Image of the Day – For Traffic and Social Engagment

The following is part of a multi part series on image optimization. In this post we’re looking at driving traffic with with “image of the day” type of posts. Hopefully you’ve read how to optimize creative commons pictures and the basics of image optimization. Those posts will help you get the most out this technique. The idea is to create posts that are directly about your subject matter or related enough that they aren’t a stretch and to publish them on a daily basis. But enough theory–let’s take a look at the plan action. Here’s an example of a wine website. As a picture of the day, they post pictures from wineries around the world

To get the most out of this concept I’d recommend adding a bit of copy to give the picture some context and to give you the ability to add some internal links. This a technique that can work with lots of blogs, car of the day, cat of the day, travel photo of the day, and so on. The technique can work for just about any subject matter.

Chart of the Day from Business Insider

A variation of the technique is chart of the day, used by Business Insider with their chart of the day (shown to the right)  All it takes is a little creativity. You can take your own data or government data slice it and dice it in an interesting way and viola, you’re good to go. This content can be used on Twitter, your blog, or in email format. Make sure you include links to make it easy for others to share your pictures or charts easily. A last benefit of this technique is you can preschedule your posts or create post series and take advantage seasonal events like St. Patrick’s day or Fourth of July.
So what are then takeaways from this post:

• Find stock photos or creative commons photos that you can use for daily pictures of the day style posts.
• Practice standard image optimization to make sure you rank for the keyword terms.
• If images don’t work try graphs or info graphics.
• Look for way to make sharing easy so this can work as a link building tool.