How to use images in your blog: dos and dont’s (2025 guide)

Website design

19 Dec

Man in brown jumper with woman in cream jacket smiling in front of a table with white roses, spiral notebook and work samples — A pretty picture of Simon and Rachael to illustrate this article on using images in your blog posts!

Should I add images to my blog? How many images should I use? How do I optimise images? Can I use online images? These are just a few of the most common questions relating to images in blog posts. As with the length of blog posts, there is no particular rule, so we explore the ins and outs and do and don’ts of using images on your blog.

Images can be a bit of a red herring in blog posts, as the key thing is addressing the intent that people have when they type a search query into Google. Why? Because this is the first step before they get to your website. Images tend to be the icing on the cake once people are on your website, hence why the quality of your text and written content comes first.

Here are the most common questions, answers, dos and don’t when it comes to using images on your blog posts, bearing in mind your website’s SEO performance and visibility in search results (the key metric). With images on your blog posts on your website, we want to answer key questions people ask in search queries to drive traffic to our websites. If you’ve got a good design, layout and structure, this will in turn lead to enquiries.

In this article on images in blogs:

Does a blog need great visual content as well as the words?
How many images are acceptable per blog post (I’m a photographer and want to showcase images)?
Are we okay including other people's images in a blog and links to other pages?
Can I use any image I find online in my blog?
How do I credit images in my blog?
What are the best practices for optimising images for SEO?
How can I improve image loading speed on my blog?
How do I ensure images fit my blog's layout?
What types of images work best in blogs?

Wildings is a website designer for small businesses. Our studio is based in Torquay, Devon, and we provide blogging workshops for creative, hospitality & lifestyle businesses across the UK (like garden designers, interior designers, architects, floral designers and more!). In this series, we’re looking at how to improve your blogging and content marketing to attract potential clients and boost your SEO presence in organic Google results. Explore the series on blogging 101 →

1. Does a blog need great visual content as well as the words?

Ideally your blog should have great visual content as well as the words, but out of the two, the words are by far the most important aspect of a blog.

The reason for this is because the words are the aspect that deliver the most value to readers. Your words are the medium through which you answer people’s questions and provide them with the information they are looking for. Images don’t do that, and even if you use infographics, you need supporting text for SEO reasons which we will get onto below.

In terms of SEO, remember the phrase ‘search intent’. When people use Google or search engines they are trying to solve a problem they have or look for an important piece of information. If you want your blog to get visible in a Google search, it needs to contain text, sentences and content that specifically addresses those problems, questions or challenges.

Blogs with thin content (not enough quality text on page) or text embedded in images simply do not give Google enough to work on to give you a decent search ranking.

At the same time, if you do have great written content and text in your blog, great visual content will help increase the impact of what you write even further.

If you are able to pair quality content with standout imagery, you will likely increase the conversion rate of your blogs. That could mean visitors clicking through to view other pages on your website or submitting an enquiry if they are ready to buy or you’ve thoroughly convinced them of your ability to solve their problem.

Overall, yes, in an ideal world a blog will have great visual content, but it is a ‘nice to have’ rather than essential. What is absolutely essential is that your written content and words are great. That’s the place to start and the fundamental for a great blog. If you can source great visuals that will increase the impact of your blog further.

2. How many images are acceptable per blog post (I’m a photographer and want to showcase images)?

There is no hard and fast rule for an acceptable number of images for a blog post.

As above, the quality of your written content is paramount and comes far above the number of images in your blog.

As a rule, we tend to say about three to four images for a standard blog post.

One image at the top as the header or hero image and then two to three throughout the body of the post to break up the text.

That’s all.

However, if you are a photographer, interior designer, garden designer or work in a highly visual industry, then yes you might want more images.

However, it does depend. First ask yourself what the intent of your blog post is; what is the question you are trying to answer?

As a general rule, people typing questions into Google are looking to solve particular problems and are at what’s called the ‘top of the marketing funnel’. What we meant by this is they have just become aware of a problem or challenge and are working out the implications and what they need to do about it.

