Looking for free stock photos for your blog or website?
In this post I am going to share with you a list of 10 awesome websites with free stock photos.
We all know how important is to have good looking and high-quality images for communication channels: website, blog, social media, newsletters, etc.
Photography is not just a matter of quality and techniques but is a matter of composition together with smart ideas too.
For your brand or company is crucial to have good visual content to be successful and professional. Visual content is part of your content marketing strategy to catch visitors' attention and engage with your audience.
At this point, you have 4 options:
- Hire a professional
- Do it yourself (it requires lot of time and good equipment)
- Pay to download images
- Download free stock photos: I bet you want to pick this one!
Is it really possible to download free high-quality images?
The answer is yes, it is! There are websites where you need to credit the author and others where there is no need, where free stock photos are available for users to be downloaded and to use for personal or commercial projects.
Below you can find a list of my favourite 10 websites with free stock photos:
1. PEXELS provides free stock photos you can use everywhere, for commercial use too and no attribution is required.
2. NEGATIVE SPACE has free high-resolution photos completely free to use for personal or commercial projects. Large image collection with a weekly assortment.
3. FREE RANGE offers great free photos and no attribution is required. You can browse them through many categories from editorial to vintage photos. To download images you need to register to the site.
4. STOCKSNAP.IO provides a large selection of high-resolution images. You can easily browse the photos with the search feature. The site adds lots of photos daily and has a great tracking system, so you can sort images by date, trending, download, favourite and views.
5. LIFE OF PIX is created by Leroy Creative Agency, adds images on a weekly basis. You can search for beautiful high-quality images by colour or format. You can find videos too and everything is free with no copyrights restrictions.
6. PIC JUMBO for free photos collection, new images are added on a daily basis. A Large variety of categories from fashion to techno.
7. HUBSPOT puts at marketers disposal more than 500 free stock images to be downloaded, without royalties or attribution required. Assorted photos from business to holidays.
8. UNSPLASH is one of the best sites where to find free stock photos. It has a wide variety of selection, images are unique and it's hard not to find what you are looking for. Beautiful high-resolution photo gifted by the world’s most generous community of photographers and licensed under Creative Commons Zero, it means you are free to use, copy, edit and distribute the photos without permissions or attribution.
9. BURST is a resource from Shopify and offers thousands of photos that are free to use. Images are added weekly. Ideal gallery for small brands and entrepreneurs.
10. GRATISOGRAPHY provides high-resolution stock photos for personal and commercial projects. All pictures were captured by Ryan McGuire of Bells Design and new images are added weekly.
If you run a travel blog I suggest FOODIESFEED, where you can find high qualities realistic food images. While if you are a lifestyle/beauty blogger or just looking for feminine images I guess STYLEDSTOCK is the best choice with beautifully styled images.
If you are a startup, you might want to have a look at STARTUP STOCK PHOTOS, there are no filters or categories to sort photos, you just need to scroll down.
>>>>> Don't forget to bookmark this list!
How To Use Free Stock Images In Your Content Marketing Strategy
As I mentioned in the beginning, images are crucial for your communication channels and your business strategy. It's true that you should attract the audience with useful and tailored content, but it is also true that even the eye wants its part. Often the right image in the right place captures the attention immediately, more than words can do. So the right balance between visual and content is the key to success.
Choosing an image can be hard, first, you need to have an idea of what you are looking for and then the photo should tell something about yourself, your brand or company. The images should be in harmony with your brand identity, because keep in mind that everything is connected, everything points to the same direction.
Where to use images in your Content Marketing Strategy
In your content marketing strategy, beautiful high-quality images are needed from homepage site to blog post, from newsletters to Social media post. Let's go in deep by making a list of all the places where images are a must:
- Website: homepage, contact page according to the website's layout.
- Landing pages
- Thank you pages
- Call To Action (CTA)
- Blog post
- Social media: for posts, header image, cover image, event image, Pinterest board.
- Newsletters/emails
- Brochures
- Infographic
- PowerPoint Presentation
- Slideshare
Can I Still Look Cool By Using Free Stock Photos?
The answer is definitely yes! Watch the awesome SlideShare made by Chris Kubbernus, Head of Digital Marketing at NORRIQ to get great tips on how to use stock photos and still look cool.
4 Comments
Nice list!