Web- and mobile-savvy businesses are always looking for creative and interesting ways to boost their content and gain numbers, and few strategies are simpler or more effective than adding visual aspects to your written pieces.

Innovative infographics. Stunning photos. Extraordinary videos.

Visuals that can grab your readers’ attention and keep them interested are powerful tools every business should use. Here are five great reasons that your mobile and web content should include visual elements:

1. MORE LIKELY TO GRAB ATTENTION

How do you measure the success of a specific piece of web content? The key indicators include the numbers of clicks the piece generates and the amount of time individuals spend viewing it. Not surprisingly, both of these indicators show that adding a visual component raises the chances that a particular piece of content will be successful.

“Articles with a visual component get clicked on more, and clicks equal revenue,” Arielle Pardes, a writer for Vice Media, told Como in a recent interview. “People stay on the page longer when there are more photos because they want to see what photo will come next.”

2. GOOD FOR BUSINESS

While you want your visuals to grab the attention of your customers and potential customers, that’s only half the story. Your visuals represent your business, so it’s important to pick visual content that conveys the brand image you want.

The numbers don’t lie: Nearly half of consumers consider a website’s design to be the top criterion for discerning the credibility of a company. “Just like you can easily tell the quality of a magazine from the quality of the design or image on its cover, people are drawn to web content that’s more visually appealing because it seems like higher quality,” Pardes explains.

3. FASTER PROCESSING

Because we have more information to digest today than ever before, people constantly look for tools to help increase processing efficiency. In other words, since there is so much content vying for our attention and time, we have to find ways to digest it faster than ever before.

“Narrative structure through visual content is anthropologically the oldest form of storytelling and communication,” Aaron Kurlander, Production Assistant at Chandelier Creative, recently told Como. “So from an evolutionary standpoint, we respond to visual content better.”

It’s estimated that 90% of the information that travels to the brain is visual, and we process these visuals 60,000 times faster than we process text.

4. GRAPHIC POWER

Visuals aren’t just important complements to text—they’re also important counterparts to numbers. Quantitative information often supports content, but stand-alone numbers can be hard for readers to digest.

Search engine results showed an increase of over 800% in searches for the term “infographic” between 2010 and 2012. As data becomes a more integral part of storytelling, content producers must find ways to represent these metrics in ways that engage consumers. Infographics are a way to show instead of tell.

5. LOWER BARRIER TO ENTRY

Think creating great content has to be difficult? While technology hasn’t yet enabled the average person to become a better writer, anyone can create visual content with a simple click of a button using apps like Instagram or Vine. And it pays: B2B Infographics explains that photos are “liked” twice as much as text updates and that videos are shared twelve times more than links and text posts combined.

One great example of the potential of Vine’s six-second videos is Magician Zach King. King’s visually intriguing videos have brilliantly attracted more than 1.9 million followers—demonstrating that, when it comes to content, actions speak louder than words.

Have you found success with your visual strategy? Share your tips in the comments below.

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