The Simple Guide to Finding Free Images for Your Blog Posts

QualityGal
QualityGal
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January 19, 2009
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Last week, I lamented the fact that I’d been beaten to the punch in posting about finding images for blog posts. I sent our bloggers a link to the Smackdown post, but I think that post does a little too much “throat clearing” before it gets to the good stuff. (I say this because I’ve still had a lot of questions about image rights, and I’ve had to remove some images that we didn’t have the rights to use.)  Here’s a simpler guide to finding free images for your blog posts.

Public Domain Images

You really can’t get much better than images in the public domain. No attribution is needed. You can modify them and use them commercially. How can you find public domain images to use?

  1. Wikipedia is your friend. While I don’t often advocate using Wikipedia as a source for anything, they provide a great listing of public domain image resources, and they list them by category.  Categories include history, art, books, logos and flags, postage stamps, culture, and more.
  2. Try the US Government. There are a lot of great .gov images in the public domain.  The government even made a list of the best copyright-free image libraries they offer.
  3. Good ol’ DMOZ. Why not check the open directory for some free images? DMOZ categories have human editors, so you can trust that each link does what it says on the box. Check out their listing of clip art in the public domain.

Creative Commons Images

Because not everything you need is going to be available in the public domain, Creative Commons is the next best thing. These images were often created by people like us who want to share their work as long as they get credit for it. If you use any images with the Creative Common license, make sure you follow the artist’s wishes for proper attribution! There are a lot of great Creative Commons resources out there:

  1. Flickr. There are so many images out there on Flickr!  For our purposes, we use the Flickr Advanced search. The Smackdown post has a great screen capture (have to scroll down) of the Creative Commons section of the search page. Since we don’t generally need to modify or build upon the images we find, we only need to check the Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content and Find content to use commercially options, but I can’t currently create my own screencap to portray this. Maybe I can edit later.
  2. Google it. You can’t just do a Google image search for this; most of the images you find from a normal image search will return images with uncertain usage rights.  But one user created their own Custom Search engine called the Connected Classroom Creative Commons Image Search, which searches 14 sites for Creative Commons images.
  3. Bad Neighborhood. The Creative Commons Google Image Search Assistant is a great meta search tool that can save you a lot of legwork by crawling multiple image resources to find only images that can be both modified and used commercially.

Free Stock Images

And of course, there are sites out there that offer free stock photos with their own rules for usage. Some require attribution, while others do not. Some require artist notification… Be sure to read the guidelines for each site to make sure you’re following the rules!

  1. Stock Exchange. This is one of my personal favorites. You’ll get to know the Stock Exchange URL (sxc.hu) quite well. They do list “premium” results at the top of each search page, which require purchase to download, so be sure you’re looking at the free image results. If you don’t see a watermark, you should be fine.
  2. MorgueFile. I used this site a lot when I was writing for a popular web content portal. Artists generally ask to be notified when you use their photos, and it doesn’t take long to leave them a comment to let them know where they can see their pics in use.
  3. Top Free Photo Site Lists. Everyone has an opinion about the best free stock image sites. See what the following people have to say: SpeckyBoy, DazzlinDonna, HubPages, PhotoshopSupport, Digital Image Magazine, CPAOffers (formerly Nooti)… You get the idea.
  4. Bad Neighborhood. And of course, there’s always the Free Image Meta Search that crawls multiple free image sites to save you the hassle of going to each site yourself. I generally don’t use this unless I hit a wall, because I like to check the sites with the best usage terms for my needs first.

Have I overlooked your favorite source of free images? Let me know.

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‘Overheard on Twitter’ Friday

Lisa Barone
Lisa Barone
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January 16, 2009
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Hey, hey, happy kids. I’m sick. Stupid Vegas.

I’m not the only one who got sick at Affiliate Summit. Jim Kukral actually had to ask Twitter who *isn’t* sick after the show. Consensus says everyone is, especially those whose bodies were made by Microsoft (poor Rob Kerry).  I see much sleeping and not moving in store for many of us this weekend.  Mmm, naps.

