Why bother adding images to blog posts, to begin with?
🤔🤨🧐
Simply put, blog post images help increase website traffic.
- Images make your blog posts more READABLE
Did you know that your readers don’t, in fact, READ your blog posts? They scan them. Adding visuals keeps them engaged with your content. - Images make your blog posts more SHAREABLE
Articles with an image once every 75-100 words get double the amount of shares ever articles with fewer images. (Buzzsumo) - Images make your blog posts more LINKABLE
Adding blog post images gives you a fighting chance to beat this sad stat: 50% of content gets 8 or fewer shares and 75% gets zero links.
More fun stats to illustrate why vision trumps other senses:
- In the brain, neurons devoted to visual processing take up about 30% of the cortex, compared with 8% for touch and just 3% for hearing. (Discover Magazine)
- MIT neuroscientists say we can process an image in as little as 13 milliseconds (MIT)
- Hear a piece of information and three days later you’ll remember 10% of it. Add a picture and you’ll remember 65%. (Brain Rules)
- Colored visuals increase people’s willingness to read a piece of content by 80%. (Xerox)
- Eye-tracking studies show readers spend more time looking at photos and other images that contain relevant information than they do reading text on the page. (Nielsen Norman Group)
- The same Nielsen Norman Group report states that readers also ignore fluffy pictures used to “jazz up” web pages… so might as well save yourself the effort. 😉
- People following directions with text and illustrations do 323% better than people following directions without illustrations. (Research)
- Articles with an image once every 75-100 words got double the amount of shares of articles with fewer images. (Buzzsumo)
- Facebook updates with images had an amazing 2.3x more engagement than those without. (Buzzsumo)
- 52% of marketing professionals worldwide name video as the type of content with the best ROI. (Syndacast)
- Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users. (Traffic Generation Café)
You should definitely read this content repurposing post to learn how to REALLY use visuals to drive traffic and leads.
BOTTOM LINE: Including visuals in your content makes it more
- findable,
- readable,
- enjoyable,
- promotable,
- lead-generatable,
- convert-able,
- revenue-bringable.
What exactly are ‘FREE’ blog post images?
Most people, when searching for ‘free’ images for blog posts, are searching for images that won’t cost $$$.
Money, however, should be the LEAST of your concerns.
An ideal FREE image is free of copyrights and royalties, can be copied, modified, distributed, and used without asking for permission or giving credits to the artist, even for commercial purposes.
Why is this so important?
Simple.
The last thing your business needs is to be sued for using an image you had no rights to.
Think you are too small of a fish for anyone to care?…
THINK AGAIN.
Ana’s sad tale of using ‘free’ images in a SlideShare presentation
Some time ago, I created a Slideshare presentation, “10 Killer Ways to Get More Facebook Fans James Bond Style”, using images from James Bond movies.
It was awesome, edgy, and landed over 100,000 views on Slideshare, BUT…
What was I thinking?… 😳🤪
Lo and behold, I got a DMCA notice from Slideshare:
Hello Ana,
We received a DMCA complaint from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. and Danjaq LLC regarding your file and the use of 007 property claiming that it infringed on their intellectual property and rights.
Apparently, my insignificant Slideshare deck had upset some people at MGM!
Now that I know better, I get it. I really do.
However, back then, it simply didn’t occur to me that mentioning James Bond could get me into trouble…
So you think a picture is free to use as long as . . .
Let’s take a look at some of the ill-conceived, yet very common ways folks justify using other people’s photos in their blog posts.
Attribution Doesn’t Make it Right
That’s right: giving attribution to the image creator doesn’t give you the right to use their work.
Peg Fitzpatrick posted a quote from attorney Sara Hawkins:
Taking another person’s image or graphic and giving them a shoutout, linkback, or any other type of attribution does not negate copyright infringement.
Common sense may say that an artist wants exposure for their work, but we’re talking about the law here and common sense doesn’t always parallel.
Copyright law gives the copyright holder the right to decide where their work is published and maybe they don’t want their work on your site, in your book, included in your newsletter or distributed to your social media network. It’s not for us to question why they wouldn’t want exposure.
Their Image, Their Rules
I thought I did everything right when creating this SlideShare deck: found Creative Commons-licensed photos and gave appropriate attribution.
Yet I still got a comment from one of the image owners:
Mind you, Creative Commons licensing doesn’t require me to include attribution ON the image itself, but in the end, it’s his photo, his rules.
BOTTOM LINE
When using photos, pictures, images in your blog posts, learn about their licensing requirements, copyrights, and applicable royalties. PLUS be ready to fix things if and when trouble comes – even if you think you’ve done everything right.
Even if you find an image without an explicit copyright notice, it absolutely does NOT mean that it’s ‘public domain‘ and, therefore, free to use.
Works of any kind do NOT need a copyright notice to have copyright protection, courtesy the Berne Convention Implementation Act, adopted in the U.S. in 1988.
The flip side of the coin?
The same act applies to any work YOU produce, including your website content. So, if anyone should reprint your work without your permission, you have every right to make their lives difficult. If it’s worth it to you, that is. 🤔😉
Still don’t think it’s that big of a deal?
