Technology

The Best Places to Find Stock Photos for Your Blog

September 5, 2019

When someone clicks on one of your blog posts, one of the first things they notice is your images. The images you choose can make or break your blog post. Since I started blogging, one challenge I’ve had is finding quality stock photos at affordable prices. If you are wondering why you need stock photos, read on for the answer.

One solution is taking your own photos, but unless you’re a photographer or familiar with photo editing software, you might find taking your own photos is more trouble than it is worth. Some people ask why you can’t just go on Google and take random photos you find. Well, most of those photos are copyrited and you would have to ask permission to use those images. There are heavy penalties for using copirited material, whether it be images or written content. Since I’m not a photographer, don’t feel comfortable with photo editing and don’t want to get into trouble trying to use someone else’s images, I use stock photos. I also wanted to mention that I occasionally take my own photos if it’s a product I’m showing you or an activity that I have set up for Rosebud. I never put pictures of her up here on the blog for privacy reasons which is another reason why I use stock photos. I have compiled a list of the stock photo websites that I use most frequently. There are both free and paid websites on this list, so there is something for any budget.

Free Stock Images

Free is in everyone’s price range and these are the best sites I’ve come across so far.

Burst

This is a great site that I recently found for free stock photos. You can search by keyword or brouse by topics such as business, coffee or fitness to name a few. Most of the images I’ve seen on this site are horizontal, but I occasionally find virtical images as well. the thing that I love most about this site is that it has great photo descriptions. When I click on the photo and see the description, I know exactly what I’m getting. I’m visually impaired, so I can’t see a lot of the details in photos. when I’m looking for images, I normally have to figure out why the image is by zooming in, making it bigger and then figuring out if I want to use it or not. Having a detailed description makes that process that much faster. I appreciate anything that saves me time. Sometimes it takes me an hour or more to search for images for one post.

Pic Jumbo

Pic Jumbo is another site where you will find free stock photos. However, there are also premium collections that come out each month. There are different packages you can purchase. Pic Jumbo is managed by one man who takes his own photos, so if you purchase from his site, you can feel good about helping another person make a living instead of a huge faceless company. Pic Jumbo has decent photo descriptions, a variety of topics to choose from and you can search by key word.

FreeImages.comI forgot about this website until I was putting this post together. I’ve found a few photos on this website. The good parts of this website are there are a lot of nature images, the descriptions are okay and of course, it’s free.

Pexels.com

Pexels is a pretty popular place to find free stock photos. It is a huge library of stock images from various websites. The thing I like best about this website is simply the huge variety of photos to choose from. The photo descriptions are hit or miss and the search functions are very basic, but I use this site often.

Pixabay

Pixabay is another popular place to find stock photos. The thing I love about this website is you can search by photo orientation. that helps when I’m looking for photos I can use for Pinterest. I also like that it has a wide variety of photos and of course, it’s free. You can also download different sized versions of each photo. My least favorite thing about this site are the image descriptions are horrible, but that’s because people are uploading their own photos to the website. Some of the descriptions are okay, but I usually have to figure out the context using the tags. Pixabay has worked great for me when I’ve used the right keywords and know exactly what I wanted.

Unsplash

I rarely use Unsplash, but I’m including because people really love it. There seems to be a variety of photos, but there are very few photo descriptions and many of the photos don’t even have titles. I have the most difficulty searching for photos on this site, so I only will use it when I’ve exhausted my other options. You also have to include the artists name if you use photos from Unsplash. While I feel the artists should be given credit especially if they are sharing their work for free, it’s an additional step that I don’t want to deal with. I know I’d forget what photo went with which artist. I do want to take this opportunity to thank the photographers and artists who generously make these free stock photo websites possible.

Premium Stock Photos

If you are in the market for some affordable stock images, the following websites are for you. I’ve only found a couple that aren’t outragously priced, so if you know of any other affordable stock photo websites, let me know.

CanStockPhoto

So far, this is my favorite premium stock photo site. They have a variety of packages to choose from. My personal favorites are the credit packages, but they have monthly subscriptions as well. Their library of photos is huge. You can get the images in different sizes and they have videos as well. You can sign up with a free account with them and they’ll send you one free image per month. The image usually relates to a theme. For example, in December, they might send something about Christmas or New Years. I love that there are a lot of search filters and that you can find just about any image you can imagine. The photo descriptions are also pretty good. This is my go to site when I can’t find free images or I need something for Pinterest.

