Did I capture your attention? (via iStockPhoto)
[This is part of the Developing Great Blog Content Series. Check out the other posts!]
Great blog content can be as diverse as the bloggers themselves but there appears to be a few “tricks” that continually crop up and one of them is the use of images in their posts.
It really is true: A picture is worth 1,000 words, and in the context of an online generation where “skimming” and “scanning” is the general practice of reading web copy the importance of these “1,000 words” is even greater. Shoot, why not have more than one picture just to make sure!
Here are some of the reasons you should highly consider using images in your blog posts (or some other rich media):
- Catches the reader’s eye and helps them to commit to reading the content.
- Differentiates the content from a lot of other similar blog posts.
- Helps craft a visually-memorable experience.
- “Strengthens” the blog posts specific content with images.
- Adds valuable SEO traffic related to the images within your blog post. This cannot be underestimated!
Personally I think the first and last point are the most important. The point is that adding an image to your blog post, even it it requires a little more of your time per post, is worth the effort and cost that may be associated with the effort.
The Legal Issues of Using Images
Like many things you want to make sure that you’re completely above the law in terms of using images in your blog posts. Most likely you have, and will be, using images that you yourself did not create.
Stay above the law!
That is, you’re not going out shooting photos with your iPhone or digital camera for every single blog post that you write and publish! If you are that’s pretty intense and also very cool.
Essentially you want to make sure that you are not using protected images that are violating copyright laws. Standford has a good writeup about copyright laws and fair use as it relates to websites that every blogger should be at least familiar with.
In short it covers 5 elements:
- Assume that the images you are using are protected.
- Read the fine print when it comes to sites that say their images are “Royalty-Free” or “Copyright-Free” – better to err on the side of caution.
- If anyone complains about an image on your blog remove it immediately – you can actually avoid liability by removing it quickly according to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
- If someone complains investigate promptly and quickly. Ask for proof of copyright.
- When in doubt you should simply seek permission if you can.
Of course, you can read more if you’d like but it’s best to be aware of these highly-suggested elements of fair use and copyright!
What Does ‘Royalty Free’ or ‘Stock’ Really Mean?
This is something that often trips up newer bloggers who see these words thrown around a lot without really knowing what it means or how it impacts what they do and the images that they use. Here’s one definition:
Royalty-Free, or RF, refers to the right to use copyrighted material or intellectual property without the need to pay royalties for each use or per volume sold, or some time period of use or sales.
I’ve bolded the part that will make the most sense to you, the blogger – if you purchase a RF image you pay only once and not every single time it’s used or is viewed by your visitors. You can also use it in multiple projects and blogs as well!
Here are some bullet point items for the person who wants a bit more info:
- Pay a one-time fee to use the image multiple times for multiple purposes (with possible limits).
- No time limit on when the buyer can use an image.
- No one can have exclusive rights of a Royalty-free image (the photographer can sell the image as many times as he or she wants).
- A Royalty-free image usually has a limit to how many times the buyer can reproduce it. For example, a license might allow the buyer to print 500,000 brochures with the purchased image. The amount of copies made is called the print run. The buyer is required to pay a fee per brochure, usually 1 to 3 cents, for additional prints. Magazines with a large print run cannot use a standard Royalty-free license and therefore they either purchase images with a Rights-managed license or have in-house photographers.
Remember, at the end of the day you want to make sure that you read the fine print as some sites may have different and particular stipulations that you must abide by. Licenses vary by each provider so you need to read any and all agreements before you get in trouble.
For example the image of the girl with the camera at the top of this post is a RF image that I got from iStockPhoto – I purchased it once and now get to use it as many times as I’d like! Great systems like iStockPhoto will even have a history of your purchases so you can use them later:
Simple view of my download history.
And as you can see here, even when I jump to the actual image I can see that I can download at no cost (no credits):
A very sleek and intuitive interface to boot!
I highly suggest going the Royalty Free route if you can afford a few dollars to spot for a good post or two. In fact, here are some suggestions to get the most bang for your buck, so to speak:
- Use RF images on your most highly trafficked (potential or actual) blog posts. For example, a landing post or static page for your killer series post might be a good place to spend a dollar or two!