Let’s hope these real-life cases scare you straight:
- This agency got sued $8,000 for using a copyrighted image in a blog post that got less than 100 visitors. They called it their “most costly mistake since starting the business”.
- Likewise, this agency got sued $4,000 for, once again, using a copyrighted image that would have originally cost $10.
- This company was republishing newspaper content under a CC licence for others to use. However they didn’t have a licence from the original creators of the content to do that, so they got sued.
- Persephone Magazine used an image with a Creative Commons licence and was later sued for $1,500 for using it. It turned out the photo did not belong to the person who uploaded it with a CC licence, which led to 73 companies that used it being sued.
- GoodReads faced one of the biggest copyright cases ever, when they were sued $150,000 for an image of a boy band member, uploaded by a fan.
So, no more of this, please:
Additional resources on image licensing
- Blogger’s Guide to Copyright and DMCA – Natalie Mootz at blogging.com
- Creative Commons Licenses Explained In Plain English – Sara Hawkins at sarafhawkins.com
- About The Licenses – at creativecommons.org
- Creative Commons on Flickr – Creative Commons explanation at flickr.com
When in doubt, use Reverse Image Lookup
Not sure whether the image in question is free of copyright shackles? Try to track down the original source by going a reverse image search.
TinEye.com is the best free tool for the job – simply enter the image URL and TinEye search results will return all instances of that particular image found online.
The best 10 2 sites to find the best free blog post images
Let me start with a quick disclaimer: there used to be 10 royalty and copyright free image aggregators listed below.
What happened?
Two things:
1. TRUST
I no longer trust a few photo sites to do what they claimed to do – provide us, website owners looking to legally use images for the content we create, with exactly that – images we could, with all confidence, use in our content.
Take, for instance, Compfight.com, a site that aggregates Creative Commons images from Flickr.
Here’s what you might see when searching for an image at Compfight.
- That’s an ad from DepositPhotos.com (one of the two sites I actually happen to love and recommend.)
- “All rights reserved” link leads to a Yahoo! Help page (no longer in service, thus no link) that walks you through setting up a Flickr account (no explanation of what “All rights reserved” actually means.) And by “All rights reserved”, by the way, Flickr means you MAY NOT use this image in any way, shape, or form… duh! YET…
- Apparently, as long as you give attribution (a link) to the image owner AND Compfight, you can use the image however you please… (NOT!!!)
- A link to buy images from Shutterstock.
I CRINGE when thinking how many a content creator might’ve been mislead by this gross misrepresentation of Creative Commons licence… that could lead YOU, the content creator (NOT Compfight!), to a legal battle with image creators.
And, believe you me, Compfight is FAR from being the only image aggregator website carelessly encouraging you to do something that’s a legal (and common sense!) no-no.
2. LESS IS MORE
The other day, I was working on a new Lesson for my Content Boomerang Students.
Content Boomerang is a content repurposing training I offer to website owners who want to see greater returns from their content marketing efforts – more TRAFFIC and LEADS, to be more precise.
After all, you work hard to create that content, to begin with… doesn’t it make sense to milk it for all it’s worth instead of letting it sink into the bowels of your archives?…. Click here if you agree.
Here’s exactly what I wrote in that Lesson:
I could easily named a few dozen websites you could get your images from.
However, it would be completely counterproductive. The last thing you need is to go down the rabbit hole of looking for that one ‘perfect’ image.
Here are the two websites you’ll EVER NEED to find the right image for any occasion.
That got me thinking…
Why am I telling my Students EXACTLY where I find the perfect images for my blog posts as well as countless content repurposing projects, yet giving you, my Reader, a lot more than you actually need to get the job done?…
Thus, gone is the list of one-too-many ‘free’ image aggregators.
Here are the only two free image sites you’ll ever need.
Pixabay.com
Pixabay.com offers truly FREE images – free to use AND free to acquire (meaning you don’t have to pay to download an image.)
A few Pixabay ‘good-to-do’s’:
1. Create a free Pixabay account
Registering is free and, once a member, you’ll be able to follow photographers you like, as well as save your favorite images.
2. Narrow down your search
Pixabay offers a choice of photos, vectors, illustrations, and videos. You can also narrow down your search by a few other parameters; category and color might be the most helpful.
3. Use Editor’s Choice images for inspiration
If you have no clue what kind of image you should be looking for (happens!), check out the Editor’s Choice section. That’s the best place to start looking for that emotional connection you need to establish with your Reader.
DepositPhotos.com
DepositPhotos.com is THE site I use to source ALL my images.
DepositPhotos image collection is a LOT better than Pixabay, but you’ll have to pay for it.
Good news is DepositPhotos images are inexpensive to purchase.
$1 (or less) per image is very reasonable. And totally worth it – TRUST ME. Shutterstock costs 3 times as much.
A few ‘good-to-knows’ about DepositPhotos:
1. Apply filters to narrow down image search
DepositPhotos has a number of helpful ways to find what you want faster.
2. Find similar images / images with the same model
I find these two features particularly helpful when I have an ‘image theme’ in mind.
For instance, in this presentation, I wanted to find images with the same mime models.
And here, I wanted to use images with the same model within retro genre.
