Photos are something I probably use far too little on my blogs. They aren’t a big focus for me, and I often can’t think of a photo I would like to use. Yet they can add tremendous visual interest and really help to draw people in. They’re something I think I should use more often.

One of my favorite free resources is stock.xchg. Plenty of royalty free photos to be used, and the quality is generally wonderful. It can sometimes be a little hard to find just the right picture, but I can generally find what I need within just a few minutes. Sometimes it can be a matter of deciding which photo I like best.

digital camera

Flickr also has great photo resources. You need to pay attention to the terms attached to each photo. “All Rights Reserved” pretty much means hands off… although if you really want the photo you can try contacting the photographer and asking.

A Creative Commons license may put certain limitations, depending on the exact license. “Non-commercial use only” means that if you have any advertising on your blog or earn from your site in any way, you cannot use that image. You will need to include an attribution with a Creative Commons license.

In all cases you need to be careful about the image license. It’s a real pain having to take down a photo because you didn’t pay attention… and it can get you into legal tangles which will take up your valuable time yet cannot be ignored.

Some people also use Wikipedia to find pictures. I haven’t done this personally, but I do understand that images on Wikipedia are free to use.

A big mistake people make is using Google’s image search to find images for their site. I call this a mistake because you do not have a way to tell if the images are free to use when you search this way. Most of what you find is not free to use and you should not assume that it is.

There are plenty of places you can buy photos for cheap. iStockPhoto comes to mind immediately, with all photos running $1, at least at the sizes you are likely to need for a website. Some people do prefer this solution, but if you aren’t earning enough, the cost can add up too quickly.

Well chosen, well placed photos make a blog look much better. They add tremendous visual interest and make your site more eye-catching.

Technorati Tags: , , ,