So, did you hear about the US Airways plane that crashed in the Hudson? You did? Really? Because it didn’t get any attention on Twitter. Weird. You would think people would practically be pushing one another over for their 15 minutes of fame and citizen journalism glory. Nice to see everyone had so much self control. /sarcasm

At least US Airways handed it well by creating themselves a @usairways Twitter account. And, um, saving all those people, of course.

In other news!

In silliness:

What’d I miss while I was sans Internet at Affiliate Summit? Let me know and do it loud. I have to hear you over all my sniffles.

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We Build Widgets

Patrick Sexton
Patrick Sexton
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Like you didn’t know this would happen…

This is Patrick Sexton. I hereby declare that We Build Pages now builds widgets.

As a widget developer, I have spent the last two years doing nothing else but experimenting with widgets and how they can be used for traffic and profit. I have blogged about Google gadgets for longer than people even knew there was such a thing as Google gadgets and I have a menagerie of widgets that receive millions of views a month.

I want We Build Pages to be the place to go for widgets. Period.

There are so many exciting and very real opportunities out there for widgets that are simply not being used. It kills me. Anyone who has worked with me will tell you how my mind works. The way my mind works is big and what your widget strategy needs is big, achievable goals. We Build Pages can deliver.

Here is what We Build Pages offers as of today. Listen up; this is good.

Widget Strategy Reports

Have you ever wanted to know how to get started with widgets? Have you wondered how much it would cost? Have you ever considered widgets but were not sure where to start?

In my experience, I’ve found that there are a large amount of companies who would love to know more about widgets but do not have the resources to do so. We are solving that problem by providing affordable and informative widget strategy analysis reports.

These reports will answer the questions you have.  We have designed them to do so. We have spoken with hundreds of companies about their widget curiosities and know what the common questions are.  Want them answered?

See our widget report page.

Are you still reading? Why? Use the link above and see what the six most common questions that businesses have about widgets are. This is not a “glance over post”. This is the “future of your profitability on the Web” post. If there is a link in this post it is there for a reason. Look at that widget report and what it offers and how economically it offers it.

Widget Creation

We Build Pages will build your widget if you do not know how.

Pretty simple actually. Widget creation is an art. We can take your budget and provide ROI.

There is not an investment that will be returned on more than a well-executed widget strategy. In order to have a widget strategy, you need a widget.

We ask you a lot of questions on our contact form, but there is a reason for that. If you can’t spend ten minutes describing what you want, then we’re probably not a good fit.

Need a widget built? We can do that.

We build them, if you want to know more, then contact us.

Widget Promotion

How do you promote a widget? If you are serious about your venture then I recommend you promote your widget through us. We know all the angles. If you need a serious service that will take your widget and spread it, then consider We Build Pages widget promotion services.

I recently authored the Google gadget promotion guide where you can get an idea of the main concepts that we look at while promoting widgets.

Widget promotion is not understood well by many. We are one of the few that can effectively promote your widget using innovative and proven methods.

Widget platforms

If you want to know more about widgets, take a look at our widget platform guide. There is such an amazing amount of confusion about widgets out there that I see many companies paying twelve times for the very same thing.

We Build Pages believes in a cross platform widget strategy. What is right for Facebook may not be right for MySpace or Google. We know our stuff well enough to be able to recommend what you should do and how you can get the biggest bang for you buck.

Whatever your widget needs are, let us know. It is simple. Contact us.

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The SEO Toolbar To End All SEO Toolbars

Lisa Barone
Lisa Barone
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January 15, 2009
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Jim dropped me an email this afternoon showing off Aaron Wall’s (ridiculously) kickass new SEO Toolbar [because apparently Jim doesn't think I, too, read SEO Book. ;) ].  I was going to attempt a review after playing with it for a few hours, but€¦ (a) this thing speaks for itself and (b) I’m dumb.

Also, I think Aaron does the best job explaining his new tool:

What would happen if you smooshed together many of the best parts of Rank Checker, SEO for Firefox, the best keyword research tools across the web, a feed reader (pre-populated with many SEO feeds), a ton of competitive research tools, the ability to compare up to 5 competing sites against each other, easy data export, and boatloads of other features into 1 handy Firefox extension? Well, you would have the SEO Toolbar.