How to Properly Add an Image to Your Post
Since we are on the subject of adding images to blog posts, let’s talk about the way it should be done.
Why is this important?
Search engines don’t ‘see‘ images the way humans do.
Images are but strings of code to a search engine.
The more information you add to that code, the better a search engine is able to interpret an image.
So what?
When an image is tagged with all the right (relevant to the topic of the post, that is) information, Google might:
- rank that image in Google Image search for the keywords you are targeting in the post
- rank your post ever-so-slightly better for your target keywords
Let’s hear it from the horse’s (John Mueller’s of Google, in this case) mouth:
REALLY pay attention to:
The most important thing to consider is how you’d want to be found in image search.
What you expect users to search for?
And how can your site be useful to them when they find you?
That’s exactly what your content should be all about:
- Answering your target audience’ questions.
- Solving their problems.
- Positioning you as the expert in your niche.
Adding relevant images that make your content more interactive and reader-friendly scores well with both your audience and Google.
Back to adding images to your blog posts… 😉
When adding an image to a blog post, pay attention to:
1. Image File Name
BEFORE uploading an image to your Media Library, give it a relevant, keyword-based file name.
In other words, DON’T name your image based on what it’s about. Name it based on what your post it about.
EXAMPLE:
👈This is an image of a pinup girl sitting on her kitchen counter staring at her computer screen while on the phone.
Needless to say, that’s far from what I named the image file before uploading it to this post.
Rather, it was named “free blog post images”, since that’s what my post is about.
2. Image Alt (‘Alternative’) Text
What is Alt Text used for?
- Visually impaired users read the image Alt Text to better understand what it’s about.
- Alt Text is what’s displayed in place of an image if the image file cannot be loaded.
As far as you are concerned, Alt Text is yet another way to use your post keywords.
3. Image Title
Make it keyword-based, but NOT keywords-stuffed.
4. Image Caption
A caption is the small piece of text that appears beneath an image of a blog post.
I haven’t used an image caption or seen other websites use it in a while.
Up to you.
4. Image Description
Image Description is what’s displayed on the media attachment page if you make your image clickable to open to a bigger image.
Rarely useful for an average reader. Another small way to add more relevant topical keyword-based info to your post.
Personally, I find it too miniscule and exhausting to come up with yet another way to describe the same image.
If you have it in you, go for it. 👍👍
5. Link URL
I almost always leave this one blank.
Why?
Readers love clicking on images.
If there’s a good reason to link an image to a relevant page on or off site, go for it!
If you are simply linking an image to a different version of itself (like the page that’s dedicated to that image on your site), then don’t.
If you don’t understand what I said above, then leave the field blank.
Final Words on Adding Images to Your Content
Images are GREAT… with one caveat – they could significantly slow down your blog.
Solutions:
1. Resize images before uploading
Easy to do.
If you are using software like Snagit, you can easily resize the image in the Edit panel.
You should also run your image file through Image Optimizer before uploading it.
Personally, I use both.
2. Use WP Smush.it Plugin
WP Smush.it is a free WP plugin that will automatically reduce your image files, thus improving your blog performance.
CAVEAT: the plugin is resource-intensive and could slow down your blog – the opposite of what you are trying to do.
3. Get Faster Web Hosting
Traffic Generation Café is with WPXHosting and my uptime is 99.9%. Plus, it’s lightning fast.
Free Image Hunting Marketing Takeaway
DO add engaging relevant images to all your blog posts.
DON’T spend too much time hunting them down – stick to the best copyright-free and free (or inexpensive, like DepositPhotos) image websites that have worked for you in the past.
OR just use the only two sites I recommend: Pixabay.com and DepositPhotos.com.
Happy copyright and royalty free image hunting!
From Ana with
Affiliate disclaimer: this post may contain affiliate links, which means I’ll make a small commission at no cost to you should you purchase anything following those links.
THANK YOU for supporting Traffic Generation Café!
Hey Ana, is unsplash good to use for downloading copyright free images and then use it commercially in some blog posts in my website and some other Blogging Websites like Medium?
If yes, then does it requires attribution as well?
Great question, Manjesh. The best and safest thing to do is to go through their terms of use. If in doubt after that, verify with Unsplash directly.
Better safe than sorry, right?
Hi, Ana! From my experience with Pixabay, I have found it difficult to find pictures for some specific topics, and the search queries are limited to tags included, but it is a great way to get free quality pictures.
I am with you, Nardi; that’s why I pretty much stopped using it. DepositPhotos is my hands-down favorite, and has been for years now.
Hi Ana.
Excellent post, thank you for this amazing information, please tell me more about how to compress pictures without losing quality?
ImageOptim is what I use for compression, Ali. Sure you’ll see the difference on a huge screen, but who uses that nowadays, right? 😉
Great article it helps me to find free images for my blog. Thanks for sharing this.
You are very welcome, Rahul.
I am currently using pixabay, pexels and other images edited in canva. But still i did not know about these amazing sites, mentioned in this article. Thanks alot for helping me out. Keep it up
Happy to help, Saqib.
Hello, Ana! Thanks for the info! To tell the truth, I haven’t put much effort into optimizing the images on my site. I never thought it matters. I had just compressed them before uploading using a free online tool called tinypng.com. But I probably add the image titles and image alt text. Cheers!
