Adding images to your online content helps boost engagement and SEO. But where do you get these images?
There are plenty of free image sources available online, but lately, less and less of them offer images that are actually free. Some of these sources are better quality than others and luckily there are workarounds if you don’t want to spend money for images for your blogs and social posts. We’re going to suggest a few sources and give a few tips on how to find usable images when paying for them isn’t in your budget.
Free Image Sources Should Not Infringe on Copyright
Just because something is free or you can grab an image online doesn’t mean you have the right to use it. This is especially true if you’re using it for commercial purposes. Reputable free image sources like the ones listed below are generally trustworthy. But don’t overlook that some of these sources are supplied by creators themselves, and it’s impossible to tell if they were created using copyrighted images or generated by AI. Though for the most part, these are all safe sources with images that you can legally use for most purposes. Just remember, when it comes to using images for book covers, websites, and other commercial purposes you have to do a little more due diligence. But that’s for another post.
Some Sources for Free Images to Choose From
Remember, these are not the only free image sources available. There are others out there but these ones are reliable and all have a decent stock of quality images.
Unsplash is one of a few free image sources that don’t require an account. You can simply go to the website and search for images. Like many other sites, Unsplash used to have a lot more truly free downloads available, but there’s still a decent stock, and you can usually find something to meet your needs, especially if you get creative.
This site for free images has the most abundant free download options and has some very nice quality photos. It is easy to search for images from the top search bar and you get to choose your image size before downloading. So it’s very easy to use and efficient.
Pros: Pixabay’s licensing agreement is easy to access and simple to understand, so you know what you can use those downloaded images for without having to worry.
Pexels is another no-nonsense site full of free image sources. You can also search for video content. It’s user friendly—like Unsplash—and just requires a quick search and a click to download. As with Unsplash, you will have to size your free downloads with an outside source.
Sources for Free Images with Creative Options Built In
Canva is a platform that requires an account but there is a free version and tiered paid versions available. You can create your own designs from templates and they have a stock of photo images, some free and some paid or available with the premium version.
Pros: It’s user friendly for sizing existing images and has a catalog of templates, stickers, photos and fonts. Creative users will probably love it.
FreeImages has a library of photos, clip art, templates and icons. It’s not quite as seamless to use, so you need to click a few things to download items on this free image source. It has the variety of options like Canva but no ability to edit them on platform. The images are unique but maybe not as high-quality as other sources. Of course, you can decide if they’ll work for your content or not.
You’ll also need an account for this free image source. FreePik is free for now and works much like Canva. There is an AI image generator(if you’re into that sort of thing) , an editor for existing content and many, many templates to choose from, including a library of photos.
So Many of These Images are Not Actually Free Now. So What Should You Do?
Many of these free image sources require you to create an account, but not all of them charge you for that account. And then there are accounts you pay for but you may not necessarily get access to all their images for free.
If you find a source you really love, but have to pay a monthly fee, it may be worth it to have access to nearly unlimited free image downloads.
Websites like Unsplash and Canva have free images, but they are limited. So what to do when your access to truly free image sources is limited? You get creative.
Truly Free Images May Require Getting Creative
When you find that perfect image for your blog post and realize it’s a paid download on an otherwise free site it can be a little frustrating. Like we mentioned above, many of these free sites now contain many more pay-to-download images than in recent years.
If you find the perfect image and nothing else will do, it may be worth the nominal fee to download it. But there are quite a few workarounds. These can be especially helpful if you regularly require images for your content.
Switch Up Your Search Terms on Free Image Sources
When you can’t find exactly what you’re looking for(for free), switch up your search terms. Usually getting more general brings up more options. You’ll have to scroll through more images but something usable usually pops up.
Focus on Themes
If you can’t seem to find what you’re looking for, think in general themes or tones to get the right photo. Make sure, of course, that it at least has something to do with your blog themes.
Go Abstract
You can always choose to go the abstract route instead of literal if you have trouble finding anything on the available free image sources. Use symbolic images if necessary.
Take Your Own Photos
There’s nothing wrong with taking your own photos! Use ones you have or take interesting shots of your work space or even a nature scene. This will give you a chance to learn new skills, like resizing images, like we mention below.
Create Images on Canva
This could get risky, from a design perspective. But with Canva, you can start from existing templates and do overlays, change colors and even add or remove portions of your designs. It’s fairly foolproof if you don’t get too crazy.
Managing Free Images Sources: Some Extra Tips
Create an Image Bank
Creating an image bank from what you glean from your free image sources is always a good idea. This should be fairly easy to do if your blog has a general theme and you have a solid brand aesthetic. While you’re searching, if something catches your eye, go ahead and download it. Just make sure to size and name it correctly before use.
Doing this will allow you to keep images on hand, download them while they’re still free(remember what we said about truly free images becoming more rare?) and maintain a consistent style with your image content.
Learn Some New Skills
Who said this couldn’t be fun? It can. You can experiment with creating your own photos and learning to edit them and size them. You can play around with Canva or even Adobe to create your own images from templates or photos. Most of these skills are easy to learn and execute thanks to the on-platform editing and design options available on many of the sites made for this. You don’t have to be a design genius and it can be fun to experiment.
We hope this guide for free image sources and tips on using them is helpful in the future. So click the links, check out the sites and see what you think. Before you know it you’ll be enhancing your online content and boosting your SEO because you’re including relevant and eye-catching images.
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