Probably not.

Images are a valuable addition to any blog entry. Of course we're a little biased because we think images are awesome, but this Master of SEO post "The Importance of Pictures in your Blog Posts" agrees with us.

So what kind of images should you use? First, they should always be relevant to your post. Some images might help you prove a point, like a graph or chart. Or they could visually represent what you're talking about, like a screenshot of a website you're profiling or photos of muffins for a baking blog.

Images can also bring humor to your blog, in the form of cartoons or comics. And they can provide an emotional connection to your readers. Who doesn't love looking at a couple of cute and cuddly puppies?

"Puppies" by Flickr user Kiwi NZ

Case in point.

Now where do you go about finding these images? The simplest way is taking photos yourself, since you don't have to worry about copyrights. But of course if you're writing about Paris and you've never been to Paris, you'll need to use someone else's pictures.

There are a bunch of great stock photography websites out there. If you want a huge selection of great quality images and you have some pocket change, check out these sites:

iStockphoto - Offers royalty-free photos and illustrations starting at only one dollar.

Getty Images - Offers creative and editorial photos, but many of them are rights-managed, with restrictions on duration of use, size, placement etc.

If you don't want to spend any money, here are some great free options:

stock.xchng - Decent selection of mostly larger files, which means better quality images. You do have to sign up to download the images, but registration is quick and free.

Flickr Creative Commons - You can use all these Flickr photos for free, as long as you give the photographer credit, because the photos have a Creative Commons license. Generally a good selection, though the photos are more amateur, and the files aren't very large.

Everystockphoto.com - Database of free stock photos from a bunch of sites, including stock.xchng, Flickr, photoXpress, morgueFile and Image*After.

Everystockphoto.com search results for "Cuba"

Now that you know why images are essential to your blog and where you can find them, here are a couple best practices for image use:

1. Always check the license on the individual image, no matter which site it comes from. Even if the image is free, you might have to credit the photographer or link back to the site, or there could be other usage restrictions.
2. Don't go overboard with images. Two or three per post is plenty. The content of your blog is still most important, and images should complement and enhance your posts, not overshadow them.

What's your favorite stock photography site? Did we miss any good ones? Let us know in the comments!

Are you a WordPress-based publisher? Perhaps, you've been wondering why we haven’t built a plugin for WordPress users.

We have been thinking about how to make things easier for you. Things in the pipeline include a shiny new publisher panel and you guessed it, a brand spankin’ new plugin just for the WordPress community.

Before, implementing our technology was a bit on the technical side for average users. Now setting up our in-image advertising solution through WordPress is simple and easy.

Just install a snippet of our code via our WordPress plugin in your pages. Our system matches relevant ads with your images based on your metadata. Once you’ve activated the plugin you’re ready to start earning money!

Download the plugin here and spread the word!

In just a few short weeks we'll be heading down to the SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas. If you're unfamiliar with the event, the annual festival brings together the technology glitterati for five days of panels, showcases, meetups, and parties. Its a great place to connect with industry leaders, learn about new trends in the digital community, and hear about spunky startups -- like us!

We are thrilled to be launching our technology at SXSW! We will exhibiting at the trade show (word on the street we'll have a photobooth on the premise) so if you're attending, be sure to block off time in your schedule to grab a beer and a hot dog at our booth!

We'll also be live tweeting @imagespacemedia and updating our blog during the event. See you there!

Photo by Sureash Kumar via stock.xchng

Don't lie, you've done it before: started a blog with the best of intentions, had the drive to write a few stellar posts... and then fizzled out. I am certainly guilty of creating at least two blogs that are now abandoned, floating out in the blogosphere, and I will never tell anyone their names because they are too embarrassing.

So how can you avoid the flash-in-the-pan blogging phenomenon? ProBlogging and Chris Brogan's site are fantastic resources for would-be bloggers, written by industry veterans who have years of experience forming their own strategies for building successful blogs.