Well… Google Page Experience Update is coming in 2021, which will make anything that slows down a page a strike against the website. Images is one of the worst offenders! So yes, this post becomes even more important as we, website owners, face the music. 😉
Thank you for your suggestion miss, we need a lot of images to make a blog post attractive. I use canva to make photo great editing.
You are very welcome, Sristy.
Thanks, Ana… I was thinking of creating a blogging site and was concerned about how I can get suitable pictures for my posts. Your post saved the day. Thanks again for such great content.
Yay! 😉 Pleasure, Rafsan; thanks for coming by.
Here comes the cliche 😊… “A picture is worth a thousand words.”
Ha! ❤️
Indeed…
Hi Ana. Just thought I’d mention that Pixabay has come under fire recently. Some of the images on their site don’t belong to the people claiming them. I’d been using them for years when I started noticing strike-throughs on some of the picture links on my blog. Frightening, but true.
Frightening, indeed, Mitch!!! Had no idea; thanks for the heads-up.
PS Sooooooo good to see you at Traffic Generation Café! 🙂
thank you very much for this post i am new to website development i was looking where to find copyright free images for my client’s Website thank you
You are very welcome, Manu.
It’s really great information Ana
Thanks, Arpit!
Hi Ana, excellent guide to the free images for blogging. Nobody can disagree with you, adding images make the articles more interesting and appealing to the readers. I personally think that, if possible the best scenario is to take the photos myself or try to produce original graphical artwork, if i have enough time.
That’s definitely the way to go, John!… IF, as you mentioned, you have enough time. 😉 Or skills. Or desire. Or whatever.
Thanks for sharing the article. It was fun to read.
Pleasure, Dave.
Hello Ana,
Really good post. I really liked the list of all the benefits of using image in blog. I had never used DepositPhotos before reading your post, But I have used Pixabay frequently. Thank you for writing great article.
You are so very welcome, Megha.
Hi Ana,
My favourite Pexels.com for images and Pngtree.com for background, vectors, and logos. I used these two websites to short out my image requirements. Also, Ana, we can perform a Google image search and set a filter using the tool option below at the search bar to find royalty-free and copyright images. Try it, you will love it. Thank you.
Thanks so much for the additional resources, Anil!
One thing I used to stay away from like a plague was the Usage rights tool in Google Image Search. It was notoriously unreliable as it included all kinds of images that were far from royalty and copyright-free.
Take Flickr, for instance. People would upload all kinds of pics to their accounts (theirs and whatever else they liked online), and because they didn’t know any better, all these images would all of a sudden be listed under CC license, even though they were basically stolen. For whatever reason, Google didn’t know any better either and used to rely on people telling it, ‘Oh sure, this image is free to use…’, then listing it in Google Image Search as such. 🤦♀️🤦♂️
Thank goodness they’ve tightened that screw since then. 🤣 I’d go back to using it now – with caution.
Ana, without doubt it is a very good article. I also use Pixabay for my images but you have made so many doubts clear.
I have got a new source Deposit photo which you mentioned. Surely going to use this.
Can I also share some of my photos to them so that others can also use it. I have a good collection of photographs clicked by me?
No idea, Priti… I suppose you’ll have to ask them.
I use the Pixabay. Thanks for suggesting DepositPhotos. I will try this.
Sure thing, Kunal.
Hello Ana,
A nice way to convey all points.
Your post was as smooth as a good gin. Nice.
🤣🤣🤣
Thanks, Biswajit!
I appreciate this post, Ana. I’ve used stock images for sooooo long. Only recently I began using Canva and most recently Canva Pro. The images really are on a different level and it gives you the piece of mind that you can use it without attribution.
Stock images… you always know that’s what they are when you see them, right, Rhys? Doesn’t exactly bode professionalism, does it?
Thumbs up to Canva! 🙂
Ana,
That is a great post on images. This is something I’d been thinking about but doing little about. I never know you can filter out licenses when searching for Google Images.
Really thanks for sharing this kind of information.
Thanks
Sofia Smith
The right blog post images = better reader experience. As inconvenient and time-consuming it is to us, bloggers, our readers attention span demands it.
Hope you make time to put images to good use on your website, Sofia!
Hi, ana
Thanks for sharing the informative article!
Currently I am using pixabay for my blog, I’ll definitely try all of these sources. Thank you 😊
Sounds like Pixabay is not the best way to go, judging by other comments and personal experience, Bilal. Might be time to think to using a different source!
Thanks for this information. Now I will make sure I research a photo before I post it. Being sued is not worth any picture in the world. Thanks again.
Hear, hear, Chevelle!
Hi Ana, I like two things about your article: 1) how comprehensive it is, 2) you left just 2 sites in the end 🙂 True, it’s more than enough nowadays. I also like specialized resources, like Old New Stock or Startup Stock, or this app https://photos.icons8.com/creator for making your own photos out of stock ones.
I am a big fan of fewer options! 😉
Thanks for suggesting a new resource, Jane – never heard of icons8; definitely looks like a great idea for simple personalization.
