Give Credit Where Credit is Due (Images and Themes)
When you’re trying to save money, it’s not surprising that you’ll turn to a number of free sites to get the information and data that you need for your eCommerce store. A lot of people do this legally, and a number of designers help them to accomplish professional website designs with their images and themes. Most of the time, all that these designers ask is that the site and eCommerce store owners give them credit when their work is used. It provides an advertising benefit for the individual. However, most of them don’t explain what they mean by credit. While it is still somewhat tenuous because the Internet has no official law, these are the general guidelines for giving credit in your web design for an eCommerce store.
Images
Images are one of the most important components of any online site. People like images, and with the growing popularity of Pinterest, images are a great way to get noticed. However, that does not mean that you can just use any image that you want. Give credit to the photographer by including a tagline on the site somewhere that says where you got it. Image credits must always appear on the page where they are used. It’s even better if they appear directly under the image. If possible, you should include the designer’s name and image title. If you do not have that information, then use the individual’s username with the phrase “Image” or a title of your own choosing. If you cannot include the caption under the image, then you can include a references page at the end. The references to the images should appear in order along with a brief description so that people can identify the image and match it with the reference. When you use this format, it’s also considered polite to include a link back to the designer’s work.
Themes and Templates
Site themes and templates can really help to give your site personality, but you don’t have to supply recognition on every single page. If you want to, then you can put a note at the bottom that provides proper attribution through the designer’s name, theme name, and website. Make sure that the name is precisely what the designer described it as, even if it is something generic like “free shoe website templates.” This way others can find it and use it if they choose. Otherwise, you can put the information on the Site Info page. Make sure to provide all of the same information here. The one exception to this is if the designer asks that the credit be included on every page. Remember that if the designer ever makes a request for how a free design piece is used, then you need to honor that if you’re going to use it.
One of the keys in website design is making sure that you give credit where it is due. When it comes to images, it works best if the attribution appears beneath the picture. If you can’t do that, then include a References list at the bottom of the page with descriptions. For themes and templates, it’s often enough to include a single notation on a Site Info page, but you can also include all of that data at the bottom of every page.
Featured Image: Cropped torso portrait of a polite on Shutterstock
