Welcome to the Mom Blog Money Blog Series! For 30 days we are following the Mom Blog Money Blog Workshop (affiliate link) sharing some tips so that we can work through the steps and grow together. Grab your coffee, have a seat, and join us.
In Day 27 we were looking at Webmaster Tools. Today we are moving on to talk about…
Branding and protecting your online photos
It takes time to create a post and LOTS of time to create gorgeous photos that represent what you are sharing with your readers. You’ll place the item here and there, with that background, with that accessory, change the lighting…then you’ll change it back. After a lot of reorganizing you finally get the perfect photo(s). You’ll write your post and then you’ll place your perfect photo(s) within the post. Yay, your post is ready to publish…
Or is it?
No, it isn’t.
You need to make sure you have your logo and/or website address displayed on the photo.
Why? Because it’s easy to ”steal” a photo that doesn’t have a logo on it, how are you going to prove it’s yours? Plus, if someone decides to share your photos without your post linked to it (which will happen) and they like what you created…how are they going to find you? Some new bloggers don’t know how to give proper credit or don’t realize they should link back to you when displaying your photos, at least your logo will be on the photos. Of course, if you come across a blogger who is displaying your photos without a link back to you, contact them right away to have them add a link or remove your photos.
Read more tips on how to use pictures effectively in blog posts.
With Pinterest being so popular and many pinners don’t pin properly (they will pin photos not from the original source) it’s another good reason to have your logo/website displayed on your photos. The pinners will be able to find you with the help of your logo/website via Google.
There are a bunch of programs you can use to add your logo to your photos. You can use PicMonkey, Adobe Photoshop, LunaPic, etc…
Read more about how to protect your images in these posts: Free Image Editing Resources for your Blog and Resources for Watermarking your Images.
Do you have your logo/website displayed on your photos? If you don’t, make sure to do it.. it’s in your best interest.
Don’t miss Day 29 which focuses on working with brands.
People need to remember too NOT to just put their watermark/logo in the bottom corner of photos. Those are easily cropped out. And also, please do NOT use No-Right-Click scripts on blogs/sites to try to prevent photo theft. It only prevents one way of stealing photos–and there are many. Anyone who really wants your photos can steal them without right-clicking. And worse yet, many people (myself included) navigate websites using right-clicking. So you make it impossible to do that by using No-Right-Click scripts, and it’s just annoying. Watermarking, if done correctly, is the best way to prevent photo/image theft. It’s not fool-proof (nothing is), but it’s definitely the best way.
I agree about the no right click. It frustrates me when that is disabled and it doesn’t really protect from stealing photos.
Argh, right click blocking, boo!
I’m worried my watermark is too big! haha