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How To Find Images For Your Blog Posts

Image by websuccessdiva

We all need to find the best possible image for our next big Blog post, but this is often easier said than done.  I has  a brainwave earlier today, something that thousands of bloggers have been doing for years, nearly since time began.  So, what is this brain wave?  It’s simple.  Flickr.

This is not fool-proof.  There are certain obligations that you have to make, for example you need to watch the copyright.  But Flickr certainly does make these things easy to manage.

Copyright

Where ever you get your images from, copyright is a huge issue on the web.  It doesn’t matter if you steal a photograph from an Australian photographer or and English photographer.  Either way they can find your website as easily as you found there picture, and when they do they will kick up a fuss when they find out that you have been stealing their photo’s.

In order to get around the issue of copyright we must use the Flickr copyright system.  This is called Creative Commons.  The Creative Commons section of the Flickr website explains all of the different copyright categories of the various images, as well as allowing you to search in each individual category.  I won’t bother explaining all of these here because the guys over at Flickr really have done a good job as making everything clear.

Searching Flickr

For all example here I will be using the Attribution License category.  Go ahead and click the “See More” link.  The page that you have just opened only shows content that belongs in the Attribution License category.  This allows you to search this category for more images.

Think about the subject that you are writing about.  Just one or two keywords will do.  Search for them.  You will be surprised at how quickly you can find appropriate images for your blog postings.

Summery

All in all I think that once you know how to use Flickr it is the best image source at any bloggers disposal.  It is a quick, easy and copyright safe way of finding images.  If you stick to the Attribution License just make sure that you give credit and link back to the user profile that you took the image from and you will be fine.

Why didn’t I discover this sooner?