We have done you the service of aggregating the most helpful advice for the two hardest tasks of blogging: starting a great blog that will attract readers and, importantly, maintain your interest, and then keeping it going with posts that don't feel like a chore to write.

Nathan Hangen of Making it Social provides great tips for the first task of starting a blog in his article 10 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started. Here are some choice pieces of advice:

Narrow Your Niche

This is something that took me a long time to understand. I thought that by covering a bunch of topics, casting a wider net so to speak, that I would attract more people to my blog. The problem with that strategy is that when you do attract new visitors, you throw them off if your content isn’t consistent. They’ll wind up leaving and you’ll have to recruit new readers for every single post. So, try fishing with a spear instead.

When You Have a Blog, You are the Authority

Own It! – We blog from behind a desk and see our lives as imperfect or incomplete. However, to a customer or new reader, you have an incredible amount of authority. If you have gone through the work of publishing content, then you need to step up to the plate and own that content. Take the authority and use it. You might be a 6 or 7 (on a 10 point scale), but to that new person, you are a leader.

Start Networking Early!

I cannot emphasize this enough. Use Twitter, comments, and guest posting as a tool to meet new people. The wider your reach, the easier it is to get noticed. Don’t wait for people to come to you…get out and network. People love personal connections! Go to conferences and shake hands with other bloggers. You never know which contact could turn into a great guest posting opportunity, a JV deal, or a new devoted fan

But what happens if you start a blog you love and then lose that loving feeling? David Turnbull of Adventures of a Barefoot Geek wrote an awesome post on How to Ease the Pressure of Blogging, the highlights of which are after the jump:

Set smaller goals

When you sit down to write tell yourself this magical phrase: I’ll be satisified when I’ve written X words. Replace X with the smallest amount of words you can be realistically satisfied with. Once you’ve made this decision and are no longer constricted by outrageous word counts or time frames there’s no anxiety as you work and I expect you’ll find yourself greatly surpassing the “satisfactory metrics” you set for yourself.

Clarify and simplify

What do you want to get out of blogging? Answer that question at least once a month for as long as you own or write for a blog. I imagine most people will respond “to make money” and that’s fine, but there has to be a motivation higher than that, because blogging isn’t exactly the most effective approach to generating an income.

Become a “what matters” blogger

This is something I lifted from Tina of ThinkSimpleNow.com who is well known for taking multiple months away from her blog. I doubt everyone could be met with success using that approach, but the lesson still holds true: to ease the pressure of writing and heighten the respect from your readership only write and publish content that truly matters.

What “matters” is a subjective gauge of course, but at its core it’s your own highest inner standard that you must hold yourself too. Through this approach you will end up spending more time writing individual posts, but:

• Each post will provide you and your readers with lasting fulfillment.
• There’ll be less of a frantic rush to publish content.
• Freeing yourself from a strict deadline and schedule is incredibly liberating.

Now that your blog is set up and you have clear goals for how you will continue to post great content that is exciting to you and your readers, check out Chris Brogan's 50 Ways to Take Your Blog to the Next Level. Brogan's post provides more in-debth explorations of how to segment your audience and turn your blog into a viable business. I found the following to be pretty compelling:

Building Business From Your Blog

You might be trying to make money from your blog directly, perhaps through advertising or affiliate marketing. Or you might be seeking to establish thought leadership and promote consulting opportunities. You might be simply looking to drive even better awareness of a social cause or have a nonprofit or educational motive in mind. In any case, think of “business” to mean “value beyond the blogging itself.”

• Build conversion opportunities. If you’re selling something directly, think of clever ways to post about it that educate, inform, and encourage a call to action.
• Ask for the sale. If you’re selling something, don’t be shy. Ask for it. Do so in a blog post, or in an ad of your own creation. Be direct and honest about this.
• Mix free value and additional opportunities. If you’re selling something that’s not unlike what’s available on your blog for free, demonstrate the dividing line. Even consider giving a hint of what’s on the other side.
• Make it easy to opt in. Like asking for the sale, make sure you help your prospective customers/clients/partners know how to get into your sales funnel, should they be interested.