- Organize your images by category so that you can re-use them strategically and quickly!
- If you have multiple blogs then organize your RF images in such a way where you can re-use them at no cost!
It’s well worth the spend if you can swing it.
Here are a few sites that I recommend to check out for RF images:
iStockPhoto is one of the “big guys” that’s out there and for many of your needs you might as well just start there. I’ve used them for years but I just started a new account under TentBlogger so I can silo my use (personal preference, of course).
Shutterstock is another great resource that many opt for instead of iStockPhoto. Very popular resource.
Ghetty Images is another great spot for stock photography. Check it!
What About the Use of ‘Free’ Images?
Again, the onus is on you here and you are ultimately responsible for making sure that you’re above board in terms of the use. There are many sites that claim that the images are “totally free” but they might be bad sites that are illegally using images without their authors permission!
Again, do your research. Some of the worst offenders is simple Google Image Search:
People do this all the time and you simply have to be just as cautious – you never know what Google is actually indexing and the images that they are serving up to you. In fact, Google is notorious for jumping into /images folders on servers and indexing their entire file library! Of course, you can stop Google’s bots by doing editing your robots.txt file.
But, did you know that you can actually filter your results so that you grab images that are protected?
Click on Advanced Settings.
Here’s what these options mean:
- Labeled for Reuse – Your results will only include images labeled with a license that allows you to copy and/or modify the image in ways specified in the license.
- Labeled for Commercial Reuse – Your results will only include images labeled with a license that allows you to copy the image for commercial purposes, in ways specified in the license.
- Labeled for Reuse with Modification – Your results will only include images labeled with a license that allows you to copy and modify the image in ways specified in the license.
- Labeled for Commercial Reuse with Modification – Your results will only include images labeled with a license that allows you to copy the image for commercial purposes and modify it in ways specified in the license.
Make sure to choose the right one so that if you do, in fact, use Google to search for images that you stay above board legally.
Here are a few great spots to get free images. Enjoy!
stock.xchng is a class-act and is a great site with free images galore with tons of categories.
The morgueFile is a place where you can easily download images with very little supervision or requirements. In fact, you don’t need to cite original authorship or anything – use them for commercial use at will!
What about “Creative Commons”? What’s That?
Creative Commons is most simply understood as an alternative to Full Copyright laws and stipulations. It allows the creators to specify different licensing for their work that fits their needs and their goals.
Here’s some long-form verbiage about CC:
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative work available for others to build upon and share. Current copyright laws are generally extremely restrictive.
Creative Commons has done the hard legal figuring to enable you to simply and easily express your preferences with respect to what people can do with your work.
Very quickly there are generally 4 particular parts to the license:
- Attribution – You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work – and derivative works based upon it – but only if they give you credit.
- Noncommercial - You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your work – and derivative works based upon it – but for noncommercial purposes only.
- No Derivative Works – You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivative works based upon it.
- Share Alike - You allow others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work
You can read more about this information directly over at Creative Commons. One of the biggest supporters of CC has been Flickr and the Flickr user can define their CC license for their images directly in their account:
Flickr settings for Creative Commons.
As such, there are a number of sites that you can use to “mine” the directory of images and use the ones that you need for your blog! Here’s one such site that I love and use often:
CompFight is a Flickr search tool where you can look for images to use on your blog! Just make sure that you choose the right license (Creative Commons) over on the left side of the screen and make sure if you do use the images that you attribute them correctly.
Pretty neat, right?
Love me some Creative Commons!
How to Attribute the Right Way:
You might be thinking “Great, I’ve got the images, now how do I attribute them correctly?” Well, there are a number of ways that you could do it and there’s really no “best” way to do it.
Generally you simply want to cite the original author with a link back to their work. You could do a number of things:
- “HT author-name” (link)
- “via author-name/url” (link)
- “Originally upload by author-name/url” (link)
- “This photo, “title of image” is copyright (c) 2011 author-link and made available under a attribution-type-here” (link)
- A link directly in the post referencing the orignal creator or site
- Add a description if you’d like with the text and link
- Link to the direct Creative Commons license in use
- Include the Title of the work and then any other derivative works if it is one.
