Use diagrams to make pictures for your blog posts

This post from the Weekly Blogging Tips series is about a cost-effective way to make pictures for blog postings.

The best blogging advice is that every post should have at least one picture:  is a stunning professional-looking shot which perfectly illustrates the point you are making perfectly.

This is a great idea if you're a professional photographer and have all time in the world, or if you can afford to purchase images which are custom made for your blog.

But most of us just aren't in that league.

Sometimes, you can use a search tool to find a re-usable photograph that you can put into your posts. (Remember to download your own copy and put it into a Google picture host, to make sure that it's accepted as the thumbnail picture for the post.)

But another option is to use a diagram - like this.

The picture above is a diagram that I used in a blog-post to emphasise that budgeting for an event is on-going through the planning phase, not a one-time job   I spent quite a while thinking about how to make the point about the original plan vs the on-going feedback loop.

Diagrams don't have to be complicated. Sometimes something as simple as showing a bullet pointed list in a different shape can be an effective way to add "visual texture" to your post and thus make it more appealing for people to read.

There are various tools that you can use to make diagrams.

• PowerPoint is fantastic especially in in Office 2010 and 20123 where it has shape placement guidelines, as well as the usual squiggly word-art, smart-shapes, gradient-fills etc. 

• Google Spreadsheets is catching up, though they've got a way to go yet, and your have to use screenshot tools to get an image (JPG, PNG or BMP) file from it. 

• And most other drawing and word-processing tools include some drawing tools too.