ImageInject (previously called WP Inject) is a free WordPress plugin created by myself that allows you to insert on-topic images into your blog posts. Search for creative commons images in a huge database containing millions of photos directly from within your WordPress editor screen.

Once you found a great photo it only takes a single click to add it to the article you are working on or to set it as your post’s featured image!

In short: ImageInject is the best solution to find free photos and set a featured image for your WP blog posts! It is also completely free, so there is no reason to not download it now or simply install it from your WordPress admin.

Please note: ImageInject was previously known as WP Inject – in this post you might still find reference to both names. See here for details on why WP Inject was renamed.

I have also written a post here on WPscoop about how I use ImageInject personally in order to find a featured image for my new posts with only 2 clicks.

This post and tutorial was previously hosted on its own domain at wpinject.com. I have moved it here to WPscoop in order to list all my free WordPress plugins in one place.

Features: The Best Way To Find Free Blogging Images

Search through over a million great photos directly in your WordPress blog! Find targeted photos to insert into your blog for any keyword you could imagine.

to insert into your blog for you could imagine. All images are in the creative commons and perfectly legal to use on your site. Author attribution is added automatically where required.

and perfectly on your site. Author where required. Support for two photo sources: Pixabay and Flickr, both of which contain thousands of free pictures.

Super fast: Find and insert relevant images into your posts in less than a minute! Set a featured image for your post or insert a photo with just 3 clicks !

for your post or with just ! Browse images directly from within your WordPress post editor thanks to an easy to use metabox.

Inject multiple images or whole photo galleries at the click of a button! Found more than 1 image you like with ImageInject? No problem, simply insert them all into your post with a single click!

into your post with a single click! Quickly build entire image galleries or curated photo posts. There is no limit to the number of photos you can insert.

Built with search engine optimization in mind! Adds keyword-rich “alt” tags to images automatically.

to images automatically. Integration with the popular WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin.

plugin. Inserted images are saved to your server and added to the WP media library.

Customizable in every way to fit your blog perfectly yet very easy to use! Many different settings allow you to control image size, search parameters and fine tune the plugin to your needs.

allow you to control image size, search parameters and fine tune the plugin to your needs. Modify the ImageInject templates to change how inserted images look in your blog posts.

to change how inserted images look in your blog posts. Searching and inserting images is extremely easy. If in doubt check out my tutorial on how to use WP Inject!

Screenshots

Finding Related Photos For Your Posts Could Not Be Easier!

ImageInject adds a new metabox to your WordPress editor screen. Simply enter any keyword you need a related image for, press “Search” and insert any of the results to your post. It takes much less than a minute!

Detailed Results And 1-Click Image Insertion

Hover over any image in the search results to get a bigger view and insert the image into your post with a single click! You can set the photo as featured image for your post as well.

Insert Multiple Images Into Your Posts At Once

Found more than one image you like in an ImageInject search? No problem! Simply click on each and then insert them all into your WordPress post at the click of a button.

Compare Image Searches

The ImageInject metabox can display search results for different keywords next to each other. Like that you can compare results easily and choose your favorite photos to inject.

Start Using ImageInject To Find Great Photos Now!

ImageInject is completely free to use! There are no hidden costs, no upsell to premium upgrades, nothing. The only thing I would like to ask of you if you enjoy WP Inject is to tell others about it! You can do that by blogging about the plugin, telling your friends or using the social media share buttons above. Thanks!

To get started simply download the plugin or install it from inside your WordPress admin area by searching for “imageinject”. See my tutorial below for more details on how to install ImageInject and begin inserting images into your posts within minutes!

ImageInject is listed in the official WordPress plugin directory.

Tutorial: Use ImageInject To Insert Images Into Your Blog

In this tutorial I will tell you how to install the ImageInject plugin on your own WordPress blog and then how you can use it to quickly insert images into your blog posts. Besides that you can also find an explanation of all the different settings WP Inject offers you and what exactly they do here.