There’s a bit of freedom here but the point is that to give credit where credit is due, unless it’s a completely free image with no requirement for attribution!
Final Tips on Using Images in Your Blog Posts:
Here are some final tips on using images in your blog posts that I’ve come up with over the years that I’ve been blogging:
- SEO – Your images will be indexed by Google. The challenge is to make sure that they are indexed well. Make sure that your images have decent file names and are of the highest quality possible.
- File Size, Compression- Although you want the highest quality possible make sure to minimize too much file size load on your server and your end user. Use an application to “smush” or “compress” the image to it’s lowest level. I use Image Optim to minimize file size.
- Be Consistent – Try to be consistent with your use of images in your blog posts using left and right justification or full-width of your content area. Whatever you do just maintain that use throughout your blog for a consistent user experience.
- Use Your Server – Linking to external sites can help save you bandwidth but you’re ultimately at the mercy of whether or not they continue to host those images. Also, they might stop you from linking to their site if you use too much of their bandwidth (this is called “hot linking”)! My suggestion is to always host your images on your server and blog so that you can trust that the images will always be there.
- Pictures Aren’t Enough – Remember, real content (words) will be your best weapon to create great content and a thriving blog. Good pictures aren’t enough – you’re going to have to do some writing!
- Edit Images – Sometimes even the slightest edits to a photo can make a world of difference. Spending just those few minutes to add some text on top of an image or mix things together will help you stand out.
- Be Creative – Ultimately you want to be as creative as you can with your use of images so that it represents your blog and brand well.
And remember to have fun!
I hope this guide helps you create amazing and compelling content for your blog. Let me know if you have any questions and/or any other tips!
[This is part of the Developing Great Blog Content Series. Check out the other posts!]
Awesome post John! Over the earlier years of following ChurchCrunch I had picked up on the Flickr CC stuff and Flickr is usually the first place I go to search for great pictures for my blog posts. I use iStockphoto for stuff at work and I will start to look more closely for “0-credit” versions!
Of course the other way to do it is to take your own pictures to coincide with your blog posts. I’ve done that a few times in an attempt to stretch my creativity!
yes, that was one of the first articles i wrote about that stuff.
The old school blogs!
yes.. yes.
Great article! I use http://www.pixosphere.com/ because most of the images are free but there are some you can purchase. Joining is free unless you want to sell your own photos. It is also 100% family friendly so you never have to sift through adult content which I appreciate. So much simpler than any other site I’ve found to use. Thanks for the info on copyright.
Blessings,
Mel
Please feel free to stop by: Trailing After God
thanks mel! i’m going to check that one out.
this blog was the answer to my prayers!
i like this.
don’t forget a gravatar! http://tentblogger.com/gravatar/
Bookmarked.
Yes, it was THAT good.
ditto!
wah wah.
wow, this was such a comprehensive and helpful post. thanks!
this was a big one, for sure.
Very helpful post. Thanks for taking the time to put this together. This may become my favorite post of the next 300 you write.
ah. man! i just started! now you’ve “up’d” the bar!
This is a great resource. Thanks for all of the suggestions!
sure thing adam!
This is a post I’ve been waiting for! Thanks John! I have always used images in my posts, whether I shot/created them myself, or borrowed/bought them from somewhere else. It can sometimes get in the way because I’m so OCD about the quality that I almost ALWAYS end up modifying it in some way. But I think it’s definitely worth it.
thanks dustin! i think adding those few minutes are well worth the time!
You definitely have a gift for photo editing… That is something I am not good at. I have my Paint software and that is it!
neither am i to be honest!
John, your post is really helpful. I didn’t understand the whole RF thing before appreciate you spelling it out for me. Usually I get images from creative commons but recently I have been trying to use my own picture (also got the idea from looking at your site) to help differentiate my posts.
