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How to Create High-Quality Images for Your Blog Posts · The Daily Writer

• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome everybody to the Born to Create Podcast.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Kent Sanders, and I'm your host.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm an author, musician, and teacher, but most importantly, I'm a husband and a dad.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Here on the show, we talk about practices, habits, and strategies that help us live out our creative calling.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is episode 47, and today we're going to be talking about how to create high quality images for your blog posts.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: You can find the post and the links that accompanied this episode at kent sanders.net slash blog images.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just going to be really honest with you.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: One of my least favorite aspects of blogging is creating images.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Graphic design has never been my strong suit.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: So selecting and manipulating images, adding text, changing fonts, colors, cropping, all that kind of stuff.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's always been something I've honestly just kind of tolerated and put up with because it's a necessary part of blogging.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now at the same time, images are a really important part of the reader experience in blogs and on online writing in general.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: All of us are visual creatures, and a screen full of text with no images is usually pretty boring to read.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: So at the very least, I think it's important to have an image of some kind at the beginning of your blog post.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: When your blog gets shared on social media, the image helps draw attention to it and it helps focus people's attention.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: So for this reason, you want to have high-quality images that at the very least don't detract from the reader experience.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: For several years, I really struggled with figuring out a good way to produce quality images for my blog post.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I would take pictures with my phone or camera and I would download those and then I would add some text to them or a logo or something.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Other times I would take pictures from the free stock photo sites and I would download those and manipulate those, crop them, add text, change fonts, all that kind of stuff.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I would take those images and import them into an app called Canva, which is C-A-N-V-A.com, and I would put a title and a logo on those.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway you slice it, it was a lot of steps and a lot of hassle to do that.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, I hated messing with images because it was frustrating and time consuming.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: But these days I use a streamlined system for creating high-quality blog post images.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's quick, easy, and effective.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: So let me introduce you to the Word Swag app, which is what I've been using for about the past year to create images for my blog posts.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Word swag is an amazing app that lets you add text to your photos in just seconds.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's mobile only, which means there's no desktop version for the app, but it's available for iOS and Android, so you know, unless you're using like a flip phone or a Blackberry or something like that, you should be good to go.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now you may be thinking, what's the big deal?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: There are a million apps that do that kind of thing.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: And while that's true, there are a ton of photo editing and creative apps.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: I love the fact that Word Swag focuses on just one aspect of this and it does it really, really well.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the major reasons I love this app is that it reduces your options.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: There are a limited number of photo dimensions, a limited number of styles, and limited fonts that you can use.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this is a really great thing for people like me who sometimes feel lost in a sea of you know pictures, colors, fonts, design possibilities, and all those kinds of things.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of writing a long blog post or giving you a long podcast episode detailing how I use the app, which by nature is visual, instead of doing those things, I've created a video walkthrough of the app, and you can find the link in the blog post, which is at KentSanders.net slash blogimages, or you can look up the video on my YouTube channel and you can find that at youtube.com slash Kent Sanders.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to hear your thoughts on all this.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: You can join the conversation and find the post and the links that accompany this episode at Kent Sanders.net slash blogimages.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: When you visit my site, you'll find all kinds of great resources to inspire your creativity.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'd also love to share a gift with you when you subscribe to my newsletter.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: You can check it out and learn more about my books, writing, and services at KentSanders.net.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: I love to connect and you can tweet me at Kent Sanders or find me on Facebook and Instagram as Kent Sanders.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that you'll also check out our Born to Create Facebook group by visiting KentSanders.net slash Facebook group.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, remember that you were born to create and designed to make a difference.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: What will you do with the time you have left?