1. Installation

Like with any plugin that is hosted in the official WordPress plugin directory the installation of ImageInject is very easy and can be completed from within your WordPress blog’s admin area:

Go to the “Plugins” > “Add New” page inside your WordPress wp-admin panel. Enter “imageinject” or “wpinject” (the old name) in the search field and press the “Search Plugins” button. ImageInject will be the top result. Press the “Install Now” link next to its name. After installation finished be sure to press the “Activate” link (or alternatively go to your “Plugins” page and activate ImageInject there).

As an alternative way to install ImageInject you can also download the plugin files directly and then use either a FTP software to upload the whole folder to your WordPress blog or go to “Plugins” > “Add New” in your wp-admin and select “Upload”.

2. How To Insert Images

2.1 Searching For Photos

After you have finished the installation you can start using ImageInject to insert photos right away – there are no other setup steps required. Once ImageInject is activated a new search metabox is added to the WordPress “Add New” screens for both Posts and Pages. It looks like this:

Tip: If the box is displayed at the very bottom of your editor you can drag it to the top for easier access. Simply click on the “WP Inject” title, hold your mouse and pull the box upwards.

To search for images simply enter any keyword of your choice and press the “Search” button. Note that in general searching for short keywords will return better and more targeted results.

Since version 1.00 ImageInject supports two image sources: Pixabay and Flickr. Both can be used directly after installing the plugin. When you hover over the “Search” button you will see a small popup listing the image sources. By default both are searched for your keyword simultaneously but if you want you can uncheck one to only search either Flickr or Pixabay for photos.

You can use the links next to the search box to quickly copy your article title or the focus keyword set in WordPress SEO by Yoast into the ImageInject search field. The latter only shows up if WordPress SEO by Yoast is installed on your blog.

To get more results simply repeat a search with the same keyword. The photos will be added to your current search. You can also do another search for a different keyword – the results for both keywords will then be shown side by side, allowing you to compare them and find the best photos to inject into your post.

2.2 Search Results and Inserting Photos

After a search was completed the image results are displayed below, ready to be added to your post. You can hover over each image thumbnail to open a popup. This popup contains a bigger size preview of the photo as well as links to directly insert the photo into your post:

By pressing any of the links above the larger preview image you can insert the photo into your blog post. The size in pixels which will be used is specified in the link. For most photos in your results there will be the following size variations:

A small square ( SQ ) image, always 150 x 150px

) image, always 150 x 150px A small ( S ) image

) image A medium size ( M ) image

) image And a large (L) image

After inserting any image you can still further reduce its display size by using WordPress editor features: Hover over the image, click the icon on its top left and adjust the size in the WordPress image library dialog that opens up.

To set a photo as the featured image of your post simply click the “Featured Image” link. The photo will be saved to your server and then set as the post thumbnail. Please note it will only show up after your post was saved.

2.3 Selecting And Inserting Multiple Photos

You can click on a thumbnail in the search results to select that specific photo. Selected photos are highlighted with a blue border.

You can also select all photos by pressing the checkbox at the top of your image search results. To deselect all photos press the box again or to deselect single images click on their thumbnail.

After selecting one or more photos a new navigation menu will appear at the top of the search results:

The bulk action navigation will give you the following choices. Any choice you take here will affect all photos you have currently selected (blue border):

Click “Remove” to delete all selected images from your search results. This does not affect any photos you have already added to your blog post. They only get hidden from the search.

Click “Insert Normal” to add all selected images to your post.

“Align Left”, “Align Right” or “Align Center” does also insert all chosen photos. The only difference is the orientation (moved to the left, right or center of your post respectively) which is equal to the setting you can choose when adding photos through the WordPress editor.

3. ImageInject Settings

While ImageInject works fine without any further configuration after the plugin was installed its setting page can allow you to fine tune the plugin. To get to the settings page select “Settings” > “Image Inject” in your main WP admin navigation (hover over “Settings” and then press “ImageInject”).

On the settings page you will find the following options. After you make changes simply press the “Save All Settings” button to save them.

Please Note: After changing ImageInject settings it is necessary to reload your WordPress editor screen for the changes to take effect.