I just got a new Mac and love playing with the photo booth app. Also I play with Instagram for some cool effects.
Please keep the creative ideas coming! Thanks, Miriam
sure thing miriam!
Really great post!
I especially like the part about copyrights. You’ve managed to explain a complicated topic in an easy way!
Thanks.
thanks! it took me a while to understand it all… so i hope to help those get there faster than I did!
Really helpful post. Another site that I like to check out is http://www.fotolia.com
I had never thought about SEO and images. So I better make those image titles and file names mean something good.
And when you are putting the images on your server are you uploading via the WordPress media section or are you doing something different?
yes. just uploading via the post area.
All good stuff. I also wrote about this a while back (http://osliving.com/sourced/free-web-resources/where-to-find-copyright-free-photos-for-your-blog-or-website/). I don’t think there’s ultimately any need as a blogger to invest in royalty free services.
There are so many CC licensed images available to cover most generic situations. My feeling is that I’d rather link back to a photographer on Flickr for having used his/her free CC licensed image than pay a service iStockphoto so they can regulate what is one of the most creative pursuits.
I’m with ya on that one!
thanks for this OS! that’s pretty neat. never seen your blog before… but checking it out!
Another great post, as usual. I have been trying to keep on top of this by putting images in my posts; however, I always seem to forget…lol I need to put that in my to-do list.
Thanks for pointing out the file compression aspect of this whole thing. While more an more people are acquiring broadband, you still want to compress that picture you just shot with your 12MP DSLR…Not only will it put a dent in your allocated bandwidth, but there are still people out there on dialup who won’t stick around to wait for your blue-ribbon photo to download.
Thanks, again!
12MP? yikes! i’ve seen some people “accidentally” upload RAW images…!
Thanks for posting this…I am guilty of taking stuff from google images all the time! haha
So I have a question for you. Is it possible to make $$$ on a wordpress.com blog?
You could probably do product reviews with affiliate links, and maybe sponsored posts.
you might be able to do that… i can’t remember if wordpress.com lets you use them… i guess they can’t patrol or police all links…
not sure.
John what a great write up. I haven’t seen such a comprehensive article about the use of images and resources like this. Amazing, talk about some evergreen content! Well done good sir!
I’ve needed a thorough post like this for reference for a long time. I use iStockphoto and 9/10 I find exactly what I need. It’s worth it for me. I’ve never really fully understood royalty-free and creative commons until now. Thanks John.
sure thing tony!
I’m waiting word on the over-under for how many times I’ll be referencing this post in the coming months. Take the over. Phenomenal.
thanks clay. i appreciate you!
Thanks for writing this, John. Lots of misuse of images on blogs. I will definitely be referring to this.
sure thing jeff! great stuff over at your blog… you’re killing it!
Thanks, man. Appreciate the encouragement.
i see mike hyatt tweeting you all the time!
Thanks John! This is the post I’ve been waiting for!
sure thing benny! took a while, but i got it done!
What a great summary post of photo options! I’m totally a visual learner so I try to include pictures in all my posts, when I can. (I’ve been wishing I’d planned ahead enough to take photos of my recipes.)
I’m a huge fan of the creative commons & Flickr for my Inspiration Thursday posts, but otherwise, I really take 90% of my own photos. I hadn’t really thought about it until now, but I guess it seems like on my blog, my photos lend credibility.
I also tend to run lots of photo-heavy posts balanced by lots of short photoless posts. How many photos, in your opinion, is too many? I have a hard time deciding on whether or not to break some posts up into parts if they’re too photo heavy.
Thanks for another great post! (I’m still trying to catch back up on the last couple of weeks.)
i’m not sure there is a ceiling… but just keep the amount in good taste, right?
Great Article!
Didn’t read all the comments, but incase someone didn’t mention it. iStock doesn’t have a ‘true’ history with Free re-downloads. You can only re-download after 24 hours… I wish it did though, but yes as long as you save your files you can get unlimited use from them.