DepositPhotos

I literally just found this site this week because they had this great deal going on! It was basically 50 cents per photo. That’s one of the best deals I’ve ever seen on stock images. The search function seems pretty basic, but they have a variety of categories to browse. The image library seems endless and the photo descriptions are good. This is probably going to be my second favorite.

StockFreeImages

Okay, I’m including StockFreeImages because I got a ton of photos during my one week free trial. That was definitely helpful. this site has a ton of photos, the descriptions are good and it was easy to search. My gripe with this website is the false advertising. First of all, the word free is in the company name. Second of all, when you click on a photo that says, “free” you get taken to a page where you need to sign up for a premium plan. Their plans are out of my price range, but if you are looking for some quality photos, StockFreeImages is an option. One thing I want to praise is their custom service! During my free trial, I kept getting errors when trying to download photos for the first two days, so I E-mailed them to find out what was going on and to report broken links. I’m not sure what the problem was, but when I asked if they could extend my free trial, they did. No questions asked! While I only did the free trial, I was pleased with that experience.

Stock Unlimited

This is another great website for finding stock images. They have different premium plans. I was lucky enough to get an unlimited 3 year plan for $50. Occasionally, they offer these amazing deals. While Stock Unlimited isn’t as big as some of the other stock image sites, they offer a lot. You can download fonts and templates as well. The image descriptions are pretty good. I find that it’s harder to find vertical images because they don’t seem to have a search filter for that. I hope they continue to expand their photo collections. If you haven’t tried Stock Unlimited, they are worth checking out.

What are your go to websites for stock images? Tell me in the comments.

8 Comments

Awareness, Blogging

How I’ve Made Pinterest Work for Me

July 15, 2019

Last year, I wrote a post about all the reasons I didn’t use Pinterest. As I said in that post, I wanted to use it. I knew that Pinterest drives traffic to blogs. I knew that there were Pinterest users that would be interested in the topics that I write about. Topics related to motherhood and activities for kids are huge on Pinterest. Unfortunately, for me, there were a lot of barriers. When I tried to use Pinterest, I became very discouraged and didn’t know if I’d ever be able to use it properly. If you’ve been reading my blog at all this year, you’ll have noticed the pins on the newer posts and I’ve gone back and updated some older posts as well. I’m happy to say that I am now able to use Pinterest, but it took lots of learning and researching, trial and error and waiting for features to become accessible. Now I will explain how I’ve made Pinterest work for me as a visually impaired blogger. Plus, I’ll give you some Pinterest tips for beginners.

Pinterest Strategies

One of the things that put me off about Pinterest was that I had no idea how to use it. At first, I was just pinning my blog posts and other things at random. I wasn’t sure how many boards to have, how to organize them, when to schedule pins, how often to repin the same items etc. There is a lot that goes into pinning and promoting your posts. That’s why this free Pinterest Course for New Bloggers is so valuable. This is a free E-mail course that gives you step by step instructions on how to set up your Pinterest profile, set up your boards, find appropriate keywords for Pinterest SEO, create pins that convert and more. It’s free, so it’s definitely worth checking out and it’s a great starting point. Especially if you are new to Pinterest! One lesson from the course focuses on Pinterest group boards which are important for your blog content reaching a wider audience. If you’re not sure how to find or collaborate on Pinterest group boards, Marina from Tinylovebug has you covered. Check out her post, Everything You Need to Know About Pinterest Group Boards.

Equal Access on Pinterest

While I was researching and learning about Pinterest strategies, I was waiting for Pinterest to become accessible. If you’ve read some of my previous blog posts, you might know that I’m visually impaired. I use a screen reader to access everything on the web and sometimes, websites or apps are broken. Meaning, they do not function well or at all with a screen reader. I happen to use Voiceover which is built into all Apple products, but there are other Windows based screen readers as well. Some common accessibility problems with websites or apps may be that buttons or links are not labeled, buttons or links are not clickable or in some cases, websites or apps may be completely image based which means the screen reader cannot read the text or any of the features that may be clickable. Even though a link may be labeled visually for you with some text or an image, the screen reader may just say the word link or it may be a string of letters and numbers that don’t tell us what the link leads to. There are lots of accessibility bugs that we may face on a daily basis which I won’t get into here, but unfortunately, Pinterest has many.

