on images. Just like multiple visuals can work together, visuals and text reinforce each other and aid memorability.

Review: How to make your images memorable

So does this mean the only way to stick in someone’s memory is to build an elaborate infographic of toilets of the world in seven harmonious colors?

No. (But that infographic would probably be really, really memorable.)

Instead, determine which memory triggers aid you the most.

Here are some takeaways to consider for your next visual:

1. Numerous colors that are natural and harmonious are most memorable.
2. People expressing emotion and/or interacting are the most memorable subjects, followed by objects. Landscape imagery is forgettable.
3. Beauty doesn’t matter, but prior knowledge does.
4. Infographics are memorable. Graphs aren’t.
5. Functional art can assist memory.
6. A variety of image types reinforce memory.

Personally, I plan to rely less on landscape imagery and look more toward relatable imagery in the future. I’ll also continue to use a variety of images, like I did in this post, where I included artwork, photos, scientific visuals, images with text on them, a vintage infographic and a modern infographic.

But memorability isn’t everything

Remember that your imagery still needs to work with your brand. Don’t scrap your branding guidelines for an array of memorable imagery that doesn’t aid your branding strategy. While reinforcing imagery helps memory, irrelevant imagery is extremely forgettable. It simply distracts.

Aim for memorable, impactful imagery that assists your brand.

And yet, the list above isn’t the only way to memorability. There will always be outliers — a strangely eerie black-and-white landscape that sticks in your mind or a graph of non-harmonious colors on a crazy topic. What I’ve outlined here is not the only way to get a visual to stick. The hope is that following these guidelines will increase your visuals’ chances of being remembered.

Marketing takeaways for memorable images

It’s worth noting that a memorable image doesn’t necessarily equate to an engaging or effective or clickable image. But that’s the natural next step.

So here are a few stats that provide some ideas on how to effectively use memorable images:

• Tweets with attached imagery are nearly twice as likely to get retweeted than those without.
• Presentations that include visuals are 43% more persuasive, according to one study.
• Forty-six percent of subjects in a Stanford University study used website design, of which visuals are an important part, to determine if a business is credible.
• Sixty percent of consumers are more likely to consider a local result with an image.

Can you imagine the benefits if a memorable image were used in all those instances?

Let’s mine our memories!

Think back to images that have elicited a response from others in your work. Why did they work well? What sort of images have you found most memorable in others’ work? Which images from this article stick out in your mind?

Include links in the comments. I’d love to see the visuals you mention — and see if they stick in my memory too!

Image sources: PicJumbo, Piktochart, Visually, UnSplash

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