Pumping out consistent content on your website that provides value to visitors is a challenging yet necessary task to stay competitive in search results. Applying short-loop animations, also referred to as GIF files on your blog, is one of the most effective ways to keep readers from leaving your post.
In this article, you’ll learn the benefits of looped motion graphics on text-dominant web pages. In addition, we’ll provide you with the best source online for short animations that are cost-effective, won’t slow down page load speeds, and can be integrated with web builders.
Blog Posts Can Be Boring
Your blog is an essential part of your website. It is the best way to add content, target keywords, and increase the value of your web property. However, dumping thousands of words on a webpage a couple of times per week may appease web crawlers to an extent but doesn’t provide actual humans with a positive experience.
In addition, crawlers have become more intuitive and rank pages with strategic breaks in text higher than similar content. So if you want to climb search results and provide a memorable user experience, break up your text and add some motion to your blog pages.
Why Include GIF for Blogs?
The term GIF has taken on a meaning transcending its technical definition of graphic interchange format. When most people talk about GIFs, they are referencing short looping videos embedded into a web page. GIF files are just one type of image file that supports the medium.
Including GIFs in blog posts is a great way to break up the text, add value, and drive home key points.
Advantages of Adding Motion to Posts
Massive blocks of text are great for scientific research papers but perform horribly on blogs. Here are 5 reasons why including GIFs on blog posts will help you reach your goals in cyberspace.
Increase Engagement
GIFs are entertaining. There’s a reason why smartphone keyboards have a GIF search query built-in; people love them!
Implementing short-form videos will keep users more entertained and incentivize them to read the entire post.
Boost SEO
Web crawlers recognize that web pages without bullets, bold text, links, images, or videos are dull and underperform well-produced, multi-media web pages. The days when keyword-stuffing 5,000-word blog posts could get you to page one are long gone.
Break Up Text
Not only are giant blocks of text not going to help your SEO efforts, but they are also difficult to consume. Very few people read a couple of thousands of words when they are online. Remember, you are competing for attention, and the odds are stacked against you when you consider that the average internet user spends about 150 minutes on social media daily.
Add Value
GIFs are known for adding humor to online interactions but can also add value. For example, a simple looped video can emphasize your USPs, attract users to important sections, and drive home calls to action.
Differentiate Content from Competition
SEO writing can help you earn organic search traffic with a minimal investment. The marketing strategy allows companies without massive budgets to compete with larger rivals. However, you must approach this strategy in a manner that is creative and provides visitors with value they can’t find anywhere else.
Popular File Formats
As mentioned, GIF is an image file commonly used as the g. o-to format for short, looped videos. However, while GIF is the most common, it isn’t the only way to house the media, and surprisingly, it isn’t the most efficient any longer.
GIF for Blogs
For now, GIF files remain the most commonly used format to handle short, looped animations. The most significant advantage to choosing GIF is you’ll have no issues implementing the format on your web pages. All modern web builders plus HTML 5 have tools built into the software to handle GIF files.
MP4
MP4 is another way to handle short animations widely supported by standard web-building tools. The advantage of choosing MP4 over GIF is that the format is much smaller and more efficient.
Lottie
While MP4 files are exponentially smaller than GIFs, Lottie files are the leanest, most efficient way to add a video to web pages.
The format is JSON-based, meaning the file consists of code rather than pixels. JSON is highly customizable, efficient, and renders animation as a vector, so they won’t reduce in quality when scaled up.
Lottie’s popularity is rapidly increasing due to how the files are structured. As a result, many CMS platforms offer Lottie widgets so you can easily add animations to your web pages without any code. For Lottie tutorials on Shopify, Wix, Weebly, Elementor, and other no-code builders, visit the Creattie blog.
Where to Source the Best GIF for Blogs
The first step in adding Lottie, MP4, or GIF to blogs is finding a reliable library with high-quality content. We’ve picked 3 of our favorite GIF libraries below so you can access a diverse range of content to break up text pages.
Creattie
If you are really looking to create content that will stand out from competing pages, try Creattie’s Lottie library. The platform has thousands of animated illustrations that can be customized directly from the library’s interface. You can also download files in GIF, MP4, and Lottie formats or embed the Lottie file into your web page’s code.
Creattie consistently releases new design collections that are industry-specific with a cohesive design style. So, if you want to add short video loops to other, more central aspects of your website, like your home page, you can keep the style and colors on brand
Giphy
Giphy is the go-to source for popular GIFs. You’ll find all your favorite trending animated meme videos that will help create relatable blog posts. Giphy is 100% free to use, and you can even make your own with the GIF Maker.
Adding a Giphy file to your webpage requires you to embed the code into the page.
Tenor
Tenor is another great source for GIFs. The platform is structured similarly to Giphy but offers a less trendy assortment of animated files. Tenor is the perfect option if you want to add animations that aren’t as well-known.
You’ll also need to embed the code from the GIF page into your website’s code for the animation to render.
Final Words
Long-form text pages need other forms of media to keep users engaged. Creating a successful blog is more than writing and including keyword phrases. Adding short looped animations to your blog is one of the easiest and most effective ways to break up text and incentivize users to keep reading.
Lottie animations provide the best page load speeds and allow you to customize your designs, visit Creattie to check out the full selection of animated illustrations perfect your blog.