Last year, Pinterest was almost completely inaccessible to me. I was able to create an account, but that was about it. I couldn’t read pin descriptions, the blog posts after clicking through a pin, the notifications tab, anything in the following tab and so much more. There was a huge laundry list of features I couldn’t access. When I asked other visually impaired bloggers about this problem, they just told me not to bother with Pinterest since it is so visual anyway, but that answer wasn’t good enough for me. Pinterest is the largest source of traffic for blogs these days. Why shouldn’t I be able to participate in that? It frustrated me, but I waited. Every now and then, I’d try again. One day, it worked!

I found that I was able to upload my pins, read the pin descriptions and blog posts of others, save and send pins, collaborate on group boards and access most of the profile settings. In the beginning, I could barely do any of that, but Pinterest still has a ways to go. There are still a lot of bugs. I can’t read my messages, so what I do is take a screen shot and then export that photo to an app that can read text from photos. I still can’t read anything in the notifications tab unless I’m in Safari. When I add hashtags, a menu pops up with other hashtags that I can’t read. I can’t read or respond to comments on my pins. The scheduling feature on the Pinterest app is completely inaccessible with Voiceover. Today, I discovered that I could finally read most of the items in the following tab. If a pin doesn’t have a text title, I can’t read it. In order for me to read an image, I have to zoom in and make it bigger and even then in a lot of cases I have difficulty. I’m happy that Pinterest is becoming more accessible over time, but I worry that coding will be updated and those features will be broken again. Is the frustration worth it? Right now, I’m thinking yes because it has brought more traffic to my blog, but time will tell.

Trial and Error

Speaking of frustrations, there are the graphics. That’s another interesting part of this blogging journey for me. I have done lots of trial and error to figure out a way to create pins. I know Pinterest is about eye catching images that draw the reader in. You have to think about the colors, the layout, the font etc. This is not easy for me since I have trouble telling most colors apart and see better with a sharp contrast. I don’t know much about fonts, so I stick to the basics.

The first thing I do is search the stock photo sites for relevant photos. If I find a large enough vertical image that either has copy space or a workable place for text, I export that photo to the Phonto app. It’s a simple image editor. I’ll mention that it’s really not that accessible, but it was simple enough to figure out. My only complaint is that I wish the text color options were labeled. After messing with the text, background colors, fonts and sizes, the image is ready for pinning. Let’s go back to square one for a minute. If I don’t find a large enough vertical image that is related to my blog post, I use an app called MA Long Image. This way, I can make a photo collage with two or more images. After I have my photo collage, I upload that to Phonto and repeat the process. Most people use Canva to create their pins, but I tried Canva and it doesn’t work for me. Most of its features are not labeled or accessible. I’m just glad to have found something that works even though it may be limited.

I’m not writing this post to complain, but I want to raise awareness of accessibility issues. I’m also the kind of person who pushes the boundaries of what can be done. People might ask why I care about Pinterest since it is so visual. As I previously mentioned, Pinterest is a great source of blog traffic, but it’s also a search engine. Many of my coworkers use Pinterest for lesson planning. The activities you can find for kids is endless. Why shouldn’t I have access to that information? While Pinterest is meant to be a very visual platform, most of the links lead to blog posts with text, so there is no reason why that shouldn’t be accessible. Pinterest is more than pretty images. It’s a great marketing tool, not only for promoting blogs, but for selling goods and services as well. I also want my readers to understand how I create my content and the work that goes into it.

Pinterest Tips

I’ll leave you with a few quick Pinterest tips I’ve learned so far.

1. Create at least two or three pinnable graphics for each blog post. This way you can pin the same post to a board more than once, but be sure not to schedule those pins too close together.

