One of the best things you can do to get a blog post noticed here on Steemit is to give it a great thumbnail.

And the thumbnail comes from the first image you put in your post, like the image just above this paragraph.

But, since plagiarism is a problem on Steemit, it's important that we find good images that are legally reusable, that means that their Usage Rights are labeled for "reuse".

So, in the effort of making Steemit a cleaner, less plagiaristic place to be, I'm going to show you how to do that using Google Chrome right now.

1. Google Image Search

As you can see, I've gone to the "Image" search in Google using Google Chrome and entered in "cool stuff" as the search criteria:

Now, I must admit that many of these images are indeed "cool stuff" (the cat with the melon helmet catches my eye), but a good portion of them are not legal to reuse, meaning you can't post them in your blog and make money without the owner having a legal right to sue you or file a cease and desist order.

However, there's an easy tool that allows you to search for images to reuse without fear of legal repercussion.

Which leads us to step number 2.

2. Tools

Click the "tools" button.

This will bring up several options to modify your search, including one very important one.

3. Usage Rights

Under "Tools" we have an awesome list of "Usage Rights" options.

This button will show us a drop-down menu with several options to chose from. This list gives us options for filtering the search specifically for images that are available for reuse, with or without modification.

If you are looking for an easy image to post in a blog quickly, click "labeled for reuse". This option will give you images that you are allowed to pick right from where they are an post in your blog.

4. Post to your blog

The thumbnail image for this very blog post was picked while compiling the screenshots for the post, and it is totally free and fair to use.

Drawbacks

Granted, if you aren't interested in modifying images for your blog, your options will be limited.

The selection in Google image search tends to get a lot less cooler when you filter out all of the things you aren't allowed to use.

But this at least gives you a good place to start!!

I hope this was helpful :D

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