If your blog is addressing this type of question, images are somewhat superfluous as the reader is more concerned with their research than visuals.

On the other hand, someone might have figured out that in order to overcome their problem, they need professional help and are looking for a business they can trust and submit an enquiry.

In this case, we would recommend writing blog content to address the anticipate problems, but also have a highly curated portfolio with your best recent projects. Your portfolio would feature prominently in your navigation.

The rationale here is that by answering someone’s question really well and throughly, they are more likely to explore the rest of your website. At that point they will be looking to answer the question, ‘is this business able to deliver what it promises?’.

Having a highly attractive and up-to-date portfolio delivers that promise.

To go back to the original question, if you want to show of the work that you do, put it in your portfolio and make it easy for people to find it in the main navigation of your website. Alongside that, use brand photos of you in action in your business to populate your blog, making sure that they complement the purpose of the blog itself.

Read more: How many Blog post images should you include? from Jordan Brittley

3. Are we okay including other people's images in a blog and links to other pages?

We go into this question in more depth below, but overall, do not use other people’s images in your blog without explicit permission, even if you link to them or say ‘image by’ - it’s not good enough!

If you use images without official permission, you could get fined (see how below).

A backlink with an image that you have permission to use is best practice and a courtesy, especially if it credits a photographer.

However, be careful about linking to your direct competitors as backlinks to businesses in the same sector as you essentially give them more credibility in the eyes of Google, which is not really what you want to be handing out blithely, even if you are a nice person!

This is one of the reasons why we all get those annoying spam e-mails from people offering to create thousands of backlinks to your site for SEO purposes.

If you are tempted, I would caution against this, as you have no idea of the quality of the backlinks you will get, and they could in fact be spammy and destroy any SEO that you currently have.

Be warned.

Read more: Can I use someone else’s image in my blog? from Reddit

4. Can I use any image I find online in my blog?

The gravest and most common mistake you can make when it comes to images on your blog is to publish an image without permission.

Please, please do not search for images on Google, download them and then add them to blog pages on your website.

Companies like Getty or Reuters hire intellectual property businesses that specialise in hunting down and prosecuting people who use images in their blogs without paying for a licence.

And in case you’re tempted to run the gauntlet, you will get found out. Even if the image is not on a blog post that you consider visible, the IP hunter killers will track you down - mark my words! We know of many small businesses that that been caught out by unlicensed images on their blog posts.

However, if you do get caught out by images on your blog post, don’t worry - the IP hunter killers will give you the option to pay a fee to licence the image based on how long they calculate you’ve had it. This is a small reprieve before they escalate things, which you really don’t want to happen.

If you want to use images online in blog posts on your website, stick to royalty-free websites like Unsplash, Pexels and many others. You can download and use images on your blog totally free and indefinitely, but it’s common courtesy to credit the photographer.

Alternatively, you can pay for images from Getty or Shutterstock, which is perfectly acceptable. However, make sure you choose sympathetic imagery to your brand.

The best option by far for images on your blog is to hire a brand photographer to do a professional photoshoot and supply you with a set of highly attractive and engaging branded images. This costs more, but the impact is huge.

Overall, if you are not sure about using any image you find online in my blog, beware that taking random images from the internet can violate copyright laws. Make sure you get the appropriate licence for images you use on your blog, such as those from royalty-free websites, the public domain, Creative Commons or paid stock photo sites.

5. How do I credit images in my blog?

If you do want to use images on your blog (whether from a royalty-free site, paid stock or a photographer), it’s best practice to give the photographer or the source credit for using it.

This applies even if the image is from a royalty free website and there’s no specific requirement to add a credit.

In terms of the process of publishing images and adding a credit on your blog, it’s pretty straightforward.

Firstly, if you’ve had to officially licence the image for your blog, follow any guidelines from the creator or supplier. This might include particular text or information or a backlink to a specific page.