If you are smart with your purchases and/or have a simple editing program you can get even more miles from even the most simple files. I’ve been a huge fan of Stock Exchange and Morgue Files for years.
ah, thanks for this russell! great clarification!
John: thanks for the post! I’m particularly interested in learning more about your final tips section about SEO, File size, etc. Do you plan on writing more in detail about them?
Here is the issue I’m trying to solve: I run a number of different blogs & have different authors posting on each of them. The majority of these authors have the basic computer skills & can login to wordpress & post an article with an image. I’m really interested to have a step by step guideline that I can give them to teach them how to upload images to the blog for optimal results? These authors won’t be using a mac most of the time, just your typical PC. Let me know if you have any resources I can look into? Thanks!
why not screen capture your own process?
haha…We’ll I guess I would say that I don’t necessarily have a process either. I’m still looking into ways to best manage photos & getting them uploaded to the blog.
Do you have any suggestions for a starting point? Any resources you can refer me too? I have done some searching online, which eventually lead me to this post, but haven’t had any luck so far? Thanks!
why not use a simple system like screenflow to capture your process on video and then use that as an educational tool?
http://tentblogger.com/screenflow/
I guess you’re not understanding my question. I don’t have a process. I’d like to find a process to best manage images as we’re uploading them to the blog. We do upload a lot of images & I’m looking to find best practices for doing so.
ah. ok. i see. well, you’re using wordpress… don’t you have everything you need?
If you’re talking like a file management process, I can offer mine as a starting point. I’ll blog it later today.
Awesome…thank you!
graham is awesome.
Here ya go. http://www.gbrenna.com/image-file-management/
That’s my interpretation of what your question was Coupons. Hope that helps! By the way… do you have a gravatar? http://tentblogger.com/gravatar
Thanks so much for this post. I’ve only used flickr.com but you have just given me so many options. And for the post, it was indeed detailed.
sure thing!
Yet another super helpful post to help keep us bloggers out of trouble and on top of our game!!
sure thing rich!
I’ve been hacking away at developing good resources for my blog and some of my clients’ blogs as well and this post was like the proverbial oasis in the desert! Really, really well done John! Google Reader here you come!
thanks rich! appreciate it!
make sure you grab an gravatar: http://tentblogger.com/gravatar/
I’ve stepped out of my box and actually purchased an image for use on my blog. I looked and looked for a similar free one but to no avail. It was just so compelling (to me and I hope readers) and fitting that I had to have it for the post I’m working on.
I just may become a true TentBlogger yet!
that is so crazy of you!
I know, right? it just fit so perfectly with this post that I had to have it…
http://glorioustrauma.com/to-murder-yourself-takes-time/
yikes…! what a title!
Sorry to comment on a older post. Just a quick question. I’m working on a church website. Are there any options out their with “special privileges” for non-profit websites? Discounts or anything of that nature?
there are some systems out there that allow more licensing for non-profits i believe. i’ve never used them though.
John,
This post has helped me countless of times. I always find myself referring back to this image guide everytime I’m feeling unsure.
I just got rejected by Adsense again, gonna look through all my photos to ensure none of them are infringing copyright, and will try applying again. Fingers crossed.
Thanks once again!
//Daniel
you did get in, right?
Thanks for the useful info John. Do you have any information on using images of athletes and where they can be dowloaded for free?
Very helpful article John, thank you.
I have a similar question to Seth Jones. I want to do some blogging about sporting events. Do you know if I can use any of the photos from news sites or sporting sites? I’d be happy to credit the source of course. I also may be willing to purchase them, if they can be had reasonably. Finally, what about AP photos- are they considered fair use?
Thanks in advance for any help that you can provide.
Great, great article! I’ve been trying to sort this out for a good long while, wondering how I could widen the pool of images from one source to a few. Thank you for making it so clear!
Great resource, John! Thank you!
Very interesting John.
Can I ask you a question? Can I take a screenshot of a webpage (that might include images) and use on my own website?
You seem to have gone into the copyright issue in some depth so Thought you might know the answer?
Regards
screenshots are under “fair usage” so should be fine.
Many thanks John. This really is a minefield for innocents!