A Picture Is Worth 1000 Words… and Only Costs One Credit
Pictures can sometimes make or break your post. A good, suggestive photo can work miracles with your traffic and, implicitly, with your income.
Are you confident that your blog post for today can make you £1? Then why not garnish it with a matching stock photo from one of the many distributors like StockExpert or iStockPhoto?
I don’t mean all the posts, only the ones that are representative for your work - guides, how-to advice, various lists… I regularly use SXC (StockXpert’s free website) and Flickr for the photos in my posts, you should too. But when you reach a certain threshold with traffic and income you can switch to more exclusive sources. One credit with iStockPhoto or StockExpert will run you £1 and $1 respectively (a little less in bulk). This will enable you to download one photo in web resolution (400-500 pixels wide), perfect for blog posts.
There’s only so far you can go with free stock photo sites, as the photographers who post their work on them are usually semi-pros and even pros will hoard their best work for paid stock websites. But as I said, don’t underestimate the power of free photos; just choose wisely.
When you feel confident with using paid stock photo sites establish a photo budget (per month or trimester for example)… say you plan on posting 35 posts the next month and for 15 of those you want to use premium stock photos. Plan ahead and purchase credits in bulk as you can get discounts (5 StockExpert credits cost $4.99, but if you buy 50 at a time it’s only $39.99 - so you save roughly 20%).
Final advice - don’t forget to check out the exact terms of service you agree to when obtaining photos from paid sites. There are limitations to the ways you can use photos; most notably the fact that you usually aren’t allowed to use them in modified works, such as logos, banners and so on. It’s possible to obtain full usage rights, but that usually costs more than a credit worth. Make sure you fully understand the agreement (a lot of Legalese there, but it’s not that hard once you get used to it) and stay within the set boundaries.
And just going out on a limb here, premium stock photo credits could make excellent blog contest prizes…
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