Images rule the Internet.
- Two of the fastest-growing social networks are image sites – Pintrest and Instagram
- Photo posts on Facebook receive 39% more interaction than average.
- Blog posts that include images are more memorable and engaging.
So, where’s a person to get good images?
The best solution is to take them yourself. That way you know you’re sharing an original image that’s not copyrighted by someone else and there’s no cost to you (besides your time). But that’s not always possible or practical.
There are a number of inexpensive stockphoto sites, but if you want to include images in a blog that’s not generating any revenue, even a buck an image may be too high. So here are
5 Places to get Free Stock Images
- freerangestock.com
- stockvault.net – Also includes premium images from Shutterstock
- freedigitalphotos.net – Small versions of the images are free. Larger versions can be obtained for a fee.
- flickr – Includes images with all types of licenses. Some are free to use, some require attribution, some have all rights reserved, so be sure to check the license of each individual photo before use.
- wikipedia commons – 18 million images and counting…
What do you use images for? Â Where do you get the images you use?
Co-founder & CEO, OurChurch.Com
Paul has been the CEO of OurChurch.Com since its founding in 1996, combining his passion for faith and technology to lead the organization.
An accomplished writer, Paul has authored over 2,000 articles on faith and technology, featured on platforms like ChurchLeaders.com, The JoyFM, and his personal blog, LiveIntentionally.org.
Beyond his professional achievements, Paul serves as an elder at Journey Community Church and is deeply engaged in his community through his involvement with the Florida Sheriffs Youth Ranch and the Safety Harbor Chamber of Commerce. He is a contributing author of the book Outspoken! Conversations on Church Communication.Â
8 Comments
These are all great sources (I've already checked them out.)! I hadn't yet heard of these sources so thanks for sharing the info.
Glad you found it helpful, Frances!
Thank you, Paul Steinbeck! Even though, for about a couple of months, I have used images (from MorgueFile or sometimes my own), I still don't get much engagement at either at my blogs, even my more established one. I let my readers know that I care about them, their comments and their feedback, but apparently not in a way that encourages them to interact.
I'm just getting familiar with MorgueFile myself, and it seems like another good place for free stock images.
As for getting engagement on blogs, I think it's becoming more and more difficult as there are more blogs online to choose from and as social media seems to be taking some of the interaction away from blogs. My suggestion would be to go to where your target audience already is – comment on similar blogs and participate in groups related to the content of your blog. As you build relationships with people there, they will be more inclined to comment and discuss things with you on your blog.
Truly, Creating own graphical images are quite difficult nowadays. But We always need FREE stock images.
In this situation, I always use Flickr to get high quality stock images for my blog article. But after reading this article, now I have more options than before.
Thanks for sharing it with us.
Hi Paul,
Thank you for the resources, and I’ve bookmarked this page to get back to them quickly for future posts.
Another great resource for pictures is pixabay.com. Up till now, I’ve been using their pictures for virtually all of my posts, and usually use 4-6 per page (depending on the length of the post). Thousands of options in there without any signup.
But there’s been plenty of times that I couldn’t find that perfect pic to reflect what I was writing about, so I look forward to experimenting with the 5 listed!
Thanks for the info & God bless!
Brian
Brian, thanks for the comment. Pixabay is another good free stock image site that we’ve started using since this post was originally published. (Unsplash.com is another.)
Aha! Great post Paul! I didn’t find this page cause it was posted in 2013, thank you for the 5 sites you shared me Paul 🙂 From now on, I have the free images source 🙂 Amazing~ Thank you Paul, this kind of articles and posts are very useful 🙂