Images in a blog post make the readers feel comfortable and read further. Most users find it difficult to read a blog post that has only text and no media.The best way to imagine a blog post without media is a magazine without images! So, understand that selecting blog image is necessary and it’s a crucial component of your blog post that enriches your text. Always remember that images give you a very good chance of receiving organic image search traffic.

Selecting Blog Image

There are numerous Techniques with which you can fetch an image that completely matches your blog post topic. Not all techniques are safe and legal. Let us Learn the Good and Bad method of handpicking an apt image for the blog.

The Bad and Good way of selecting blog Image:

1. Using Google Image Search in selecting Blog Image:

Bad Way: Google Search without Filters:

Google Image search is a one stop quick place for beginners. It’s very important to understand that images fetched by Google search engine are not free from copyrights. Using an image from Google Image search is a real quick way and a terribly bad way. The act of using Images from Google search (without filters) is yet another Plagiarism attempt. The apt word can be “stealing images”.

Good way: Google Image search with filter:

Under Google Image Search, find the “Label for Reuse” or “Label for Reuse with modification” filter. Using this filter prevents you from using a copyrighted image (even by mistake). Just after a single trial, you might understand that only 1% of the images showed up in Google search results are without copyrights.

This method is the most recommended and is followed by bloggers all over the world. Sometimes, the filtered Google image search makes you feel dumb. This is the perfect time to look for images in Flickr. Flickr – A photo sharing website by Yahoo makes things simpler.

Users of Flickr have the priority to set copyright levels to their picture. If you had been on Flickr or had visited it previously, you might find a License type mentioned below the picture on the right side. We can use the Flickr Advanced Search to search for Images that had got license to be reused. Navigate to Copyright Restrictions and select the required filter.

Some Images have the License to be re-used when credits are mentioned. This is simple and whenever you use the image in your post, you are ought to post the link to the original source for user reference. This can be found under the filter: “All Creative Commons”.

For Example, let us take the picture I had linked below,

As I had mentioned the Image credit above, it is completely null and void of Copyright claims. Now, to a serious mention, using copyrighted images has it’s own cons.
To Mention a few:

1. If you are making an earning from a blog: BEWARE OF COPYRIGHTED IMAGES
The owner of the image had got every right to sue you for copyright violation and you may expect a decent hole in your pocket. Everything comes at a price right!?

2. The Owner Files a DMCA Complaint: Get Ready to face removal

When the authorized owner of an image gets to know copyright violation, he/she can file a DMCA complaint. After the approval of his/her complaint, you might find your post missing from google search!

3. Google Adsense bars your request!

In case you are expecting to get your Adsense account for blog approved, it will never be. Google rejects Adsense requests for websites that sports to have copyrighted contents. So, Make sure you remove the copyrighted contents before applying.

4. Google reduces your page rank for Plagiarism:

When Google detects plagiarism or copied content, your SEO strategies fail and you can never make it to the top of search results.