If you want to use an image from Flickr that has a Creative Commons licence, there are clear guidelines online for the correct way to attribute the images on your blog.

Lastly, alongside crediting the source of the imagery, we highly recommend adding a short caption to any images on your blog. The reason for this is because a caption really helps to hammer home what the point, benefit of impact of the blog is.

It’s a very good signpost to readers that underlines the value of the blog and why they should keep reading.

In terms of SEO, you can also combine the image caption with a backlink to the source. Hyperlink the text that describes the image in summary (rather than ‘Credit’). Google is very clear about SEO best practice regarding how to write good anchor text. In short, good anchor text provides context for the link and sets the expectation for your readers.

Overall, best practice for crediting images in your blog depends on whether or not you need a licence and the type of license for the image on your blog. At a minimum, include information about the creator and source of the image on your blog; plus follow any specific attribution guidelines for Creative Commons or other licensing types.

6. What are the best practices for optimising images for SEO?

When it comes to optimising images for SEO in our blogs, it can be a bit of a minefield. You may have heard varying advice about image size, dimensions or even alt text.

We’re not going to go into the details of how to optimise images for your blog posts here, but just mention the headline best practices.

i. Optimise images for width

Depending on whether you are using a portrait or landscape image on your blog or if it’s full-width or in a hero banner, it’s important to optimise the image for its width.

As a rule of thumb, if it’s a portrait image on your blog, keep the width to 1,500px.

If it’s a landscape, full width or a hero banner, keep the width to 2,500px.

Also, remember that if you want to crop a portrait image and then zoom in, the width of the cropped image will need to be wider, otherwise the final resolution will not be sufficient and it’ll become fuzzy.

ii. Optimise images for size

One large single image can take up more space that potentially all the lines of code and plain text combined.

This is why uploading lots of very large images slows down your site, which can be bad for your SEO performance. (If your site loads slowly, people won’t click through, and Google will reflect that in your search results.)

Above all, do not upload images great than 1MB in size.

Stick to between 250 to 400KB, although this will depend on the location of the image and it’s purpose.

If you need the resolution of the image to be very crisp, it’s not a dealbreaker to break this rule by 100 to 200KB, but just don’t add images of 5 or 8MB directly from Unsplash.

That will make it very hard for visitors to load your website if they are using a mobile phone on cellular data.

iii. Optimise images for filename

Don’t forget when you save your image for your blog that you give it a helpful filename.

A random mixture of letters and numbers won’t help your SEO.

Use a maximum of six words, lower case and each separated by a single hyphen.

Use words that signal what the page that the image is on is about, adding important keywords if you can.

iv. Optimise images for alt text

Alt text is the text that screen readers use for visitors with accessibility needs or that the browser displays if it can’t load your image.

Alt text is another minor signal that Google uses to weigh up the relevance and credibility of your blog page, feeding it into its search results and your SEO performance.

A simple rule of thumb when writing alt text for images on your blog and SEO in mind is to stick to 125 characters; plus describe the image as if someone can’t see it.

v. Add captions to your images

As above, don’t forget to add a helpful caption to any image that you upload. Think about why you have chosen it and then summarise that in the caption.

The image should add to the blog and your caption assists with that.

Overall, when it comes to the best practices for optimising images on your blog for SEO, make sure you cover the following areas: add descriptive alt text; include keywords in image file names; and ensure your images have appropriate captions. All of these factors help search engines understand the content in your blog and improve accessibility.

Read more: 10 Steps To Optimize Images for SEO from Content Marketing Institute

7. How can I improve image loading speed on my blog?

The loading speed of images on your website’s blog relates to the time it takes a browser to display a visible image to someone when they land on your page.

As you may have heard, a majority of website visitors now view blog pages or webpages on mobile screens using their data plan.

This means that if an image is very large (over 1MB), it can take a browser many seconds to load, if at all.

