6 steps to Create Awesome Blog Post Images

So my newbie blogger friend! How is it going? I mean, how has your journey as a blogger shaped up? Are you happy with the progress or are you feeling a bit disheartened because no matter how awesome is your post, how much pain you have taken to promote it on various social media platforms, there are no takers? I can understand that. I have been through with all that. There is one thing I would like to say here: have you paid close attention to the blog post images that you have used? If not, in this post I will tell how to create awesome blog graphics by following 6 simple steps.

How to Create Awesome Blog Post Images

This is a fact most of us will agree that the better the picture, greater is the chance of it getting noticed by others. This is one of the best ways to get your blog post noticed by the readers and entice them to read your post. Any reader who visits your blog will be put off if it does not contain lovely pictures correlating your post. Most likely, they will never return. That understood you need to take care of the images that you are going to post on your blog. Designing awesome blog graphics requires a bit of patience and an eye for aesthetics. That is not difficult to acquire and with time and experience, you will be able to master that as well.
The Steps
1. Find Awesome Images: The first thing you need is to find awesome images which you can use in your blog post. There is a catch here. You might get tempted to head over to Google to find images that look perfect for your blog. But, that can lead to trouble and you may get penalized by the owner of the image if he has not given the requisite permission. So head over to pictures having Creative Commons license (CC0). There are quite a few websites which give you gorgeous pictures to be used for personal and commercial purposes.
I will list a few here:
www.unsplash.com
www.Pixabay.com
www.Pexels.com
www.Picjumbo.com
and there are many more. So go ahead and download high-resolution pics that suit your blog post.
2. How to Use the images: Now that you have got the images you need to know what to do with them. You need to prepare the images to be ready-to-use. Keep one thing in mind. Most of the images on these websites I mentioned above are heavy. These have huge dimensions and can occupy 2 or 3mb. That is something not good for your blog. Heavy images will tend to slow your blog upload speed. To avoid this, you need to optimize (compress) the image. For image optimization, you can use free online sites: www.tinypng.com or www.shortpixel.com
Once you have optimized, the image is now ready to edit.
TIP: Always optimize your image before you start editing it.

3. Use Canva: This is the most favourite image editing application for most bloggers. It has a very user-friendly interface and has tons of templates to create blog post images to use for free. Moreover, it has a great collection of free images of its own which you can use if required.

Check out the great templates that Canva offers for almost all types of designs that you can think of!

If you want you can upload your own image to edit. So start by uploading your optimized image. If you want to create a pin for your Pinterest board, choose a template and place your uploaded image there.

You can create a layer on top of your image by clicking on the “elements” on the left panel. On the featured image of this post, I have applied a layer and decreased the transparency. Make sure to decrease the transparency of the layer by clicking on the transparency button and sliding the bar to the left. Unless you do that, the layer will cover your image and it will not look good. Once done, choose Text and add body text on top of the layer.
To make your image bright, click on “filters” and choose the option that suits it. You can also click on “Advanced option” and choose brightness to make it brighter. By manipulating various editing features, you can create awesome blog post images to share on different platforms.
TIP: Observe the graphics created by the well-known bloggers. You will notice a consistency, a pattern in all their blog images: the choice of colors, the fonts, and the size of the image, all these attributes remain constant. That is why these look familiar in a melee of images (especially on Pinterest). Try to imbibe these attributes in your blog graphics.
Are you worried about the quality of your blog post images? Here are 6 simple steps to follow to create awesome blog graphics in a few minutes. #blogging #bloggingtips #newbieblogger #blogimages Click To Tweet
4. Canva Alternatives: There are plenty of editors available online (some can also be downloaded) which you can use apart from Canva. Here I can name a few and you can try these in your free time:
Fotor
Pixlr
Picmonkey
BeFunky
You can read my previous post on design tools to know more about other options available.
Of these, Pixlr does not have templates for your blog graphics but it is a powerful editor having tons of features to create awesome blog graphics. So you can try this once you have created and downloaded your images. Fotor has a fabulous collection of templates and some of these have unique designs. Moreover, if you upgrade to the pro version, you can create different sizes of the same graphics to upload on different social media platforms. That is extremely useful because you do not spend time in creating images of different sizes. And your image appears everywhere looking same. How cool!
TIP: This feature of Fotor helps in branding your blog.
5. Blog Colors to Use: What are the predominant colors of your blog? My blog has two colors: orange and black. And I try to use these two colors in my blog post images. The idea is to emphasize the colour combinations and thereby make your presence felt. Look around you. The best bloggers always stick to a particular color combination so that the moment your eye catches a pin or a Facebook post, you immediately identify the blogger behind it. That is the power of your blog’s recall-value. That helps in establishing you as a blogger as viewers slowly start identifying your blog with these features. So how do you find the exact color used in your blog to use in your image? Subscribe to my blog and learn how to get the color codes in my free guide!
6. Fonts: Think of the fonts that you use to put some text on your blog image. The popular editors have their own set of fonts which you can use or you can also download free fonts to use to make awesome blog post images. However, make sure that you use only two or three true type fonts in the text that you put on your blog. Too many fonts will make it look unattractive and distracting. If you choose to download free fonts you should have an online editor or an image editing software which allows you to upload your own fonts.

Designbold allows you to upload and use fonts of your own choice. Most of the editing sites have great looking fonts, so downloading and using fonts of your own should only be done when absolutely necessary.
As you can see, creating blog post images are not difficult, and can be mastered after a few trials. Which image editor do you use? Here is a perfect step-by-step guide for you to create blog post images. Subscribe and receive your free guide today!