Did you know that people read an average of five to ten blogs every day? If you have a blog, you want online visitors to keep coming back. You want to be one of the blogs they visit daily. There are several ways to accomplish this, but one easy way of hooking people in to posts is using images. Think of a newspaper. Pictures take up a minority of space, but are important for drawing attention and indicating what the article will be discussing. Here are three things you should know about blog photos.
1. Not All Images are Free
Many bloggers operate under the assumption that the internet is a big place, and JPEGs are ripe for the taking. Not so! If you are posting someone else’s artwork into your blog, you can be fined or have your blog taken down for copyright violation. If the artist has not specifically granted permission, there are no exceptions. It doesn’t matter if you make no money off your blog, or cite where you pulled it from. Example? Popular Tumblr blogger Bohemea was shut down after four violations. She lost years of work, and 150,000 followers.
2. Where You Can Get Free Images for Blogs
This doesn’t mean you have to settle for just paragraphs of text on your blog! You’re in luck, because there are several sites online that can give you access to free photos that are okay to use. What you usually want to look for is a Creative Commons license for images, which indicates that artwork has only some rights reserved, rather than “all rights reserved.” Websites that feature tons of CC images include Wikicommons, Flickr, Wylio, and PhotoPin. Flickr alone has over 200 million Creative Commons licensed photos.
3. What Type of Image You Should Choose
When it comes to effectively illustrating your posts, there are a few things you should keep in mind. First, make sure the image is easy to view. Tiny images or images with bad resolution make life difficult for readers. Keep your images relevant to your text. If you can’t think of a relevant image, the problem might be that your text needs more focus. Images with high contrast and clear focal points are more likely to draw a reader’s eyes, and you can also mix information heavy posts up with infographics, which are visual displays of data.
Have tips for finding or picking free photos for blogs? Let us know in the comments!