***First two important announcements: (1) We have slightly updated our TOS to better explain blogger-author relationships and (2) We have added official content policies: We don’t want you guys to be affected by any inappropriate content which makes it to the web. Please see the updated content policies here (make sure to login).***
We have been always advocates of visually-enhanced content: Images make an article user-friendlier and more interesting. Images also make it easier for an article to go viral on social media (especially image-based networks like Pinterest).
So the benefits of using images in a guest article:
- Make a guest post more appealing: If the blog owner likes it, he won’t reject it!
- Make your guest post a “like” and “pin” magnet (which means more traffic and visibility to you and the blog)
- Send better “quality” signals to Google through social media shares and likes.
The Problem:
Most images you come across over the Internet cannot be legally re-used: They belong to someone else. Even when you re-use an image licensed through Creative Commons, you still run into the risk that the license will be changed later (which you cannot even change).
Law suits and bad online reputation have made bloggers and guest authors paranoid.
But we didn’t want to give up.
Our Solution: Smart Photo Stock
So we went an extra mile to give our publishers and authors lots of professional images for free: Smart Photo Stock
Makes sense. RT @seosmarty: We figured the only way to solve the license issue was to create our own product 🙂 #myblogguest
— Deborah (@socialwebcafe) February 7, 2013
Smart Photo Stock is the collection of free images you are all welcome to use (we prefer if you give us a credit). We are buying exclusive images and give them away for free!
@myblogguest this availability of images sounds TERRIFIC! Too often the blogger doesn't have them when I ask. Now, no excuse. #myblogguest
— Patricia Weber (@patweber) February 7, 2013
One day we’ll probably start a paid collection as well and some image editing tools inside, but for our members we will always maintain the collection of free images.
Smart Photo Stock results are now available through our guest article editor:
To use any image in a guest article: Put the cursor in the article where you want the image to appear and click it in the right-hand column. It will embed automatically and create the source link as well.
Feel free to follow “View on Source” below the image and download the original for free.
You can:
- Modify each image however you like;
- Use any photo anywhere (we don’t care if it’s for commercial purposes and we don’t want you to wreck your head over what is commercial).
Feel free to credit the original image though because it’s still an artwork our dedicated team member is working daily on for you.
Your Turn:
Use the database, monitor what’s being added (we update it daily) and suggest the popular image topics in this post. This is still work in progress!
https://twitter.com/Roadturn/status/299559698489827328
Joseph
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Paul Schlegel
Great idea. Should make everything smoother and less risky for all involved.