He’s not even kidding.

You just need to go download it. Right now. I already have and I’m not even a real SEO. I just play one on the Internet when I’m not reading Sphinn. [Sorry. Being sick makes me delirious and punchy.]

Seriously, Aaron’s new gift to the SEO community is a high-powered SEO package that sits in your browser, giving you access to a huge number of data points.  Inside the tool you’ll find links to competitive research tools, the ability to compare a handful of Web sites at a time, a built-in rank checker, the power to mass populate a gaggle of keyword research tools with one click and more.

I’d like to have this toolbar’s babies, if possible.

As an SEO, you’re going to love the advanced site and linking information, traffic numbers and competitive research.  As a blogger, I love (love, love) that there’s a bunch of site social networking information PLUS a populated RSS feed with some of the best SEO-related blogs around. [Fine, we're biased. Both Jim's personal linkbuilding blog and the We Build Pages blog are listed ;) ]

It’s worth noting that this isn’t the only toolbar to come out recently. Bruce Clay, Inc. released its own SEM Toolbar last week, though it’s only available in Internet Explorer and it’s not quite as high-performance as Aaron’s. Still, options.

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What If Google Killed Puppies?

Lisa Barone
Lisa Barone
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Posted On:
January 14, 2009
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Hi, I’m Lisa and I’m codependent. Don’t judge me, you are too.

I’m getting caught up after spending the past few days hobbling around Affiliate Summit (you can find coverage for Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3 at Hoffman’s House) and stumbled across an interesting poll recreated by TechCrunch. The question at hand was: “What would make you switch search engines?”

This morning the results looked like this:

[click to enlarge. floss regularly.]

I know now that 58 percent of you are damn liars.

Like I said, I’m what some would call “codependent”. I willingly stay in unhealthy relationships, I invest in losers, and I repeatedly take people back lying to myself that they can change.  Basically, I’m an idiot. And you probably are, too.

The reason you originally switched from Yahoo to Google back in the day was because Google was the far superior engine. It kicked ass at everything it did and was undeniably the best choice. And they’ve done a good job maintaining that awesome. The search results are typically to be trusted, there’s Gmail and GDocs, as well as a whole suite of products designed to make your life easier.  However, the quality of products isn’t why people stay with Google.  How many blind tests have been done to show that the quality of the results is less important than the brand name placed at the top of the engine? I’m pretty sure I’ve read more than a handful over the years.

The truth is you stay with Google for the same reason I’ve stayed with a slew of crappy ex-boyfriends. Because it’s been there for you, because it’s broken in, because it’s socially acceptable, and because it’s really, really pretty.

Adding video to the search results or uncluttering things won’t make someone change. I don’t even know that Yahoo could change enough that most people would care. The only reason people will leave Google is if something drastically different AND better comes along or if Google commits some sort of brand suicide.

I spent some time thinking about it and here’s my list of what Google would have to do to make me leave them.

They’d have to:

  • Leak my Data/Private Information ala AOL
  • Take their “tweaking” of the results WAY too far
  • Start charging me for services like Gmail
  • Sell off the engine/acquire someone else’s and completely murder its relevancy

Aside from that, I think the Google bar code that’s been discretely branded on the back of my neck is safe. I asked Twitter what it would take to breakup with Google and their answers were surprisingly similar to my own.  Well, except for Chris Winfield and Jim Hedger who said Google would have to start slaying puppies and kittens, respectively.  I agree with both of those, assuming they were cute puppies and kittens.

I think we like to tell ourselves that the reason we stick with Google is for the quality of the results. It makes us sound like we’re free and independent thinkers. But we’re not. The truth is we stick with Google because we’ve been told to. And we’ll stay there until we’re told to do something different. If we’re going to be codependent, let’s at least be honest about it.

Or maybe I’m wrong. Would it take anything less than puppy killing for you to abandon Google?

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