Do you ever wonder where bloggers are finding the images they include in their posts?

The answer is… well, lots of places!

Some things to know if you want to include images in your blog posts:

1. Don’t just do a Google image search and grab an image.  You want to be sure that you know where an image came from and what its license is.

2.  There are lots of sites where you can find free to use images as long as you follow their license terms (usually you need to give credit to the photographer/artist).

3.  There’s an awesome thing called “royalty free stock photos” which allow you to purchase the rights to legally use an image for a one time fee of $1-2 and up, depending on the website, the image and the size.

Here are some sources I use and how I setup my images for my blog posts in WordPress.

Free Stock Photos:

• Stock.xchng
• Morgue File
• Free Digital Photos
• Unprofound
• Every Stock Photo
• Free Range

Royalty Free Stock Photos:

• StockFresh (this is my favorite site, it’s about $1 per image)
• iStockPhoto
• Big Stock Photo
• Dreamtime (this site also has some free images)

Another option is to search Flickr for Creative Commons licensed photos.  Be sure to read the various licenses to be sure the photo you want is available for your planned usage.  When in doubt, skip to a photo you can find clear licensing terms for.

Here’s a quick video showing how to format an image in your blog post, add credit, and some of the cool features at MorgueFile.

Click here if you can’t see the video above: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij_9cClMm0s

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 27th, 2011 at 10:30 pm and is filed under Copywriting/Writing, Internet Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.