2. Speaking of scheduling, find a way to keep track of your pinning schedule. Many people use Tailwind, but that is even less accessible than Pinterest, so I don’t use it. Some people use an Excel spread sheet or word document. This way they can follow which pins were posted to which boards. This will avoid multiple pinning too close together. You don’t want to look spammy.

3. If you can, try to get premium stock images for pins if you can’t take your own. This can effect how well your pin does on Pinterest. If many people are using the same free images, Pinterest picks up on that. If those same free images are used for different pins in totally different categories, it can cause those pins not to perform as well. I happened to see this tip last week.

4. Use Pinterest SEO. Search for keywords before creating your pin description and hashtags. Find out what’s popular related to the topic you are posting about.

5. Don’t be afraid to try different things to see what your audience responds to. Whether it be a different pin layout, color scheme, different types of headlines etc. It may take a while for a pin to get traction, so don’t be discouraged if your pin isn’t a hit in the beginning.
6. Don’t forget to spread the love and pin plenty of other content from other bloggers. It will help you connect and reach a larger audience.
Do you want to learn more about how Pinterest works? Check out this list of 9 Pinterest myths.

As always, thank you for reading. Do you have any great Pinterest tips? Feel free to share them in the comments.

4 Comments

Blogging, Personal Development

My OneYear Blogging Anniversary

March 19, 2019

A year ago today, I published my first post here on this blog. I hear a lot of people say that they are afraid to start a blog, so they spend months and months planning all the details. They get everything set up first. The website, the social media, they have their theme perfect etc. Not me. I just wrote and when I thought it was good enough, I clicked the publish button. That’s not to say I didn’t give my blog any thought. I did. I struggled to come up with a name. I had created another blog, published one post and decided it wasn’t the direction I wanted to go. I tested out Blogger and WordPress. I did some research about which platform would be best and which hosting company would meet my needs. Eventually I settled on one, but I didn’t have any content planned. I figured I’d write whatever comes to mind. This brings me to the first lesson I learned with the launch of my new blog.

Make a Plan

I knew from the beginning I wanted to monetize my blog, but it sounds silly not to plan ahead when it could potentially become a business. I suppose it’s apart of my self limiting beliefs. Sometimes I wonder who will read my blog? Will anyone care about what I have to say? Then will anyone buy the products I recommend? The only way to know is to try, but there has to be strategy involved. Over the past year, I didn’t make a dime, but I’ve learned to plan ahead. I have a master list of posts, a posting schedule that I stick to as much as possible and am working on strategies for using social media to bring traffic to my blog. I also have a strategy for working on posts. I start with a basic outline or full rough draft depending on how well my writing comes together. Next, I do some editing and then search for pictures. Usually this takes place over multiple days. By the final day, I’m making the final edits, adding tags and finally creating a pin image before publishing. I still write from the heart, but there is now a method to this madness.

Community is Everything

In the blogging world, you need to connect with other bloggers. Facebook groups have become so valuable to me in the past year. If it weren’t for the members of these groups, my blog would get virtually no traffic. Something that I already understood was the importance of commenting on others blogs. This is one way to build a connection. Yes, it leaves a back link to your site, but more importantly you are giving attention to another blogger’s work and often times, they will reciprocate. I love getting comments on my blog. My greatest accomplishments are the comments where readers tell me, “I really needed to read this today.” Making someone feel less alone and or offering support to other moms is the whole reason I created this blog. I like sharing children’s activities, but the posts I love the most are the ones where I share something more meaningful. Something that can connect with other human beings on a deeper level. If I’ve done that, then I’ve succeeded.

Flexibility

When I first created the blog, I was on fire. I had so many ideas. I was posting a lot more. I knew consistency was key, but I ran out of steam quickly. Life got busy and I started feeling guilty if I didn’t post every day or three times per week. Now I’m lucky if I post twice which is my goal, but I’ve learned that one really great post is better than five posts that were thrown together at the last minute. I feel guilty about posting less, but I’ve learned that I need to use my time and energy wisely. I need to spend time with Rosebud. I need to occasionally take a night for self care. Sometimes I just need to step away from the screen and that’s okay. Building a following, monetization and my overall goal of using my blog as apart of my future business is going slower than I would like, but that has to be okay if I don’t want to become totally burnt out.

