Wondering How to Use Images For Your Content?
Well, this one’s for you!
A catchy image that matches your content gives an altogether different dimension to online reading. Adding an appropriate image with a meaningful or even hilarious caption can help attract readers and improve the credibility of your content. An image successfully captures your reader’s interest too.
So why should images included in online content?
- Adding an image increases the traffic to your website or blog.
- Readers tend to prefer articles that have images in them, thanks to increased readability.
In short, if you are writing an article about how to bake mince pies, then adding the image of mince pies stacked neatly together will lure your readers to try out the recipe. Images add emphasis to words!
A Quick Checklist on How to Use Images
Whenever you use images online, make sure that the following factors are taken care of:
- The image should be relevant to the main topic (umm, obvious.. but yes)
- The image should be clean (this means no logos or watermarks)
- The image should not carry third party information
- The image should be of good quality (in the age of DSLRs, pixels matter!)
Note: And most importantly, you should own the rights to use the image. No clue? Here’s why.
A lot of writers tend to use images that show up in their search results without filtering the free to use images out first. Doing this can get you into trouble, because essentially you’re using another person’s property!
Free to Use Images or Stock Images?
In this era of digital photography and DSLRs, it’s easy to shoot the images you want and save them for your personal use.
Don’t fret if you don’t know to click photographs or don’t have the right image for your content – there are many skilled photographers who upload their pictures on websites like Flickr, and some of them grant other users the permission to use their images. These free to use images are tagged under ‘Creative Commons’.
If you don’t mind shelling out some cash to take care of your image requirements, purchasing images from a stock photography website is the easiest way out. The prices may differ based on how good and relevant the images are, so you’ll need to look through a lot of them patiently to find the right ones that you want.
How to Find Free to Use or Stock Images
For Free to Use Images: The best way to find free images online is to use the ‘Advanced Search’ option in Google Image Search.
- Open the ‘Advanced Search’ window
- Enter the right keywords that are related to what you’re searching for
- Select the ‘Commercial Use’ checkbox under ‘Only Images Labeled for Reuse’
- Hit Enter!
Google will list the relevant free images that are available online, and you’ll also find images from Flickr tagged under ‘Creative Commons’ in this list. Feel free to use the image that best suits your content.
For Stock Images: You can also buy royalty-free images as per your need at stock photography websites. There are a gazillion of these online, so all you need to do is browse and buy the ones you like. This is an expensive option, but if images are critically important to your content, setting up an account might be a good long term investment.
All you need to do to add some zing to your work is insert an image, because with the right one, you can never go wrong!
Wordplay Content is a full-service content writing agency. Our content writing India business provides content writing services for a plethora of customers. Reach out if you want to hire us for your inbound marketing campaign!
