Do you struggle to find great images to illustrate your blogs and newsletter articles? If so, you’re in good company!
I am a writer. I am not a graphic designer, and thinking in terms of images is a real challenge for me. Do you have the same problem? Assuming you do, the following advice on finding images to go with your articles is from one image-challenged person to another! The examples I use here all come from things I’ve written for my own marketing efforts or for my clients’ blogs.
Here is my advice…
Avoid copyright infringement: Use stock photos
The first thing you need to know is that you cannot simply Google something, click on the “images” tab at the top of the search results, find a great image and use it. You also cannot go to someone else’s website, right click on an image, save it and then use it. If the photo was copyrighted and the copyright owner finds out that you used their image without permission, they can slap you with a lawsuit. Many people who didn’t understand this have been successfully sued for thousands of dollars. Yes. Thousands. Of. Dollars.
Don’t let that happen to you! Get your images from legitimate stock photo sites instead.
“Stock photos” are images (including photos, illustrations and more) that the makers have licensed for specific uses. There are many sites that offer stock photos, all with built-in search engines to help you find and download the images you want. The most user-friendly sites also let you specify various details, such as image orientation (horizontal or vertical), color, category and more.
Some stock photo sites offer images for sale, while others provide them for free. As you might guess, the paid sites tend to have better search engines, higher-quality images and a bigger variety of images.
While I do not use the paid sites very often, my two favorites are:
Some of the free stock photo sites that I use are:
- https://pixabay.com/
- https://www.pexels.com/
- https://www.freerangestock.com/
- https://unsplash.com/
- https://stocksnap.io/
Now that you know where to go to find images, let’s talk about some of the details of what you are looking for and how to find it.
Try a variety of search terms
If you have an idea in mind regarding what type of image you’re looking for, the process is sometimes easier. Most of the time, though, I don’t really know what I’m looking for. I simply hope I’ll recognize it when I see it.
Sometimes I use words from the title or article itself as my search term, while other times I try to think more conceptually. I often have to try a variety of search terms before I find an image that I’m happy with. If I find a picture that seems to be on the right track but not quite right, I’ll also look at how that picture was tagged or described and then try using those words as search terms.
To help you see how this works, for each of the images I share here, I’ll provide some ideas for the search terms you might use to find similar images, and the rationale behind my search.
Look for eye-catching images
As you’re evaluating images, think about how compelling they are—both in and of themselves as an image, and as an illustration for your article.
- Article title: You Won an Award. Now What?
- Potential search terms: award, win, winning, sports
- Rationale: This eye-catching image is full of emotion and somewhat unexpected in the context of business marketing advice.
- Article title: Get Others to Send Their Customers to You
- Potential search terms: gift, present
- Rationale: When other people send their customers to you, this is like a gift from them to you.
Look for pictures that show emotions
This is especially helpful if the image contains people.
- Article title: Eliminate the Friction
- Potential search terms: happy, joy, joyous
- Rationale: After getting nowhere trying to find something based on the word “friction,” I decided to try search terms that relate to the emotion one would feel after eliminating the friction.
- Article title: Bad Customer Experiences Kill Sales
- Potential search terms: bad customer experience, bad experience, unhappy
- Rationale: I wish I could remember exactly how I found this image, but I think it was one of those situations were my first searches on the above listed terms lead me to some interesting concepts, and eventually the right image came up.
- Article title: Data Center Consolidation: Stop Wasting Resources on In-House Data Centers
- Potential search terms: data center, information technology
- Rationale: I wanted the image to directly represent the most important SEO keyword term of the article, “data center.” When I found this image that also evoked unhappy emotions, I knew it was the right one.
- Article title: Why You Need EPL Insurance
- Potential search terms: sexual harassment
- Rationale: One of the purposes of EPL insurance is to give your company coverage when you face sexual harassment lawsuits. I thought this would be the best concept to illustrate.
Search for images that represent part of your article’s headline
This is often the first thing I do. See if there’s anything obvious to search for that represents your headline or part of your headline. If necessary, alter your headline to include a word that lends itself to a relevant image.
- Article title: Getting a Business Loan Without a Personal Guarantee
- Potential search terms: loan, loan approval, approved
- Rationale: A loan is such a common thing that I knew images would be available to illustrate it.
- Article title: Getting Cyber Security in Place on a Tight Budget
- Potential search terms: budget, save money
- Rationale: While I could have searched for something to illustrate “cyber security,” the budget aspect was what was important to the article’s target audience.