It’s Hard Work

I knew blogging wasn’t easy, but I had no idea there was so much involved. I spend a lot of time creating content, but you know what takes up just as much time? Promotion on social media. Not only self promotion, but sharing and commenting on other people’s content. Remember I said we needed to build community? Well, making those connections is hard work. You have to keep commenting and keep sharing content so that fellow bloggers will comment on and share yours as well. I never realized how much time it would take to build up a following on social media. These days, most blogs are on multiple platforms which can be a full-time job in itself. I’ve learned that I can’t always be on social media posting every day. Although you need to keep posting to keep your followers engaged, I don’t have enough hours in the day, but I do my best to keep everything up to date.

There’s Still a lot to Learn

Finally, I’ve realized that there’s still so much to learn. I’m starting to explore seo. Pinterest is barely accessible, but I have been working with it over the past month. I will write more about that in a future post, but it’s another platform to get used to. I’ve recently began using Amazon affiliate links again. I have to redo the links in my previous posts, but I will be working hard to create content that make people interested in the products. I still have some things to learn about affiliate marketing. I’m always trying to improve my writing and to generate more ideas. There is always room for improvement, but at the same time, I have to be proud of what I’ve learned so far. I never thought I could set this blog up on my own, but I have. I didn’t know if I’d still be up and running after a year, but here I am.

Here’s to another year of blogging, learning, growing and achieving my blogging goals. what are your blogging goals? What are your biggest accomplishments so far? Tell me in the comments.

13 Comments

Blogging, Personal Development

Blogging Goals for 2019

January 15, 2019

I started this blog in March of 2018 and I’ve learned a lot since then. In my welcome post, I mentioned my previous blogs. One was dedicated to early childhood education. It focused on my experiences in the classroom and educational activities. My other blog was more about day to day life. My early childhood blog had a small following, but nothing substantial. I think what helped was all the time and energy I would put into it. I had time to build up a Twitter following and interact more. I had more time to comment directly on other people’s blog posts. Although I was proud of that blog, I lost my passion for working in the classroom and the blog basically died out. I knew nothing about SEO. I didn’t use Facebook and wasn’t apart of a community of any kind. It was very basic. It was fun in the beginning and then I let it go when it wasn’t.

This time around, I’m definitely more excited about my blog. I’m passionate about being a mom, creating content and sharing experiences that might help others. I’m happy with my blog, but it could always be better. In order to make anything successful, you have to plan and set goals. Even if you change the goals, you should have something to strive for. Eventually, I want to incorporate this blog as apart of my business. Whether it be childcare, coaching or both. So, I’m keeping this in mind when I think about my blogging goals.

1. Find additional ways to increase traffic

My main goal is to increase the amount of traffic to my blog. Since March, this has been a challenge. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I am unable to effectively use Pinterest. This puts me at a disadvantage. Many mom bloggers I know use Pinterest as their main source of traffic. I think my content would do well on Pinterest, but since it is inaccessible to me and I do not have the means to pay a virtual assistant to create and schedule pins, I have to think of other creative ways to promote my blog. Most of my current traffic comes from Facebook groups. In 2019, I need to work on finding other traffic sources for my blog.

2. Make posts more SEO friendly

As I’ve already said, I knew nothing about SEO before and not much has changed. I use tags, but I haven’t done my research on which key words I should be using to bring more traffic. I have increased the amount of back links which can bring up my ranking with Google, but it’s not just about back links within your own blog, if reputable sites link back to your blog, that brings the ranking even higher. My goal is to read more articles and maybe take a course on SEO in 2019.

3. Write at least one guest post

On some of the Facebook blogging groups, I see posts asking for guest posts. Guest posting on another blog is a great way to promote your blog because you get exposed to a wider audience. I’d like to guest post, but I don’t know what I’d write. Do I just take one of my post ideas that have been floating around? What if they don’t like what I write? What if it’s not good enough? This thought process may seem irrational, but these are the questions that go through my head. Of course, I don’t have to guest post, but it would be a great opportunity to reach a broader audience. The whole idea makes me uncomfortable, but I could start by hosting a guest post on this blog and simply return the favor.

