How do you source graphics and images for PLR?
Recently someone asked me this question. Here is my response.
If you want to skip this great blog post and to get to the free graphics and visual resources just click through this Slideshare presentation below.
Okay, so Slideshare is not your cup-o-tea? A report with this same information is also available. Click here to download it.
Graphic, Images and PLR
When I decided I was going to set up shop selling licensed content, or private label rights material, it was strictly for text base content. There were a couple of prevalent PLR business models back then. One model was selling strictly text content like articles, reports, ebooks and autoresponders. The other model included graphics such as mini-site graphic design, banner graphics in addition to the ebooks and articles. These two models are still very prevalent today, but now PLR publishers are adding in more graphics.
Why Make That Move?
One reason is to differentiate your own PLR business from others. But demand is the main driving force. Social media portals and smartphones made it easy for people to provide updates which included photos. It didn’t take long and online tools for editing images became available. Sites like Pixlr.com and Picmonkey.com took the mystery out of editing graphics and images making it easy for Grandma to add a message to an image of the grandbaby’s birthday party.
And then there were other websites which combined images with messages to create a huge demand for more of the same. Surely you are familiar with Icanhascheezeburger with their always in demand LOLCats. Images can go viral as people share them using Facebook and Instagram. This sharing drives traffic to your site. Especially when an all new kitty language is mixed with funny cat images and people who love cats.
Visual Content – Why Your Marketing Needs Visuals
Visual marketing is a major trend online that’s only growing more and more popular. Marketers who use visual content get more customer engagement, more leads, and more followers, which naturally result in higher earnings.
What Is Visual Content?
When you think of visual content, you probably imagine images. While images are important, visual content includes many other formats such as:
Videos
Infographics (a visual representation of data or information that presents complex ideas in a simple way)
Memes (a usually humorous image accompanied by text that conveys an idea or message and spreads throughout the Internet virally)
Word art
Cartoons
Quotes accompanied by images
Charts and graphs
Brand logos
Design elements
Do you like reading that list of bullets? It certainly is a lot clearer than stringing out the points serially like: videos, infographics, memes, word art, quotes, charts, graphs, logos, design elements, and posters.
Now let’s see what happens when I take that list and include it in a graphic like this, what happens?
Scroll to the bottom for the answer after you check out my cool infographic.
What Did You Do?
Did you stop reading to check out the infographic? Did you actually read the text attached to the images as your scrolled down. That is the power of images. It causes people to stop and look. The biggest challenge a blogger has is to get people to stop for longer than 2 seconds on their blog post. Images help create a pause in a visitor’s browsing.
Why Images Are Essential
As the saying goes, a picture says a thousand words. People naturally respond to images. The human brain processes visual information much faster than text, which must be read and processed. Images communicate ideas in a more immediate way.
Images are especially effective in marketing because of their ability to tell a story. Stories resonate with people and can help to create a strong bond between you and your followers. These stories are especially effective when they make use of humor.
Images are absolutely essential for branding. Your avatar, icon or brand logo is instantly recognizable to your audience. The colors and design features you use for your website and marketing materials instantly communicate your message. Just consider the Apple logo or McDonalds’ golden arches.
Finally, visual content is great for social media. Social media posts with visual content get 120% to 180% more engagement than text-only posts. Facebook has even changed its profile format to the Timeline to make it more visually oriented. There are also hundreds of popular social media sites, such as Pinterest or Instagram, made exclusively for images.
The Challenges of Visual and Audible Content as PLR
It’s one thing to come up with topics, outlines and written content to sell, but adding visual (or audible) content into the mix adds a new dimension. The biggest challenge is coming up with images that are relevant to the content. You can spend hours looking for a perfect image, but then you face the next mountain. Can you use this image without getting into license issues?
Here are two quick answers framed up by questions.
Did you create the photo or graphic? If you answer, “No” then you may not use it.
Did you buy an explicit license to use the image or graphic? If your response is “No” then you may not use it.
You can’t go copying people’s content off their blogs, yet people seem to think that if an image is in Google’s image index it is fair game.
Music Clips and Audio Recordings
A quick sidebar about audible content. This is yet another way to connect with the reader. A few PLR providers are offering recordings of the product articles or ebooks. There are also sources for free music clips to use for presentations or podcasts. Similar to the graphics, you need a license supporting whatever purpose. If you resell the content, be sure your license allows it.
Legal Stuff
I am not a lawyer. I do not give legal advice. If you leverage content belonging to others be it text, visual or audible without explicit permission you are inviting a legal hassle and financial disaster.
The simplest way to handle this is to create your own graphics or have them created for you. Yes, it will suck up time if you do it yourself. The results may be clunky too. Yes, it will cost you money to have them done for you, but not as much as getting summoned into court for stealing stuff.
There are resources for free images, graphics, photos and music clips. I’m not aware of resources for free recordings, but they may exist. You still need to be aware of the restrictions attached to the license for each type of content.
The PLR Option
The other option is to buy PLR which offers graphics and the license to use the graphics. Whoever sells the PLR must provide you a clear license to use the graphics or audios. The PLR provider must also have clear license to the material from the artist.
Some artists won’t allow you to sell their graphics.
However, there are plenty who will. You just have to be upfront with your intent. If the artist won’t do it, move on to the next one who is happy to sell you free rights to the material. I’ve used graphic artists on Fiverr and hired freelancers. Once you find a great one, never-let-her-go…
Back to Free Graphic Sites
One free site is Pixabay.com. Most of their images can be used without attribution and may also be used for commercial purposes, i.e. sold. There is an element of risk using a site like this as the images are sourced from members. Members attest that they are the owner of the image and convey whatever rights for others to use. Members are humans. Cats don’t fib, but humans…
The Open Clip Art library has many clipart images which are free to use or to for commercial purpose. If you purchased the Wellness Garden PLR product you can find the dragonfly used in that posters on Open Clip Art.
The Wellness Garden Income funnel is available here.
You can also create your own graphics with desktop tools such as Gimp and Photoshop. I’ve not had much success developing my skills with these tools so I outsource my image making tasks. However, I can whip up some slidedeck backgrounds and poster images using PowerPoint. You can see examples of the posters (above) and on this healthy eating PLR product.
I include these PowerPoint templates in my last series of Wellness PLR releases. Since the buyer also receives the template they can modify the slide master or posters to create their own messages.
You can browse through the Slideshare at the top of this post to see my collection of free graphics and audio sites. You can also download this free graphics report and use it as a gift to your own list.
Have fun with content. Create or purchase graphics and images you can use. And then use them!
What’s your biggest challenge using graphics in your blog posts or social media? Let me know with a comment below.