If you’re not putting photos on your blog posts, you need to get with the program. Take a look at the most popular blogs in your niche and you’ll see they all have photos. Once you start including photos, you’ll get way more traffic and lots of response from readers. Everybody wants something to look at aside from all that text.

The only trouble is that unless you’re an ace photographer,

it’s tough to find good photos without breaking the bank.

The Stock Photo Site Option

The common method is to use sites like iStockPhoto.com and stock.xchnge. These are sites where you pay for credits and then use those credits to buy images. Both offer lots of great images – in fact, there is stuff on there that’s absolutely amazing.

Unfortunately, the price often reflects that. You’re always scoring the perfect picture for your post and just about to download it and then your eyes fall on the price. Even the smallest, cheapest images cost a couple of dollars. It’s not cheap.

Stock.xchange actually has some free images that you can use but they’re fairly limited. They do a kind of bait-and-switch thing where your search results show a couple of small crappy images for free and then a bunch of really cool ones that you have to pay for.

How to Get Free Images

You can’t just lift images from some other site and use them. But, you can use Google’s advanced search to find images. Scroll down to where it says ‘usage rights.’ Choose the option ‘labeled for reuse.’ These are images that the owner allows you to use.

You still can’t quite lift them, though. Visit the site and see what it says. Usually, you have to contact the owner of the image and they’ll give you instructions on how to credit them (usually they’ll want a credit). The huge downside to this method is that it takes time. You may have to wait days until you hear back from somebody about the image.

Another free option is to look for creative commons photos. These are basically the same thing – images that the owner lets you use. The difference is that these are posted on creative commons sites where the instructions are given on how to use and credit them. Some sites that offer these are Wikimedia Commons and Flickr.

There’s loads of sites offering some really cool photos just spend the time searching them.

So, the question of images for your blog goes back to the perennial debate – should you pay with your money or with your time? If you have lots of blogs that need images, I’d recommend going the free route because the money can really add up. If you post once a week and you can’t be bothered with contacting folks and waiting for replies, just suck it up and pay for your images.

Tony

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