A big block of text on your blog, no matter how useful or insightful it might be, can also be very intimidating and unattractive to a potential reader. It’s always a good idea to include a picture or two to help break up that text and to give your writing a little more depth and personality.
This doesn’t mean you should just hop onto Google Images and grab any picture you want, because many of those may be protected by copyright. Some time back, I shared several resources where you can get royalty-free and stock images to use with your blog posts. You can use these images for all sorts of other purposes too, like in your ebook or with your online training materials. Just make sure you check the copyright or license for any possible restrictions.
Today, I’m sharing several more websites where you can grab more stock photos, royalty-free images, and public domain pictures to better illustrate and spice up your blog posts.
Public Domain Review
Something that is very different about Public Domain Review is that it goes above and beyond being a “simple” resource for free images you can use. Instead, as a project of the Open Knowledge Foundation, it consists of several explorations into the meaning and interpretation of these pictures. Most of them are sketches or works of art. You can use the search function or you can browse based on time, style, genre, content, type and rights.
Snapwire Snaps
Whereas the main Snapwire site offers images that you can license for a fee, Snapwire Snaps is an off-shoot where seven new photos are released every seven days and these pictures can be used for free on your blog. They’re licensed as Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0), meaning that the original contributors have waived all of his or her worldwide rights to the work, releasing the image into public domain.
Life of Pix
Like the other sites on this list, Life of Pix offers a library of high resolution photos that you can use on your blog with no copyright restrictions. They’re completely free and all the images provided to the site have been donated into the public domain. The best way to use the site is through the search function.
Picdrome
The site design for Picdrome is decidedly Spartan, keeping things light and easy to navigate. You can browse through the various categories, like food and drinks or industrial and machinery, or you can use the search function near the top of the page. All pictures are free of copyright and are licensed under CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication.
Getty Images
What if you don’t want to use a generic stock photo and you want a picture of a celebrity instead? Getty Images is one of the biggest resources for this, but you typically have to pay to license the pictures. However, there is a resource for how you can embed Getty Images on your blog for free, as long as you keep the attribution code intact. Need a shot of Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson? You can do that.
Pixabay
Boasting over 600,000 free stock photos, vectors and art illustrations, Pixabay is one of the largest resources on the Internet for free high quality images. All of the images on the site are licensed under Creative Commons CC0, meaning that they are in the public domain with no restrictions. You can use them commercially or alter them, all without having to provide attribution.
Do you have any other favorite sites for free images?