Whats Your Image Like Part 2!

Blog posts are supposed to be interesting and informative but unfortunately all too often they can become very wordy (and I am aware that I am one of the worst culprits there is). Using graphics in your blog post not only breaks up the large bulk of text but can also be interesting and informative when used correctly.

LIKE THIS ONE!

But where can you get your images from? Well the answer all too often is from a Google search then copy and paste the picture, right? Well no it is all too easy to infringe the copyright of others this way. You may get away with it for years but one day you may have a problem.

There are a number of solutions to this problem. Buy a royalty free image from a picture agency such as Fotolia, for a blog these can be relatively inexpensive but if you are using 2 or 3 images a blog post and you are a regular blogger then the cost can be really staggering.

There are plenty of alternatives such as Public Domain (PD) images and Images available under a Creative Commons Licence (CC). Such as these…

A really good place to start is Wikimedia Commons

There are also other sites such as Icon Archive which have images for commercial and non commercial usage, some just require a link back or credit to the graphic artist.

Or you could buy a Royalty Free clipart collection which will allow you to use the images where eve you like without additional fee, as long as you don’t resell the clipart images.

One of the really big players Getty Images has made this service available for non commercial activities such as blog posts etc, by providing an embed code to a large proportion of the images in its catalogue. The image is low resolution but good enough for a blog and has a link back to Getty and the original image.

Here is an example of a Getty image embedded into this blog post.

Try Creative Commons for other sources of images.  So if you are looking for images to liven up your blog posts then there are some real alternatives to the Google copy and paste approach which if you are not careful could mean that you are using copyright materials.

Rob, It good to share!!