Awesome post! Here was me just expecting 2 bullet points with the sites but I ended up getting a full in depth report on imaging and how to use them properly!
Pixabay and my own 100% for me these days.
Great stuff. Thanks!
You are welcome, John.
I am so happy you didn’t mention Unsplash, which is in most cases illegal and might mean being sued. I am also glad you are not opposed to actually pay for images, however little. Though I don’t thin there is anything wrong with mentioning the image author, ever.
Not exactly sure why you think using Unsplash leaves you more open to lawsuits, James. What do you know about them that I don’t?….
Ana, Pixabay user here, great to read to your story of how you have reached to these 2 sites that you have suggested in this article.
Pixabay and Canva are two major tools for me for almost all my blogging needs. Although I do take photos myself for my reviews etc. I am now looking for a tool to compress the images but sits in WP plugins (without resource hog), still haven’t found one yet.
Curious: why a plugin? Why not optimize the images before uploading them? Would love to hear your logic behind it.
Hi Ana,
If you ever want to consider the 3 which is also free. Feel free to check rawpixel.com out. We’ve got a lot of exclusive content that may inspire the adventure our of the main two :).
Cheers,
Tip
Looks like a fun site indeed, Tip!
Hi Ana,
Thanks for the reply! Hope you like the images 🙂
Cheers,
Tip
Hey Ana,
Thanks for sharing this valuable content. Any online marketer or blog owner needs beautiful eye catching images to make their content stand out.
I used to buy my images through stock photo sites like fotolia or depositphotos.com because I wanted to make sure that my images were safe to use without violating any copyright infringement.
But then I found pixabay and now that’s where I get most of my images from. The only problem with pixabay is that sometimes it can take ages to find the correct images. But it’s a free source so there’s nothing to complain about.
Thanks for the other sources you mentioned. I’ll check them out…
I love Pixabay! Most of my images come from that site. Yes, it can take a bit more work to find the right images, but very worthwhile in my opinion.
Thanks for coming by, Jose, and taking your time to let me know what you thought.
Thanks for sharing such a wonderful list of image sources for blogs. Its a tough task for me to search for beautiful images for my blog posts. But after reading your post it seems easy.
Glad you found it helpful, Akash.
Hi Ana,
I really appreciate all the great intel you’ve given me – it is really helping me build my new blog! One question I’m still stumped on with images: what does “building on” an image really mean? I’d like to do some images with text overlays with quotes, information for slides, etc. and I’m confused on whether this is “altering” the image or not. Can you give me a specific guideline for the rules regarding adding text to images? Thanks so much! BTW – your blog has found a home in several of my bookmarks – great job here!
Thanks for coming by, Carina, and I apologize for a late response.
Yes, adding anything to an image – text, etc. – counts as altering it. You can alter images if the specific license allows you to do so. That applies to most Creative Commons images.
I wish I could be more specific, but you have to look at it on a case by case basis. Most sites that allow you to reuse images (like the ones I mentioned in the post) publish the type of license the images are published under – that should give you an idea if you can alter them or not.
Good luck with your new site!
Hi Ana,
I love finding just the right image for my post or header. I use Google Images, morgue file, pixabay, iconfinder but, I didn’t realize that Bing is now letting us use images. YAAY!! I also, didn’t know about a couple of the others you mention.
Thanks so much for the info. I love it! 🙂
Geri
You are so right, Geri – an image can make or break a post.
I’m exhausted. Well done Ana. Yes I read it all. Come on MGM, get a grip. Way too many lawyers. Really, do they have anything better to do than make noise on a SS presentation that was very well done. Please.
With Pinterest and Google it’s open season, with every individual it’s Harvard Law. Typical.
Attribution. Absolutely. Whenever I pull something 500px, they get the embedded attribution and the photographer gets link to his/her site of FB page.
This will likely be a losing battle for “photographers” as the web continues to grow and the popularity of images. Articles and images are shared all over the place by major sites, let alone individual blogs. If you link back to my post, more power to you and 99% time, thank you. Photographers and Artists would be better off to have the same mindset.
So glad Trey Ratcliff gets it, he’s only the biggest photographer online. Kudos.
Wow, Steve: you are my hero – you actually read one of my posts! lol
You are very right: fighting against image republishing is an uphill battle, so wouldn’t it be smarter to pick your battles well?
I have been using Photopin for some time, and whilst it proves to be a great source, sometimes limiting for my needs. I hadn’t come across the others you have mentioned above, despite frequently Googling to try to find more.
So this list you provided has opened up a whole new world of pictures! I do try to use my own pics, but as many of mine feature my family (and I choose not to have them on my blog), sometimes, it can be tricky to get the imagery needed!
Thank you.
Glad to help, Annie.
Using an image with a copyright license can land one into problem. I have heard cases of bloggers sued for infringing on such rights and ended up spending so much. I usually create most of the images i use or search for images without copyright on Google to use.
I will also check out the other sites you listed here for free images i could use for my blog. Thanks for sharing.
I found this article on Kingged.com and also left a comment there.
It’s definitely much more serious than many bloggers choose to believe.
Ana,
That’s wonderful that Slideshare worked with you to restore your URL with all the views and embeds intact. I can’t believe that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios were so on top of this.