If a blog page on your website fails to load because the images are so large or it takes too long, visitors will simply click away, which is known as a ‘bounce’ - where a visitor bounces straight back to a search result to choose another website without visiting any other pages on the initial website.

The best way to improve image loading speed on your blog is in the section above, but we’ve summarised the key points below that relate specifically to the load speed:

Resize the image to 1,500px width if it’s a portrait image
Resize the image to 2,500px width if it’s a landscape image
Compress the image size to between 250 to 400KB, depending on how high you need the final resolution to be
Tools for resizing, compressing and optimising images include Squoosh.app (free), TinyPNG.com (free), ImageResizer.com (free), Adobe Acrobat online (free) and Adobe Lightroom (paid)

Overall, it is highly desirable to improve the image loading speed of your images on your blog by optimising them. The main ways to do this are by (a) resizing and (b) compressing images before uploading them to your website. There are a number of free online tools you can use like TinyPNG - these will help ensure faster load times on your blog and a knock-on impact, enhancing user experience and SEO rankings.

8. How do I ensure images fit my blog's layout?

In terms of ensuring images fit your blog’s layout, try not to overthink or overcomplicate this one.

Remember that the primary purpose of any blog you write is to answer a specific question someone may have or provide them with important information they are looking for.

Images are secondary on blogs and they are not meant to be works of art.

Overall, unless you are showing off a photo shoot or gallery of visual work, you only really need a maximum of three, maybe four, images per blog post.

One image will be the hero image or in the header at the top of the page and then the rest will be spaced regularly through the blog to break up the text.

That’s all.

The only thing you might want to be aware of is having image blocks are are overly large, for example if you want to use a portrait image. This will create quite a bit of vertical space on page.

In the case of portrait images, consider cropping them into a landscape format or adding spacers either side to reduce the vertical space they take up on page.

There’s no real need to text wrap images, unless you are keen to have smaller images surrounded by text.

Overall with images and blog layouts, place your images thoughtfully so that they complement the text and in particular break up large blocks of writing. Ensure any images are aligned properly and the sizing is consistent.

9. What types of images work best in blogs?

If you’re wondering what type of image works best in your blog, don’t fret - there are a couple of rules of thumb that will help you make good image choices.

Firstly, your images need to complement the actual text. They need to add something to your blog. Don’t choose random images that are irrelevant to the subject of your blog just because you like the look of them or think they are amusing. No one will be any the wiser and it’s a waste of space.

If you can’t find many images that relate to your blog, less is more; the text is more important overall than the images.

Secondly, make sure that your images are as high quality as possible before optimising them. If you optimise a low resolution original image for width and filesize, it will probably become blurred and pixellated.

Thirdly, brand images work best in blogs. By brand images we mean professional photos that feature you working or in your business. Brand photography has a distinctive style that is consistent with the rest of your branding. They indicate your business at a glance, just by their aesthetic.

If you can, avoid lost of generic, stock photos, especially once with stick figures, overly corporate or that are obviously staged. You can spot them a mile away and they cheapen your brand. People see them and will mentally downgrade the quality of what you have to say in your blog.

To summarise, the types of images that work best in blog are high-quality images; images that are relevant to the content that your write; and images that are visually engaging. Avoid blurry or overly generic stock photos. Choose images that will resonate best with your audience.

Anything else I need to know about using images in my blog?

Not really! This has been a pretty comprehensive run through of the dos and don’ts of using images on your blog. In conclusion, while there are no strict rules for using images in blog posts, use them effectively and you will enhance your blogs and and increase the engagement of your visitors (time on page, clickthroughs and potentially enquiries). Prioritise addressing the search intent of your ideal clients with high-quality written content: i.e., what’s the question they’re asking Google?. This is the foundation for driving traffic to your site. Images basically complement your text, helping to break up text visually and reinforce the message of the blog. Ensure your images are optimised for SEO by using descriptive alt text, resizing for fast load times, and above all adhere to copyright laws! When used strategically, images can support your blog’s design and structure, encouraging enquiries and boosting your website's overall performance.