A few weeks ago, I blogged about a survey from MarketingSherpa that showed that adding certain things to an ad increases user responsiveness. At the time, I was focused on video; specifically how bloggers can use it to better engage their reader and even increase conversions if they happen to be an affiliate blogger. But video wasn’t the only item on MarketingSherpa’s list. In fact, the top item was images.
Images are a great way to give your blog an added professional touch. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words. And the best part is that getting decent picture doesn’t have to cost you anything at all.
Free Photos
A great source of free images for your blog post is Flickr. The site features millions of images, and many of them are free and of a very high quality. The free images are under a creative commons license, meaning that you just have to give credit to the photographer. A great way to do that is to add a caption to the image, and use the image itself to link back to the image’s page on Flickr.
If you’re an affiliate blogger, however, and you want to use a Flickr photo to help increase sales, you should double check the creative common license on it. Some people share content under the condition that it’s not used for commercial purposes. Granted, you could probably get away with using their images anyway, but it would be unfair to the photographer who is being nice enough to share their work with you and the world for free. Just think blogger ethics.
Besides, if affiliate blogging is your bread and butter, the affiliate program that you blog for most likely offers affiliate marketing tools that you can use to get the same level of user engagement. These will often include banners and image that are perfect for showcasing the product you’re promoting by blogging about. And even if they don’t, chances are that a quick email to your affiliate manager can get you the images you need to better engage your readers.
Another resource I've found is to ask readers of your blog to submit photos and specify that they are going to be used for whatever purpose you deem necessary. Most people who are reading you are interested in the topics you cover and many of them will have pictures relating to it. But you have to plan ahead for it. Asking 5 minutes before you want to publish the article isn't going to work.
I love that chart, I never put photos of people on my blog. I am going to have to start doing that. Great tip!
The competitors statistics may, or may not be true picture of a sites success – but I would still take them seriously, all the same.
That’s an important point, there’s a Wall Street Journal article about businesses that try to build online communities. One of the points they make is that the businesses spend a lot of time creating a technological marvel and forget about the people.
Images are important for your posts so flickr is a great place for free images. Great thoughts!
People I follow in the visual artist community advise that you should always contact the photographer first, even if the photo is in the creative commons section. This ensures that you are protected in the event things go sideways.
You must also be aware that copywrite laws differ from country to country. The laws in the UK and Australia are different than the US and Canada and as we know the internet is a worldwide market.
Flickr now has an internal email system so that you can email the photographer if you are a member of Flickr.
Another great resource I just found and started to use is Wikimedia where many of the photographs are Public Domain.
image help us to share our idea with not only word.
flickr is very good source, i mostly take photo
that can been download and link back to owner.
Other than flickr, deviantart is not
bad though.
A very glaring demonstration of how important images are your 125 x 125 flash images ads. See how marketing people take advantage of this technique. Definitely, images will not only bolster your blog but will make you money once it's full use is tapped.
WOW what a fantastic Article! This is what lots of us have been doing for years, whether there’s been an economic crisis or not!
This ensures that you are protected in the event things go sideways.
Flickr isn't to shabby but I use istock photo but I think their prices have recently changed? Anyhow, you're right, flickr can be quite resourceful.
-Mig
Many of the commercial stock agencies have free photos of the day as a promotional strategy .. this eliminates the extra reading of every photographers terms of usage on places like flickr because the stock agencies have a global policy that applies to every photographer.
flicker is good source for photo and images so flicker is favorite of mine