Thanks for the resources. There are a few here that I wasn’t aware of.
I know, huh? I understand using copyrighted images, but that wasn’t their complaint… oh well.
Good to see you at Traffic Generation Café, Sherryl!
Another master piece from you Ana!
I usually use Google images for finding images that i use in my blog post and it seems the easiest method to me, I get to choose from a variety of images and also from different styles and formats like Clip arts, icon, logo and so on.
Thanks for mentions my Image SEO guide, it is really appreciated…
Been away for a while now, but am fully back now 😉
Just be careful with license rights, Joseph; you never know what you find on Google. And welcome back!
How to know copyrights of photos where to see it on the photo? We search for photos at google and find many but where to see copyrights ?
As I mentioned in the post, looking for images on Google is not the best idea.
This is great lesson for bloggers. We know we can’t do without images so there is need to be cautious.
Thanks for this knowledge packed post Ana
Better safe than sorry.
There is a lot of information on the Internet but you explained this topic particularly well. I like to buy images though because if you link to someone’s image you can’t be sure the link will be valid in the future.
That’s a good point, even though broken links are fairly easy to fix.
Hi there Ana,
Spot on post as usual, truly like your combo of information density with a juicy writing style!
Now I do have a question about the Flickr creative commons. How does it work with all this license stuff? I see you use pictures with “Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License” (oh these lovely names they picked, great!).
To me we are moving to the grey zone now…. Would you be able to defend that your slideshares are “non-commercial”? I mean, off course they are giving people free information about how to get traffic. But they are also driving people to your website, which in turn is meant to generate business.
What do you think? This “Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License” is certainly the biggest pool to fish in (with 75 million images) and you do have a knack of finding the funniest en most appealing ones!
(your SEO on page cheat sheet slideshare: guy with lightbulb in his mouth, or with an electrical chord coming out of his nose… must have taken you some serious image hunting to find them!)
There are no guarantees no matter what image license you use, Ayla.
The image creator might change the license in the future. Or someone might’ve posted a picture under Creative Commons that wasn’t theirs to post to begin with.
You just never know. Thus, the best you can do is do your due diligence and follow “the rules” as you understand them. If you ever have to take down an image due to a complaint, then you’ll cross that bridge when you get to it.
Hello Ana Hoffman
Good Day!
I have some suggestions on how to edit your picture.. just download on your google chrome the pixlr express. there you can edit free. with good quality. and to your blog, it is a nice peice of you, thank you
Looks like a great free tool, Rena; thanks for the suggestion.
Thank you for this comprehensive post Ana. I’ve been content using Flickr for my blog images — it’s nice to know that I have more options.
Fantastic post on free blog images, Ana.
You have thrown in some very helpful resources, and also put forth some interesting points on how we should approach finding free images for our blogs or websites.
There are plenty of sites that offer free images as well as other content, and as you have already alluded to in your post, the first rule of thumb is to check the licensing of the image(Or other content).
Reading through some of the definitions of the different licenses is also very helpful. Doing so can make the whole process of finding 100% free and legal images and other content, a much simpler and stress free experience.
Spot on, Danny.
And good to see you back in my neck of the woods!
I know you shouldn’t take other peoples’ images without their permission (which is why I have a Photodune account with mega amounts of credit loaded in to it).
However, I’m interested to know out of all the people posting here on this blog, how many have ever got caught out using a copyrighted image?
As I mentioned in the post, I’ve had a brush with copyrighting issues.
Hello! Anna. 🙂 I would like to thank you for this helpful post. I am starting to be in the “blogging industry” and also believe that images in my blog page can really enhance its appeal to the readers. Now, I also learned from your article that I cannot just pick any photo/image as they may be under copyright. 🙂 Kudos for a great article 😉
You got it, Ria.
Hi Anna I didn’t know about all-free-download thanks for the tip 🙂
You are welcome, Brendan.
Wow, I never know you can filter out licenses when searching for Google Images. I wonder how we as a blogger dictate that licensing? (I always put watermarks of my blog’s URL on my images, just in case someone steals it)
As with the WP Smush It, I’ve stopped using it about a year ago. Seemed to have a problem with their system (causing freezes and null image when importing on WordPress)
When you upload your images to an image-sharing site like Flickr, you set the license for those images. Otherwise, watermark is always a good idea.
I don’t keep Smush.it active; I only activate it every once so often to run my recently added images through it. Doesn’t take long to do and it doesn’t interfere with the blog.
Ah fair enough. I guess I’ll give Smush.it another go! I thought Yahoo! has closed it or something
Hello Ana, I must say this article is so nicely written that I really enjoyed reading it all till the end. I have sometimes used images from google but didnt know that filter to get images that are free to get and modify too, i actually never used the advanced filter but now I think i should be using it. Thanks for sharing so many valuable resources of getting images !
You are very welcome, Riz.
Hi Riz,
I also don’t use the advanced feature of Google image search, i just search for an image i like and use it! 😉
Why i dont use the advanced search is because it reduces the amount of images that shows up and it brings up images i dont like!