Flickr Settings:

License – specifies the license of photos ImageInject should search for. If your blog is non-commercial (e.g. makes no money) you can select “Non-Commercial Use Only” to get some more image results.

– specifies the license of photos ImageInject should search for. If your blog is non-commercial (e.g. makes no money) you can select “Non-Commercial Use Only” to get some more image results. Order Images By – affects which photos get returned first or at the top of your results when searching. In general “Relevance” (the default) or “Interestingness, descending” work best.

General Settings:

Save Images to Server – If checked all photos get stored on your server and added to the WP media library. Otherwise they are hotlinked from Flickr.

– If checked all photos get stored on your server and added to the WP media library. Otherwise they are hotlinked from Flickr. Featured Image Size – The photo size used when setting a featured image. To save space it is recommended to set it to the minimum size you need.

– The photo size used when setting a featured image. To save space it is recommended to set it to the minimum size you need. Default Image Alignment – This affects the direct insertion links you see when hovering over a thumbnail only. It tells WP Inject how you would like to have photos aligned in your post when pressing one of the links (either to the left, right, center or no alignment).

– This affects the direct insertion links you see when hovering over a thumbnail only. It tells WP Inject how you would like to have photos aligned in your post when pressing one of the links (either to the left, right, center or no alignment). Attribution Location – ImageInject automatically adds attribution to the photo authors inside your post. You can choose to have the attribution added at the bottom of your post, next to the inserted image or as a WordPress image caption (default). In all cases you can still freely move the attribution around in your WP editor.

– ImageInject automatically adds attribution to the photo authors inside your post. You can choose to have the attribution added at the bottom of your post, next to the inserted image or as a WordPress image caption (default). In all cases you can still freely move the attribution around in your WP editor. Results per Search – how many photos should be displayed when you search with ImageInject?

– how many photos should be displayed when you search with ImageInject? Enable ImageInject Link – an unobtrusive link to this page that is part of the author attribution. Thanks if you use it! Otherwise please consider sharing ImageInject in a different way.

Advanced Settings:

Image Template – Defines the code that gets added to your post for any image inserted by the plugin. If you do not know HTML it is not recommended to change anything here! If you do you will find a list of template tags and what they get replaced with at the bottom of the settings page.

– Defines the code that gets added to your post for any image inserted by the plugin. If you do not know HTML it is not recommended to change anything here! If you do you will find a list of template tags and what they get replaced with at the bottom of the settings page. Attribution Template – Defines the code that gets added to your post for the image attribution.

– Defines the code that gets added to your post for the image attribution. Multi Photo Insert Attribution – Defines the code that gets added to your post for the image attribution of multiple images. {linklist} gets replaced by a comma-separated list of links to each author.

– Defines the code that gets added to your post for the image attribution of multiple images. {linklist} gets replaced by a comma-separated list of links to each author. Filename Template – Allows you to customize the filename of images that are saved to your server, e.g. for SEO reasons.

4. Integration with WordPress SEO by Yoast

ImageInject works together with the popular WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin in two different ways:

When searching photos you can press the “Copy SEO Keyword” to quickly insert the focus keyword set for the post into the search field. In the “Image Template” option on the ImageInject settings page you can make use of the {yoast-keyword} tag. This tag gets replaced with the focus keyword you have set for the post.

Tip: If you use WordPress SEO by Yoast edit your ImageInject “Image Template” and change {keyword} to {yoast-keyword}. Like this your focus keyword will be used in the alt tags of any image you insert with ImageInject. This earns you the green dot for “The images on this page contain alt tags with the target keyword / phrase.” in Yoast’s “SEO Analysis” tab.

5. Support and Contact

Being a free plugin I can not give personal support or help with problems specific to your blog but of course I would like to hear of any bugs you encounter in ImageInjectand will do my best to fix them. Simply leave a comment below or post to the WordPress support forums. Feedback and suggestions for new features are also always welcome!

I hope you find my ImageInject plugin useful! If you do please consider sharing it or writing about it on your own blog.

Secret Tip: For many beautiful free stock photos of vegetables, fruit and more in front of a white background check out my side project FotoPotato as well!