I bet you’re racking your brain right now, aren’t you? What did I forget? Hmmm… What could it be? It’s something that most bloggers do and since you fall into the category of “most bloggers” it’s safe to assume you’ve forgotten it, too. You forgot to ad a relevant, attention-grabbing image – to each and every blog post.
Yes, it’s a simple rule. But it’s so easy to forget. You’re in a hurry. You don’t have time to go fishing for the perfect image. So you skip it, just this once. And then it becomes a habit. A bad habit. Well, the experts say it only takes 21 days to break a bad habit and the best way to do it is to replace it with a good habit. So make today the first day of developing your good habit.
Now, if you’re having a hard time finding images, here are some sites you can use to help:
Wikimedia.org – Most of the images on Wikimedia are under the Creative Commons or Public Domain licenses so you’re free to pick and choose. You can also edit, resize or crop if need be. Be sure to check the licenses just to make sure and be sure to give credit where credit is due.
PublicDomainPictures.net – This site has a wide variety of top-quality photographs, but be careful. Not all of the images are free. When you use the free images you’re also required to give attribution and a link back to the photographer’s page at PublicDomainPictures.
FreeDigitalPhotos.net – Another good site with some free high-quality images. I like to use this one for food images. Again, make sure you only use the free images (Or pay for the ones that aren’t free. No stealing!) and be sure to provide attribution and a link when required.
istockPhoto.com – I love iStockPhoto but you can spend all day there looking for the perfect image – because they have so many to choose from! None of the images are free but some costs as little as $1. And once you buy an image it’s yours to use, over and over again, forever. Before you buy credits do a web search to see if anyone has a current coupon code you can use for a discount. I just keep a bunch of credits on my account all the time so I can quickly pick up an image when I need one.
Remember – It’s never OK to steal images off of other websites and blogs. The people who take those pictures or create those graphics work just as hard as you do when you write your blog posts. You don’t like it when someone plagiarizes your posts, do you? Well, they don’t like it when someone steals their work, either.
The reason most bloggers forget about an image is because it takes time to find just the right one. Save yourself some time. Bookmark these sites so you can easily find them and spend a few minutes familiarizing yourself with the types of images each one has. Then, the next time you need an image, you’ll know right where to go and you can eliminate all that searching around.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments below!