Nothing is fun about reading a wall of text, so adding images, videos, charts, and quotes to a blog can make it fun! You may not know that adding images incorrectly to a blog, can slow it down and hurt your SEO and rankings.
You can add your own images from Pinterest to your blog and if it’s not your own, it’s best to ask for permission.
Keep reading and I’ll share 5 of my favorites places to get images for free. I’ll also share 2 of the best places to get paid images. I’ll share 2 ways to reduce the size of an image to make your website faster.
Lastly, I’ll share the #1 way to use Pinterest to grow a Blog.
Adding Images to Your Blog
If you want to add an image to your blog that isn’t your own from Pinterest the best way is to ask. One way to do this is to message the person who created the pin.
You can find the message button on the board where the pin is located.
Another way to contact someone on Pinterest is to leave a comment on the pin that you want to post to your board.
Click on the pin and then click on comment and leave a comment.
You could probably message and leave a comment to be more efficient. It’s best to ask because someone else owns the image.
How to Get FREE Images for Your Blog
By far the BEST way to get free images for your blog is to take out your phone and take pictures. Yes, create the images yourself even if they suck is the BEST way.
If you’re talking about a topic where it’s hard to use your own images, then another option is stock photos. There are 3 places I love to go to for free images.
There is a 5th way to get free images and this includes doing a Google search. After the search click on “images,” then click on tools then usage rights, and then on “creative commons licenses.”
Creative Commons license means you can use the image, but you have to give credit to whoever owns the image.
Using Paid Images
Another option is paid images. When it comes to business I’m a fan of putting yourself into profit “as cheaply” as you can then using your profits to re-invest.
I would recommend using FREE images (until you make money).
Paid images are an option and here are 2 places to get paid images.
Stockphotsecrets is the cheapest place to pay for images, while Dreamstime has a HUGE selection. 2 of these resources I hope can help you.
Of course, there are TONS of other resources when it comes to paying for images.
Resize Images for SEO
There are MANY factors when it comes to ranking in Google and the search engines, but 1 is speed. You want your website to load fast.
What many people don’t know is pretty images and graphics can “really” slow down a site. If a site is slow it can REALLY drop in the rankings and hurt how many visitors you get.
The fewer visitors you get the less money you can earn from the website.
Every image on a website should be optimized.
There 2 main WordPress plugins that will help your site’s speed. It is funny how 2 seems to be my favorite number in the post!
Shortpixel does give you a few free image optimizers a month or you could spend $20 for 45,000 images you can resize. I just spent the $20 because getting ranked in search and getting traffic was more important than the $20.
When it comes to videos you could get the plugin Lazy Load for Videos.
Lazy load for videos helps your site speed by replacing embedded videos with clickable videos and makes your site faster.
How to Win with Pinterest
The reality of Pinterest is it’s a women’s place. 93% of all pins come from women even if 40% of new signups are from dudes.
Niches that include topics that women are interested in “just” do better on Pinterest. Good topics would be fashion, beauty, fitness, relationships, parenting, home, couponing, decor, and finance for moms.
If you have a blog about guns you can use Pinterest, but it won’t do as well as other topics.
Also, if you use Pinterest you almost HAVE to use Tailwind. Tailwind is a paid software tool that allows you to schedule pins in advance.
This way you can be on Pinterest a few hours a week and it will work for you the rest of the time.
One of the best ways to use Tailwind is with Tribes. Tribes allow people to repin other people’s pins.
The challenge with Pinterest is they don’t want people to leave the platform! If your pins lead people to your blog Pinterest will KILL your pin.
The way to promote your blog from pins “without paying” is by having someone re-pin your pin that leads someone to your blog.
This is why Tailwind is the industry standard when it comes to using Pinterest for a blog. Tailwind just has the tribes and you “almost” have to use it to win.
You could say Pinterest is more of pay2play – using a video game analogy.
Another thing to ask yourself before sharing a pin is “how exciting is this pin?” Also, look at the demographics if your pin is -10 hunting knives for survival- how likely will women repin this?
Conclusion
The issue with “many” social media sites is they don’t want you to leave the platform. Also, with social media you “don’t” own anything on the platform.
This is why I’m a fan of a blog because you “own” the blog. You write a blog post once and it can potentially earn you money WAY into the future.
If I had to start all over again I would recommend this place HERE. It has a great foundation.
It’s hard to ignore social media! Twitter “by far” is an amazing source of traffic and they don’t penalize you for motivating a visitor to leave the platform.
I love Twitter the most!
You can still do a lot of damage with Facebook, Linkedin, Tiktok, Youtube, Pinterest, and others if you use the platform right.
With Pinterest, if your niche is (women’s interest) you might want to consider signing up for Tailwind and sharing your pins to get more traffic.
I’m still a fan of putting yourself into profit as “cheaply” as you can and with your profits re-invest into Pinterest, Twitter, or other ways of getting MORE traffic.
You don’t want to spend yourself out of business, which can be easy to do. I hope this blog post on using Pinterest Images on a blog was helpful, bye for now.