Just don’t say I didn’t tell you so, Joseph, when someone files a DMCA claim against you. lol
Thanks Ana… this is something I’d been thinking about but doing little about. Your tips and sources will prove very useful since I’m now trying to find pretty pictures to spruce up blog posts 🙂
Always my pleasure, Craig.
Hi Ana, another high quality post. Morguefile and Pixabay generally cover my needs. Sometimes Vecteezy has some useful stuff and occasionally the paid for sites offer a free image of the month which is often worth grabbing.
On the subject of image optimisation, there are three things you can do. Firstly save at the right size for the space the image will be shown. Secondly, compress jpgs as much as you can without losing too much quality (Pixlr has a slider control for this). Thirdly, Smush-it, as you mentioned. By doing all that you should be able to reduce the filesize of a copied image by 60 to 80%. I just wrote a post on this if you need more detail.
Keep up the great work Ana, yours is one of the few blogs I keep coming back to again and again.
Andrew
I usually use Snagit for my images, and whenever I resize images before uploading them to Traffic Generation Café, they get too blurry. Did you find it to be the case with other resizing tools, Andrew?
Thanks for the additional info and congrats on your Problogger post!
Hi Ana, thanks for the congrats – you cannot believe how excited I was managing to get my first ever guest post on one of the biggest blogs in the world – I can die happy now 🙂
I haven’t used Snagit, but I know what you mean about the blurs. They are, apparently called compression artefacts and are a result of taking out too much information and what’s lefet, kind of smudging together. With Pixlr you can control exactly how much or how little compression you are applying and see the resulting file-size on the readout.
I will download a copy of Snagit and have a look at the settings and get back to you if I can offer any advice.
Thanks, Andrew.
Adding an extra step of “finalizing” the images we add to our blog posts could be a bit too much for most bloggers. I know I might not always find the time to do it.
I was going to mention Morguefile and Pixabay actually, but you beat me to it.
They are both pretty good and have some nice images.
Another option, is to use pictures you use yourself and then you should be a lot safer. That does require you to take photos though, and that’s not for everyone.
Ana,
That is a great post on images.
I know people who have gotten in trouble recently for their free images.
I usually try to purchase most of my images. But sometimes I am not sure that is much better as we are not truly purchasing total rights to the image I do not believe.
You have a couple of free image sources that I have not used and I will look into them. I also was unaware that we could search images on Google and Bing by the license of the image. That is great to know.
Dee Ann
Thank you, Dee Ann.
I’ve never really used paid images in the past for that very reason: you have the permission to use the image (just like Creative Commons images), but that’s it. Permissions change all the time, sites come and go, so you never know.
Very kind of you, Emebu!
What an awesome resource Ana. I usually use Flickr or Google Images to find the images I use (or I take my own pictures). I am using the right license as well. But, I’ve been thinking about finding a different way to find images, a way that’s faster.
In my opinion, looking for the right image with the right license is always a pain in the neck, no matter how many resources you’ve got, Jens; let me know if you ever find a way to speed it up.
On the question of copyright, I have about maybe two and a half thousand of my own images up on the net.
A while ago I did a ‘similar image’ search for one of my images and found eight pages of URLs that had used the image – some with attribution and some without.
If someone copies one of my images and does not give attribution, then of course, I don’t like it.
If I do get attribution, then I weigh up the benefit of the backlink – and maybe let it go. Life it too short to chase up all the images.
On the question of image use and copyright, why isn’t Pinterest in court? For that matter, why isn’t Google Image Search in court for copyright breach?
Isn’t it because they are not uploading images but referencing the images from their URLs?
In WordPress, there is even an ‘upload from URL’ feature.
Do you remember the storm over whether Pinterest was breaking copyright by publishing some unauthorised images?
That came to nothing – and I assume is was because Pinterest references the images from the URLs.
There was also a question about whether Pinterest was uploading thumbnails.
It was said to be doing that so that if the referenced image URL changed or the original image was removed, Pinterest at least had the thumbnail to show, rather than a lot of empty frames with a blue question mark or ‘this image or video is currently unavailable’.
As far as I know, that allegation about thumbnails being uploaded by Pinterest didn’t go anywhere and Pinterest is not in court.
I recognise that the problem with referencing an image rather that uploading it is that the original image might not always be around and that could mean a broken link.
And if an image is referenced then there is a link out to the URL – with the ‘bad neighbourhood’ risk that goes with that.
By the way, do you think Google must have their own broken-link checker on overdrive, checking that the images they are referencing are still there?
You take great pictures, David; I am not surprised you see them all over.
And you’ve brought up a lot of very good points – about Pinterest and about linking out to give attribution for images; I haven’t even thought about it.
I’ve seen Google linking out to plenty of 404 pages, including images; not sure what their quality control rules are in regards to that.
Bottom line: it’s best to make/take your own images. And that makes blogging even more complicated.
Hey Ana,
I heard recently of a marketer who is being chased by Getty Images for royalties owed for an image that he bought from another marketer and used somewhere. He assumed (wrongly in this case) that the images were copyright free.
You cannot be too careful when it comes to images. Before I knew any better I used to just copy images from the internet for various uses. Shocking I know.
I have rarely found free images to be as good as the ones you pay for although I have used some from Flickr creative commons. I will give the sites you mention a try.
