As a webmaster, you should know that adding visual appeal to your website with images can boost your text. Besides making your website look clean and beautiful, images improve SEO and user experience and increase the time spent on your website of visitors.
Visual appeal is best suited for websites that fall under the business, travel, sports, politics, or news categories. Website or blogs that use relevant images have double results two times more views and generate more engagement than text content.
Images are powerful communications tools: you can do a lot with a picture, like sharing multiple ideas in all languages. There are millions and millions of images on the web, and this does not warranty you to use them for your website or blog needs. For ethical reasons, you can’t just pick any image online and use it on your post, it is a serious crime. You will need permission to use a copyrighted photo.
According to website development Denver agencies, you have a better shot with real photos than Google or photo stock images. This means that for better results to do with visual appeal, you have to hire a professional photographer. On the contrary, if you are running out of time and wish to stick to a budget then you would do better with Google stock images and Photo stock images.
Google Stock Images
Many webmasters are fond of using images from Google labeled ‘free’ or ‘for reuse with modification,’ only to get penalized for using copyright materials. To be on the legal side of the fence you need to learn about an algorithm that allows you to pick free photos from Google. However, you do not need any copyright confirmation when an image falls under the Fair Use or Public Domain categories.
You can use Copyright Images under Fair Use policy for purposes such as research, teaching, criticism, scholarship, comment, or news reporting. If a picture ends up in the public domain, it could mean that the rights have expired or no exclusive intellectual property rights exist. In the case that the image you want does not fall under any of the two, then you’ll have to get permission from the owner to use it.
Therefore, it is crucial to determine whether a picture is protected by copyright law or not. The best way to do that is with Google’s advanced search. You need to search for images that you want to use with the following free labels:
- For reuse
- For reuse with modification
- For noncommercial reuse
- For non-commercial reuse with modification
Your search does not end here, you need to confirm that someone has not edited and reuploaded a copyrighted image under the above free labels. Further research should lead you to the owner of the picture that you want to use on your blog or website. Asking for permission to use a copyrighted image can have a variety of results and the worst that can happen is that you might not get a response.
Most google images are available in low resolution and cropped in odd sizes. Therefore, with Google images, it is not a guarantee that you will get pictures with the kind of resolution and size that you want for your project.
If you are not a fan of research and would like to quit the Google search game, then there is a suitable alternative solution to end this problem: photo stocks.
Photo Stocks: Royalty-Free Images
Photo Stocks offers high-quality royalty-free images, which can save loads of time, effort, and risk to copyright penalties. However, for some, you’ll have to buy an on-demand package or subscribe to a plan. Here are some of the free and paid worthy stocks you can try:
- Pexels
- Pixabay
- FreeStock
- Adobe Stock
- Getty Images
- Shutterstock
- Shopify Burst
- Fotolia
- StockSnap.io
- BigStock
The best thing about Photo stocks is that you’ll find high-quality free or reasonably priced photos. There are no strings attached to stock images because you have the freedom to reuse, modify, and do whatever you want with your purchase as long as you are within the license agreement.
Unlike google images, Stock photos are of high-quality and high-resolution and can be scaled to larger sizes.
In Closing
Both images from Google search and Photo stock can work well with your Visual appeal project, but what will limit you is quality, cost, and time. If you are on a budget and have all the time in the world, then the Google search game fits you. On the other hand, if time is not on your side and willing to spend extra cash to get what you want then you have Photo stocks as your best option.
About 5280 Software LLC:
5280 Software LLC, located in Denver, Colorado is a premier software development firm. We have worked with a variety of clients over the years. Our expert team of developers have helped small to medium sized businesses, startups, as well as enterprise level clients such as RingCentral. If you are looking to build a mobile app, we can deliver flawless apple ios mobile apps as well as android mobile apps. These apps can be designed for smartphones, ipad and android tablets, wearable such as smart watches, and even smart TVs. The power of a well designed app to gain new customers is key in today’s market. We help execute your app development to perfection. A website is powerful tool for branding and showcasing the products or services you offer. We can build you a WordPress, E-Commerce, or custom coded website at competitive prices.
Once the site is launched, or if you already have a website, we offer Search Engine Optimization Services to achieve higher search engine rankings. Contact us today with your website’s URL and we will put together a free SEO analysis of your site with pricing and timeline to get your site ranked on the first page of Google and other search engines. Our experienced and dedicated team has a proven track record and provide regular reporting on tasks completed and keyword movements during your SEO project. We help businesses and companies gain rankings on all the major search engines.
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Our developers know the most current development language such as javascript, css, and other browser compliant scripting languages and frameworks. We have extensive backend database programmers with adroit skills and knowledge and can work with any technology stack or framework. Whether it be servers running sql, Amazon db, or others, we have your requirements under control. We have the resources to setup a domain registration and hosting for your websites. If your users or manangement need help learning a new system, we can address their questions or needs. We know there are many developer options on the market, choose 5280 Software LLC, the company with the tools and options to integrate with your current systems with the highest level of security. All projects include a Scope of Work and development contract specific to the project requirements.
We can improve the understanding of your business and marketing outreach through the use of analytics. We offer a complete solution with the latest technologies to solve your obstacles and scale your customer base. From the start of any project (and at every stage, step, phase, and release) we focus on the client and always ask for feedback while we develop the project. Creating a quality solution for a business or startup is our end goal. Our strategy and processes are based on solid communication with our clients.
All projects are built according to a clearly defined scope of work. If you need assistance with scope creation, we offer this as a service. This scope of work will be used in the provided development contract. Make sure whomever you hire for your project provides you a development contract with clearly defined pricing, development timeline, payment schedule, and deliverables. We would like to learn about your project and help refine your scope of work.
If you have an idea for a mobile app, please emails us your full name or company name and we will send you a signed NDA. We send NDAs to all potential clients to guarantee your ideas and documents will be kept in confidence. Once an NDA is in place, feel free to book a free discovery call. You can also fill out our app development questionnaire to share the details of your project before your call. We are the leading firm specializing in building solutions for the web, iphones and other smart devices including IOT. Our company can create a custom solution on a variety of platforms using the most current popular programming languages. Weather it is a cross platform hybrid app or a natively programmed solution, we have you covered!
We look forward to speaking with you about your project. Learn why clients around the world trust working with 5280 Software LLC. We support our clients from mockups, sketch, wireframes, and graphic design, development, product launch and ASO when we publish your app, and even code updates at a competitive price point. We are the leading digital agency with the experience to to help your brand success on a local, national, and even international level. All of our websites are responsive and optimized for Search Engine placement.
Our designs are custom based off initial website and page mockups; no cookie-cutter websites here! We are available to handle all your software development requests and you can access our website to find our contact information. We build interactive websites and understand the features needed that look great on both desktop and mobile browsers. Our websites essentially interact and function just as you wish. Feel free to visit us on our social sites Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, or send us a LinkedIn connection request to learn about our offers to get answers to your questions. Let us turn your idea into reality!
