Ever find yourself stuck for a great image for your webpage or blog article, document or leaflet? Discover my top four FREE image websites.
Images on websites encourage higher click-through rates, longer visitor engagement and increased conversions.
How do you find images for your site? You probably have a professional headshot and book cover images all sorted, but what about your blog posts and other pages in need of a lift?
Luckily there are plenty of legitimate free image websites. Find out my personal faves. Share on XUnfortunately you can’t just download your favourite image from a Google search, as content on the web is subject to copyright.
Luckily there are plenty of legitimate free image websites.
Here are my personal faves in alphabetical order. All photos on these sites can be used for commercial purposes without attribution, but you may wish to credit the photographer. Please be sure to check the licence and terms of use on the sites before downloading images.
Pexels
This site has a wide range of quality photos and videos, which you are allowed to modify to suit your needs.
The search function is easy to use and results are displayed in large thumbnails (even too large to be called ‘thumbnails’) so you can see details without having to click on each one.
On the whole, the images don’t have that stock, library feel to them, and many have a quirky edge.
Pixabay
As well as a large number of photos, Pixabay also offers illustrations, vector graphics and videos.
The extra search options make finding images really easy, as you can search on size, colour, orientation and more.
StockSnap
Once you get past the first couple of rows of search results that are paid images from Shutterstock, this site does have some fantastic free images.
The search filter offers a good range of options including number of views and downloads, date and by what’s trending.
I find some of these photos more “stocky” at times than other sites, but it’s still worth having a dig around as I’ve found some real gems on here.
Unsplash
Everyone seems to be talking about Unsplash at the moment. Many of the images are particularly striking, and you may be more likely to find ones that are not typical library photos.
As well as the usual keyword search, there is also a strong focus on small curations of images around a single theme.
I particularly like the user-friendly presentation of the clickable related keywords above search results, and clickable tags below photos.
You can feel part of the community by helping to tag thousands of photos that are lacking this crucial bit of metadata.
What are your favourite image sites and why? Let me know in the comments!
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