One of my biggest struggle as a writer is finding a way to spin a tale or present an idea that captivates the mind long enough to keep someone reading to the end of my piece. A great way to do this is to captivate the eyes with images. It gives readers a break from all those words and it gives their mind a pleasant distraction that's brief enough to make them happy without getting them off track.

See? See how well that worked? Happy flowers...in a field...making you happy...

Anyway. I've always struggled with finding the right pictures to add to my posts. Flickr is a treasure trove of great photos that are open to fair use via a creative commons license, and iStockPhoto offers pictures at minimal cost, but there's still time and effort involved in finding just the right one.

That's a point Sonia Simone over at CopyBlogger addresses in a great post called "The Lazy Blogger's Guide to Finding Great Post Images."

Sonia writes:

Some images just make people feel good. And associating yourself with feeling good is a smart move if you're trying to persuade. While a steady diet of kittens and rainbows gets cloying, it can be a good move to choose a photo just because it makes you smile.

What's the personality of your blog? Funny? Combative? Compassionate? Goofy? Imagery can set the emotional tone of a single post or for your whole blog.

Lazy Blogger Tip: If you can't find a good, relevant match for your post's main idea, look for an image that conveys the emotional content of your blog as a whole.

Don't underestimate the power of a great image in a blog post. Especially if a lot of your traffic comes from RSS readers. After all, nothing catches the eye among a sea of text-only posts like a really great image.

Flickr photos from ArielMatzuk and RussellBernice.