I highly recommend you include at least one image with every blog post you write, in most cases. Using images has several advantages:

• Your content can be pinned more easily if you include an image.
• Derek Halpern taught me a great trick – psychologically, people are more likely to read shorter lines, so adding an image at the beginning of a post helps lead them into your content. (I featured a video from Derek here last week.)
• Images can break up your content, making it easier to read.
• Images can illustrate steps in a tutorial or complement reviews.
• You can even monetize images.

Some blog themes also require images to work well, so while I won’t say that you have to use an image in every blog post, I do think you should have a compelling reason why you aren’t using an image if you choose to go this way.

One of the main challenges with images, however, is that most of us aren’t also photographers. You should NEVER simply do a Google search and save an image you find, as this does not uphold copyright laws. However, there are a few free sources for images online, including one of my favorites – Flickr.

In this video, one of our community members, Brankica from Online Income Star, shows you how to use Flickr to get free images for your blog, and she also shares some great tips about finding and working with photographers on this site:

I highly recommend checking out the rest of Brankica’s channel, which includes more great video tutorials for bloggers.