Now that you've got the basics covered, remember--you can do it. Take these experts' advice and make it your own, successfully avoiding the blog-disillusionment that we all know lurks around the corner. Harness your drive and your expertise and start writing! If you start a blog using any of this advice, let us know and post it in the comments! You can even add ads to your images.

Now get busy and tell us what other great blogging tips you have found helpful.

Using PYF is quick and easy, with no registration required! Simply upload a picture of your meal, title it, tag it, and select a related category. If you don't have an image to upload, you can browse through other pictures (which are categorized by breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, desserts, and bizarre foods.) You can rate each image you see by clicking a 'disgusted' or 'happy' emoticon.

Visit Postyourfood.com today!

1. Make your photo relevant to your topic so readers understand what you’re writing about.
2. Focus on size. If your image is too large, resize it so it will work on different platforms. Most sites like Wordpress and Blogger allow you to resize your image when you add it to your post. However, keep in mind that Image Space Media does not overlay ads on images smaller than 200x100, so make sure you choose a photo that is larger than those dimensions.
3. Be careful about the placement of your image within your post. You can choose to align your image to the left, right, or center. If you choose to wrap your text around the image, you should always try to leave some space between the image and the text. Larger images that are too wide to wrap your text around typically work best aligned in the center.
4. Stick with images that look professional. Check out last week's "Maximize Your Image Manager" post for some affordable online image resources.
5. Always color-correct your photos. Adjusting the contrast and saturation levels using Adobe Photoshop or a less expensive program can beautify any image quickly and easily.

Since readers tend to scan blog posts, including artwork should one of your top priorities to help draw in your audience. What’s your strategy for using photos?

Last week Mashable highlighted Ping-O-Matic’s new feature Publicize which allows you to instantly post your entries to your Twitter feed. Unlike TwitterFeed another popular plug-in which periodically checks your blog for new updates and posts to Twitter, Publicize is instantaneous and allows for instant feeds.

Increasingly blogs have peppered their looks with “Tweet This,” “Stumble Upon” widgets to attract traffic and hopefully more fans to their content. Of course you can always opt of the service but with many competing voices on the web it seems to be a quick and easy way to reach a wider audience.

The Federal Trade Commission is putting limitations on advertising on social media sites in an attempt to make sure that paid endorsements are fair and transparent. On Monday, the FTC updated its guidelines to specify that bloggers are required to publicly disclose “any material connections” they might have to a brand or product they discuss, even those posted on Twitter and Facebook. While these guidelines are not law, the FTC can bring advertisers and bloggers into court for violating them.

To define what constitutes an "endorsement," the FTC examines factors such as:

-    Whether compensation or a free product/service was provided by an advertiser
-    Previous or future acceptance of products/services from the same or similar advertisers
-    The terms and length of the relationship
-    The value of products/services received

The FTC says that “a consumer who purchases a product with his or her own money and praises it on a personal blog or on an electronic message board will not be deemed to be providing an endorsement.” This means that independent consumers are still allowed to review their brands.

It’s important for all of our publishers to know about the FTC’s new guidelines. To make sure you stay safe and informed, read the full FTC announcement here.

According to The New York Times, dozens of colleges are putting student blogs on their Websites to market themselves to prospective students. The blogs offer first-hand narratives about student life and the college’s culture. Many high school seniors have become loyal followers of blogs at their top choice colleges and can post comments to connect with the authors and other applicants.

M.I.T. is an example of one university that has successfully integrated student blogs into their admissions process. M.I.T. bloggers are paid $10 an hour and write about a variety of topics, including tips for the application process and advice for managing the university’s difficult workload. In September, Snively ’11 devoted one of his blog posts to describing his fall course schedule in an interactive video format (see picture).

To learn more about how M.I.T. and other colleges are utilizing student blogs, check out the full article here!