Feb
14

The Simplest FREE and LEGAL Way to Add Images To Your Blog

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I have searched a TON of options for how to EASILY add great pictures to my WordPress blogs. I needed a way to very quickly find great pictures and insert them into my many posts. And FREE would be great too!

woman with dog
This image is just  an example of the many great photos you can easily grab from Flicker.
Note at the bottom of the this post my no-follow photo credits.

Images: Free, Legal, and Easy

Here’s How I Do It:

  1.  Search for, add and activate these two exact plugins in your wp-admin :  Flicker – Pick a Picture and Ultimate NoFollow
  2. Go to wp-admin and click settings and then click Flicker – Pick a Picture. Click the link in the settings page there to go to Flicker to get an API number. Once you get the Flicker API number, paste it into that page and then select medium, attribution license, no known copyright restrictions, relevance, and No. Then save the settings.
  3. Next, add your new page or post in WordPress as usual. Once you get the post or page formatted the way you want  it, click the visual tab, put your cursor where you want to insert an image, then click the new camera icon the plugin inserted (it’s right there by the add media tab).
  4. Insert a keyword to search for an image. Click choose to select the image you want to insert. Type in the exact description of the picture in the alternative text field. If it is a poodle, type poodle…not something like dog training. Next, cut the caption text (you’ll paste it in a minute). Choose none for the URL. Choose the size and alignment you want. Click insert into post.
  5. Once the image is inserted, if you want more space between the image and the text, click the image and then click the edit image icon. Click the advanced settings and insert 5 or 6 into the vertical and horizontal space fields and click update.
  6. Next, we are going to paste in the caption info. This is the legal requirement. It does not have to go by the image. It can go at the bottom of the post.
  7. In the edit screen, click the text tab, scroll down to the bottom of the page, hit enter twice, then paste in the caption you have cut. You can add “Images provided by:” in front of the line of text.
  8. Next, click the visual tab. Highlight the first link in the image credits and then click the hyperlink button in the tool bar. Now you have a new No-follow check box there. Make both links in the image credit no follow.
  9. That’s it. With practice, you can do the above steps very fast. Now you have a way to add images very easily. And they are free and legal!Now you have a way to add images very easily.  And they are free and legal!

Image By: lululemon athleticaCC BY 2.0

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Categories : WordPress Help

Comments

  1. Great article Steve, thank you.
    Do you know, if these images are freely available, could you get pinged for duplicate content? I know that google are looking at image sources and seeing where people are using the same images over and over on different sites. I have heard that you may have a penalty imposed on you if you just use a generic , un-original image.
    Any ideas about that?
    Andrew

  2. Alex Webley says:

    Hello Steve,

    What a useful post – and at just the right time too. Images are on my today to do list.

    I have looked at the Flickr – Pick a Picture plugin WordPress page and can see that the image source always remains at Flickr. Clearly, there is a risk the photo could be removed by the owner at some stage. I presume that the Broken Link Checker plugin would alert us to this – would you agree?

    Thanks Steve.

  3. Steve says:

    No, I I’m not worried about that. Maybe on a gigantic scale…but if that was true across the board, giant image sites like istock would not keep doing so well. Besides, these images are put directly into your blog….you are source of the that specific version of the image.

  4. Steve says:

    You are missing something. That plugin puts the image right into your wordpress library…it does not matter if they delete the photo later on their end. For example, right mouse on the branding iron image I got with the plugin. You will see the source is my own site.

  5. Ashley H says:

    Hello Steve,

    Great post, providing an invaluable resource for free images. Purchasing images can often become costly when you’re on a budget.
    I’ve looked at Flickr in the past, but never realized that you could add the caption details at the bottom of the post / page.
    Great to see you posting again.
    Cheers,

    Ashley H

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