Your blog post image plays a huge part in your blog's success. If your blog post image sucks, it could be stopping your blog from getting the readers and shares it deserves. I know - your mother always told you not to judge a book by its cover. But you know darn well you still do. And the blog image is that book cover we all judge.

Here's why your blog post image is so important: It's often the first thing people see.

Your blog post could be awesome. It could be one of the best you've ever written. But if the image doesn't do it justice, well, you aren't doing it justice either.

Most social media sites are all about visual marketing these days. They showcase images in high profile context compared with text. If your blog post has an image associated with it, that image is on big display for everyone to see.

Does that image make them want to click on through and read it? Or is it getting passed over?

How does your blog post look when you share it? Is your image awkward? Is it boring? Do you even have a blog post image?

In highly visual platforms like Pinterest, a blog post image can mean the difference between hundreds of readers and no readers.

It's really quite simple. No blog post image, or a crappy image, means less reading, less sharing, less traffic, less results.

I learned this over time and you can see how my blog post images have evolved. I used to have simple images. Then I got more creative in terms of the symbolism and imagery related to the topic. Then I started adding text to my images occasionally.

Now, my blog post images are all formatted to include a symbolic image along with the title of the blog post, the link to my website, and they are formatted for social media sharing (including, of course, Instagram).

In fact, I spend nearly as much time formatting and crafting my images as I spend writing the actual blog post.

I'm not saying my blog post images are perfect nor are they the only way to format blog post images. But this is how my process has evolved to ensure I receive maximum reach and engagement. And my images will likely continue to evolve over time.

But to further my point, here are some other people who are creating high quality images to support their blog posts.

Rebekah Radice always has great imagery in all of her blog posts. She specifically includes pinnable images directly in her posts.

Mike Allton is another one who creates high quality post images. He uses great graphics and creative fonts to draw in readers.

There are plenty of other great blogs out there with beautiful and effective images. But what you notice about most of them is that they are enticing, captivating, appealing, and draw you in with all the information you need to know - while still being ideal for sharing and promoting. They don't "suck".

If you want help creating better blog post images, you can try tools like Canva and Recite which help you with formatted images that you can customize. While these tools will help you get on the right track, I recommend you work on creating your own style and images. You want to stand out and look unique.

So stop including crappy blog post images in your posts. Instead, take the time to really create high quality images to support your quality blog posts. You will find that your content gets more shares, more comments, and more results.