There is no dispute over importance of using images in blog posts! It has tremendous effects on readability of post as well as grabbing attention from audience, especially while sharing links in social media platforms. However, majority of bloggers face serious issues while choosing images for blog posts. If you do not keep legalities while using pictures from other websites, you shall face issues such as DMCA Takedown notice, site takedown by ISP/web host. But, since you have taken effort to read this blog post, finding royalty free stock images to use in blog posts is an easy task. In this article, we will recommend you some websites, from which you can get free stock images for blog posts or other purposes.
Wait! As a matter of precaution and ethics, it is always good to give credits to real owner of that image while you use it in blog. It not only helps you from legal ramifications but also makes you a good professional (Yes, professionals do respect others’ efforts always). Perhaps, the former reason is important, as you cannot literally get free images to enrich your blog posts. So, you have to give proper credit attributions whenever you use images from following sites. Thus, it is always good to use images with Creative Commons License, as in that case, a link back to authors’ site will be sufficient.
Here are top 6 sites to find royalty free images for your blog or website.
1. Flickr
Flickr, a photo-sharing platform from Yahoo, is most probably one of the best websites that can be used as source of free images, particularly for blog posts. There are a few precautions that you should take while using Flickr. You have to enable ‘Creative Commons’ license in advanced search option so that Flickr will bring you photographs, which are legal to be used in blog posts.
Once you have downloaded it, you have to give credits to the photographer when you use it in your blog.
2. Wikimedia Commons
You can use images from this huge, free library of multimedia resources of Wikimedia. You have to confirm mode of license of image, because a number of image licenses are available in Wikimedia commons. For instance, you can see both creative common license – which requires attribution – and public domain images – which do not.
Thus, before you use a particular image from Wikimedia, you should confirm whether it is mandatory to give attribution.
3. morgueFile
morgueFile is an excellent source of free stock images. However, to understand whether you can use the image with giving no money, you will have to confirm it is filed under Creative Commons License. But, the morgueFile license allows you to adapt the work and use it for commercial purposes without even giving attribution to that author.
This will be very useful, and morgueFile has a decent collection of images.
4. Foter
Foter is a simple yet sufficient platform when you want to get quality-rich images for blog posts. There are options to filter results according to mode of license – commercial use or non-commercial use. In both these cases, you will be able to download that image in different sizes without signing up.
Also, we found an interesting collection of photos in the website.
5. Photoeverywhere.co.uk
If you are looking for free travel-based images, photoeverywhere.co.uk will do the job quite nicely. Since images are under creative commons license, you have to link back to the website whenever you utilize those photographs. And, another problem is that you can find images by searching using location only.
Yet, according to quality of collection, this website is just right.
6. CC Search
CC Search – Creative Commons Search – is a sort of search engine from Creative Commons. Using this engine, you’d be able to find images, which are filed under CC license, from various sites such as Google Images, Flickr, etc. Yet, the tool itself recommends you to confirm its license agreement before you use it.
Update:
Apart from these mentioned way, there is another way you can choose for inserting superb images into your blog or blog posts without paying anything. GettyImages, one of the most popular sources for stock photographs, allows you to embed around 35 million photographs in blog posts and later to share them on social media.
To use images in this way, you have to click on an image. In the pop-up window, you have to click on ‘Embed’ button, which will show an html code. You have to paste that HTML Code where you have to insert that image. For the time being, this feature is completely free, but GettyImages may use those embedded code for advertisement purpose as well. If you do not mind pasting HTML code in your site, this method is indeed one of the best.
SEE ALSO:
8 Free Tools To Create Viral Images For Pinterest
5 Important Things To Do After Publishing a New Blog Post
According to our experience, these websites are, of course, great sources of free stock images, but the list is not over yet. You may know other sites, which we can use to enrich blog posts with suitable images. Won’t you share with us? We are waiting for comments.
