It’s true—pictures grab attention. For your blog, adding images not only makes your content more attractive and interesting to humans, it also gives your blog another way to rank with search engines. Every picture on your blog is another opportunity to show up under your search terms, courtesy of alt tags.
But, you might ask, how do I use other people’s pictures on my blog? Good question. All images on the web are implicitly copyrighted, which means that the original source holds the rights to publish it. While the temptation to pull them up on Google or Bing Images and republish them is strong, doing so often violates the copyright.
Using Creative Commons
The best way to steer clear of trouble when publishing images on the web is to use ones with Creative Commons licensing. Creative Commons is a non-profit organization established in 2001 as a way for people to use images without having to get the often-elusive permissions.
How does it work? Artists and publishers of original images sign up on CC to make their images available through various licensing options. They can choose to designate their images “all rights reserved” or “some rights reserved”. Some images can be modified without permission and others cannot. A “share alike” stipulation means that modified images must be published under the original Creative Commons license.
Creative Commons licensing gives you a huge pool of images that you can legally use.
Finding Creative Commons Images
There are a few places to go to find free images. Of course, the CC site allows you to search by subject matter, source and intended use. Flickr is another good place to find licensed images, and CCFinder is a photo search tool that only uses Creative Commons-licensed images.
Other Tips
When you don’t have an appropriate image of your own to use, and you can’t find one licensed through Creative Commons, you can still use pictures published and owned by others. But, there’s a way to do it:
- Check the rules. On the site where the photo is located, there will usually be a designation of rights reserved and/or information about how the owner will allow the image to be republished. Some will allow you to republish without permission, others want you to link back to their site, etc.
- When in doubt—ask! Most sites will grant permission when asked. So, it’s better to ask if you’re not sure.
- Give credit. Provide a credit, including a name and a link back to the original site. Credits can be located directly beneath the photo or at the end of the blog post.
- Leave a comment. Even if the source doesn’t require permission, you can leave a friendly comment acknowledging the use of the photo and even link to where the image is being used.
Using other people’s pictures for your blogs gives you almost unlimited options for enhancing your content and your site. But, it’s important to do it properly to avoid hassles and maintain the integrity of your blog. Use Creative Commons images whenever possible and check into permissions for images not found through CC. Then, publish your awesome pictures and get your blog noticed!