4. Rejoin Amazon Affiliates and make the required three sales

As you may or may not have noticed, some of my posts had Amazon affiliate links. In my older posts, the links are still there and will take you to a product, but I do not get a commission. Unfortunately, I did not make any sales in 2018 so, my account was closed. The great thing about Amazon Affiliates is that you can reapply. I’m waiting until the traffic to my blog increases before I try again. Now I post links to products for your convenience and I love sharing the products that I use and believe in even if I don’t make a penny. I’m planning to reapply for Amazon Affiliates within the next few months depending on the traffic.

5. Create and follow a schedule

Back in December, I had a final session with my coach and we discussed my blog. My main focus was creating a schedule. At the time, it seemed that Tuesdays and Fridays were the best days to post. Now I’m rethinking it. I still want to post twice per week, but I’m wondering about rearranging the schedule. I’m so worn out on Mondays that I can’t seem to find the energy to put together a post for Tuesday. I try to write on the weekends, but Rosebud is no longer napping so, it’s harder to find the time. Maybe Mondays and Fridays would work better, but then again, there’d only be two days between posts and then nothing for several days. I need to get my butt in gear and schedule posts ahead of time, but as a multitasking mom, when do I have time for that? This goal is a lofty one, but it’s one I really need to work on.

To recap, my goals are to find additional ways to increase traffic, make blog posts more SEO friendly, to write at least one guest post, to rejoin Amazon Affiliates and to create and follow a posting schedule. What are your blogging and or business goals for 2019? Tell me in the comments.

17 Comments

Awareness, Blogging

Why I don’t use Pinterest

September 14, 2018

One question I’ve gotten is, why don’t you use Pinterest? My coworkers rave about it. They spend hours finding cool ideas for their classrooms. I’d like to be able to do that too. I’d love to be able to use Pinterest to find an easy dinner recipe or to see some cool and thrifty decorating ideas. I’ll admit it. I wouldn’t mind seeing a cat picture or two. Not to mention the articles and tips that people share.

More importantly, I’d like to be apart of the huge blogging community on there to bring traffic to my blog. Many bloggers get so much engagement from Pinterest and it often gets suggested as a great source for getting traffic to your blog. The problem is the app and the website are inaccessible to me. First of all, the whole point of Pinterest is visual which I can appreciate, but often the pins include text which normally I’d be able to read. I use a screen reader called Voiceover which comes built into Apple products which basically reads everything on the screen out loud. I won’t get technical, but that’s it in a nut shell. Anyway, when I’m trying to browse Pinterest using Safari, all it reads are the tags on the pins. If I’m using the iPhone app, it will read the titles of the pins which I was excited about, but then when I clicked on them, I could not read the text even though it would load. This was extremely disappointing and frustrating.

If Pinterest would fix their code to be compatible with Voiceover, I could read the text and it would make a world of difference. I could read and share pins as well as interact with other Pinterest users. One idea I had was to link to a few cool pins right here in this post, but that won’t happen until I can read them.

The other accessibility issue I have with Pinterest is creating the pins themselves. I know you have to fix your images to work as a pin and I’m not sure how to do that. Trying to edit photos is obviously not my strong suit. It’s hard enough for me to find images let alone editing them.

You might be thinking, why doesn’t she just use other social media channels and why aren’t they enough? Well, I do use Twitter and Facebook and while those are helpful for growing my blog, it seems that both Pinterest and Instagram are where bloggers are at these days. I’m finding this especially in the parenting niche. I’m left wondering how much I’m missing out. How much would my blog grow if I could use it? I’ve had similar challenges with Instagram since it is also so visually based.

I don’t like to complain about these things or draw attention to myself. I’m also a believer in working with the resources I have. I’m grateful for technology and the things that are accessible now, that never were in the past. When it comes to these issues, my gut instinct is not to speak up. Not to ruffle any feathers. The nagging voice in my head tells me to be grateful for what I can use or to wait and maybe somehow it will work better in the future. On the other hand, I think I should be able to participate and use a website as big as Pinterest to find ideas for my classrooms, to grow my blog and eventually to promote my business. Now it’s your turn. What social media platforms have you had the best luck with? Let me know in the comments.

4 Comments