The recipe for a successful blog post consists of several elements - an eye-catching title, a unique topic, comprehensive and interesting writing and an image that relates directly to the blog. Are images important for successful blogging? Yes, they are! Images bring your blog to life, make posts attractive to readers and grab their attention. Adding pictures to your posts will break the monotony of text and develop readers’ interest. If you want your posts to be noticed in this rushed world of blogging, develop the habit of adding eye-catching, but related, images into your posts.

If you are using pictures in your blog posts, I am sure you have realized that it quickly becomes a necessary element. When you choose your images wisely, you can get maximum results from them. The best approach is to take the time to choose contextually related images, then make sure they are properly formatted and good quality.

Although images are good, it is possible to have too many. Do not clutter up your post with pictures. Adding anywhere from one to a few images, depending on the size of the blog, will be just right. If you choose only one photo, I recommend positioning it at the top of your post. Most bloggers use image sharing sites to find good quality images. There are many different sites out there that offer free images and photos.

We have compiled a list of our favorite image sharing sites. Browse around to find free pictures and give your posts a touch of liveliness.

Flickr – Photo Sharing

Flickr is a famous image and video hosting network, which has been operational since 2004. It is currently the preferred photo repository of bloggers.In November 2007, it claimed to host more than 2 billion images. It is a great photo sharing site featuring photo organizing through tagging, privacy and security, interaction, compatibility and licensing of photos. Tagging the images helps users arrange them categorically and makes searching convenient and efficient.

iStockPhoto – Search Royalty Free Images and Photos

iStockPhoto is a popular, royalty free image stock site.You can pay a small amount to use most of the images, or do a search for free pictures. iStockPhoto is one of the fastest growing photo sharing sites. It currently contains over 3 million images contributed by over 50,000 photographers at the rate of 27,000+ images per week.This site is basically an international community of designers and artists, where they share their art work and get credit (a percentage of money) when users download their work.

Stock.Xchng – The Leading Free Stock Photography Site

Stock.Xchng is another popular photo sharing site that offers good quality images for no cost. It includes a large database containing over 350,000 photographs. It is a community of designers – a sharing site where they can share their work and get inspiration from others. It is a good choice for bloggers looking for free, decent images to spice up a post.

FreePhoto.com – Free Pictures

FreePhoto is the largest collection of free photos on the internet. This image sharing site has a database of about 115,000 photos organized in 3000 categories. Although images are free to use, they require a back link and attribution. It is a good source for non-commercial users. However, if you want to get a high quality image then you have to pay for it.

>PicApp – Because a Picture’s Worth

PicApp is another good resource of images on internet, especially for bloggers. PicApp has a fairly large collection of pictures with 1,480,905 images organized in various categories. This site offers many great features, such as RSS feeds for images, bookmarking of images and alerts for new images. PicApp is a site especially developed for bloggers. If you have a blog, I highly recommend checking it out next time you are looking for quality images.

If you use any one of these services, please share your comments with us. Which is your favorite service? Why do you prefer it over the rest? How did you come across the image sharing site that you use? Is the quality of images impressive?

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