I’ll certainly get the Smush it plugin as that is one of things I have been meaning to look into. Very timely, so thanks for that.
Sandy
I’ve heard a lot of Getty image nightmare stories; I suppose they are trying to make an example of a few to deter the rest.
And I am with you, I used to use images however I wanted to as well, too bad I know better now. 🙂
You are very welcome, Stacy, and thanks for mentioning Bing rewards; I totally forgot about that.
For my readers: you can sign up for Bing rewards here – http://www.bing.com/rewards/.
Adding images to blog posts is very good just that i don’t it because i feel it delays the loading process of a blog, i want my blog to load faster.
I understand that concern, Emebu, but there has to be a balance between loading quickly and catching your readers’ eyes at the same time.
Hi Ana,
Very informative and detailed post. 🙂
I would like to know: once we go from Creative Commons site ot Google Images site to Flickr, are these images totally free like “All-free-download.com”? Or in former case, we still need to link-back?
Best,
Avadhut
Great question, Avadhut.
Rule of thumb: always give attribution. Most of Creative Commons images still require it, and it’s better to be safe than sorry.
Found your post on Twitter via @kikolani. Thanks for sharing Ana! I didn’t know that Bing had an image search like that, but I’ll be sure to check it out. BTW, I have used http://www.morguefile.com for years and found them to be a reliable resource.
Thanks for coming by, Jeremy, and thanks to Kristi for the thumbs up on Twitter.
It sounds like MorgueFile is a good one to add to my list; thanks.
Glad to hear Twitter is still alive and kicking! lol
Thanks for the resource suggestions, Jennifer; I’ll see you around when you are more bright-eyed.
Another great post loaded with info and resources Ana. I did want to mention one thing about searching for Creative Commons images. I can’t remember who it was but a couple of years ago a blogger was being sued by one of the bigger image sites for using one of their member’s (photographer) photos without buying the rights to it. He found the image on Flickr that allowed the photo’s use with attribution, which he did. It turned out that it was never the person’s photo that put in on Flickr in the first place. They purchased a single use license and then uploaded it to Flickr. I guess my point is that it’s important to make sure we’re getting permission from the true owner, which I imagine can be pretty tough.
You are so right, Brian; I can’t believe I forgot to mention that in the post.
I think I’ll add it; thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Great info Ana! It’s a shame that some people make such a stink over “their” pictures, but I guess I can understand to an extent. Thanks for sharing the above links. I got a few news ones now that I can use. I usually use FreeDigitalPhoto’s.net. 🙂
If I knew I could create the kind of pictures that would be shared all over internet, I’d be doing it day and night as long as they link back to me. I suppose that’s a blogger in me talking…
Thanks for another resource!
Hi, Ana!
Have to say, that slide with James Bond was nothing short of amazing. I’m curious, how they found it though?
Where did you find the “trick” with Bing images?:) I didn’t think a lot of people know that. I’ve heard that from Finch from Premium Posts.
I think all pictures in MS Office (Clip Art) are royalty free, but I’m not totally sure about that.
Best wishes,
Aleks
That Slideshare presentation happened to be featured on Slideshare home page for a while; might’ve caught someone’s eye there.
I read a lot of marketing news; that’s how I learned about Bing images just last week.
And I think you are right, those picture are free to use; too bad, there’s nothing great there, plus if everyone uses the same images… well, you know.
PS Where are you from?
Hi!
How do you get featured? By paying some fee? I just recently started to use 5 document sharing sites. I had no idea you could get that much traffic from these.
I’m from Latvia 🙂
Best wishes,
Aleks
No, you can’t pay to get on Slideshare home page; just have to work for it. 🙂
Here’s more on how to do it: https://trafficgenerationcafe.com/slideshare-traffic/.
By the way, I am from Russia. I am actually on the plance from San Francisco to Moscow right now.
:O
No way you are Russian! I’m Russian too (though I live in Latvia). Your name should be Anna then, pretty sure 🙂 I suppose you married American? (judging by your last name).
And thank you for the link! You gave me some ideas I want to act on..
Всего доброго,
Алексей
My full name is Oksana – Ana for short. And yes, my husband is American.
Nice to meet you, Aleksey!
Zohmygosh Ana! You’re absolutely freaking amazing!
I was just on here a couple days ago looking for this exact information! You always have such neat images, and I need lots of new images to use for all sorts of books, posts, and other media – but I don’t have room in my budget for them.
This was one of the best-timed posts ever, from the time I needed the info to when I saw this. Amazing (uncanny.)
Thank you again! Another bookmarked post of yours that I’ll be using all the time . . . 🙂
MUCH appreciated, Lindsey; always a blessing to be at the right place at the right time.
I remember the JB episode… such a shame.
I’d like to share an additional experience… I’ve a client who accepted a guest post from a famous author. She sent over a photo of herself and a copy of the book cover. It turns out the author didn’t have permission from the photographer to use the image (even though the image was of her, he still owned the rights to it).
Image ownership is tricky at its easiest. And a court case at its worst.
Wow – it’s definitely one of those cases, Sarah; can’t believe we might not be free to use an image of ourselves, whoever took the pic.