- Article title: Transform or Die
- Potential search terms: transform, transformation, butterfly
- Rationale: My initial search on “transformation” lead me to the butterfly concept, which seemed perfect.
Search for images that represent a theme or idea from within your post
Look through your blog post for references, analogies or other concepts that might make for a good image. Look at the post and headline from the conceptual viewpoint.
- Article title: Don’t Let Fear Hold You Back
- Potential search terms: fear, bravery, accomplishment, success
- Rationale: I started by looking for images to illustrate “fear,” but then decided that I wanted to take a positive approach. One of the subheads in the article is “the greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure,” so I focused on these results.
- Article title: Make Things Easy & Convenient for Your Customers
- Potential search terms: easy, convenient, rental bicycles
- Rationale: I started with the obvious search terms: easy and convenient. Then I decided to think conceptually about business models that are all about making things easy and convenient for customers and came up with the rental bicycles idea.
- Article title: Help Prospects Believe Your Promises
- Potential search terms: promise, promises, engagement
- Rationale: My initial search for “promise” showed some engagement pictures. To me marriage is one of the ultimate promises, so I then searched directly for “engagement” and found this.
Think conceptually
If you’re struggling to think of what type of image to search for, think about a concept that can represent the main idea of the article, or the benefits that your readers will enjoy if they follow the advice in the article. Also, try to avoid the cliché. This can be easier said than done, especially if you’re using free stock photo sites, where the choices are much more limited.
- Article title: Is Thought Leadership Worth the Effort?
- Potential search terms: leadership, thought leadership, effort, weightlifting, workout
- Rationale: I started searching for “leadership” and “thought leadership,” but the images I found were boring. So then I tried “effort,” and some weightlifting images came up. I didn’t like those particular images, so I searched directly for “weightlifting” and “workout” and found this eye-catching image.
- Article title: Why Should I Trust You?
- Potential search terms: trust, danger, dangerous, fear
- Rationale: While “trust” seemed obvious, I also thought in terms of when you might need trust. Two of the situations when you need trust are when there is something to fear or when you’re facing some type of danger for which you must depend on someone else. These concepts lead me to the skydiving image.
- Article title: Watch Out for Blind Spots
- Potential search terms: watch out, look, blind, rearview mirror
- Rationale: I really struggled to find a good image for this one. I started with the “look” and “watch out” concepts but wasn’t happy. Then I drove somewhere in my minivan, which is like one big blind spot, and the idea came to me. A quick search for “rearview mirror” resulted in this image.
Use babies, puppies and kittens
Even when you’re writing about marketing, like I do, babies, puppies and kittens can sometimes be very effective.
- Article title: Put On Your Marketing Hat
- Potential search terms: hat, put on hat, baby with hat, dog with hat, cat with hat
- Rationale: I actually found this by searching for “hat.” I got lucky!
- Article title: Can Prospects Tell How Much You Care?
- Potential search terms: love, loving, caring
- Rationale: I didn’t want to show a standard “here I am with my client” image. I wanted something more conceptual.
- Article title: Take a Fresh Look at Your Marketing Materials
- Potential search terms: look, looking, eyes, animal eyes
- Rationale: My original thought was to show a close up of a person’s eyes looking at something. But when I searched for “eyes” lots of images of animal eyes came up, and I realized this would be more intriguing.
Create an image that uses text
If you can’t find the perfect image, try adding a quote, tip or headline from the post to an existing image. These days my favorite way to do this is to use www.canva.com, a graphic design tool that has both free and paid versions.
- Article title: The Multi-Million Dollar Punctuation Error
- Potential search terms: Grandma
- Rationale: After giving up trying to find something to illustrate “punctuation error,” I decided to use a well-known meme of the difference that punctuation makes. To avoid copyright infringement I created my own image.
- Article title: Don’t Let Unintended Messages Wreck Your Message
- Potential search terms: N/A
- Rationale: It was a choice between “huh?” and “say what?” I thought this approach would work better than showing a confused person, which was my other idea.
A few other things to keep in mind
Check how the image looks really small. A huge percentage of your readers access the internet on their smart phones. Think about how your images will look on a small screen.
Think about the people in the images. If you’re using images that contain people, be sure that these are people that your ideal target audience can relate to. For example, if your target audience is recent college graduates in California, and your article is about “finding your first home,” you wouldn’t want to use an image of a middle-aged couple buying a house.
Good luck and happy image hunting!
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