Royalty Free Images For Websites That You Can Use On Your Blog

If you`ve just started blogging, you`ll soon find that images are expensive to buy, and a blog with a sea of words without images is a no-no for SEO purposes.This is why most bloggers find royalty free images for websites and blogs to use.Whether you are running an online business, managing a blog or are a freelancer, high-quality, beautiful, and attractive free images are a  must-have. But any new blogger on a tight budget and looking for royalty-free images to use on their site can find things hard not knowing where to look.Where do you find royalty free images for websites that you can use on your blog? This is a question most bloggers ask as the presence of images generates more clicks and it also boosts engagement on the social channels and also helps break your content.This might be because of the fact that 90% of all the information transmitted to be processed by the brain is visual. Our brain processes visual information 60,000 source times faster than textual information source, sites like Pinterest are more visual and encourage members to pin beautiful images.But looking for royalty free images for commercial use on the Internet is a hassle. But, before we search the free images, first, let’s go over the basic royalty-free terms.

Royalty Images Glossary of Terms

Royalty-Free: Meaning no royalties are needed to be paid for using the content. Creative Commons: Meaning the artist that owns the images has given up their rights. Now, these images are free to use by everyone. Public Domain: Any image created before 1923 in the United States falls under the public domain. Meaning the content can be copied, edited, modified, and distributed without needing the permission of the owner.  Attribution: These images are free to use. The only condition is you give the credit to the creator/ owner. Commercial Use: These free images can be used for any type of business venture.Membership: You need to sign-up to have access to the images and for using them. Some memberships are paid ones.

See Where I Get The Images I Use

The royalty-free photos are difficult to find especially those that are free to use for commercial purposes. Some websites allow limited usability of these photos and only allow the use for private purposes. Even if you are able to find royalty free photos, most of them are of poor quality, watermarked, are in low resolution, and unclear. That is why we have curated a list of the best royalty-free image websites for use by photographers, designers, bloggers, etc. Here you can access millions of images and their owners even allow users to modify, edit, and use them without any copyright concerns.UnsplashUnsplash was started by an online marketing agency named Crew as a side project. This website is dedicated to realizing the dreams of designers. A large number of graphics work done by various graphic designers can be found with the MadeWith section.All the images published on this site are licensed under Creative Commons Zero. A free signup will get you personalized images delivered to your email. Every ten days, 10 new royalty-free images and photos are added. The photos have excellent quality and are in high-resolution with breathtaking shots and designs. For using the images from this site, attribution is required.PixabayPixabay is an image repository site. Any image released under Creative Commons Zero can be found on Pixabay. The images are of high quality and are in high resolution. No membership is required to access and use these images. Pixabay also integrates the very best of the available free images from other image hosting websites so that they are available for personal as well as commercial use. You can explore images you want based on the type of camera that was used to click those shots. The main search bar has a filter that allows you to search images and photos by factors such as media type, its orientation, color, and the minimum dimensions to make the navigation easy and painless through some 780,000 plus free stock photos, vectors, and the illustrations.This is a great free image resource for every blogger. Most of the images require no attribution. It is a dream site for web designers, bloggers, and anyone who needs an image without spending money.
Freerange
All the photos found on the Freerange website are from the in-house photographers of the website and also the growing community of external contributors. When you signup for a free membership, thousands of high-resolution free stock photos will become available for you to choose from.
All the images available on this website can be used for personal as well as commercial use free of cost. Freerange also offers the Google AdSense revenue sharing to the contributors. The photos have good quality and are of high resolution. Check this post on earning revenue with Google Adsense if you missed it.PexelsPexels is an image hosting website that was started in 2015 and loved by many.Being a new kid on the block, it has now grown into a reputable and well-developed stock photo library. Thousands of high-quality images can be easily searched on  Pexels. These images are licensed under Creative Commons Zero and brand new images are added every month. Each image is screened to ensure that only the highest quality images are available at this site. No membership is required to access these images.The images are free to use for personal and commercial use. No attribution is required. Its search functionality helps to search for the right images very easily.Pexels help millions of graphic designers, bloggers and writers, artists, website programmers, and all the other creators by making beautiful photos accessible by them at no cost. It also outsources images from some of the high-quality image hosting websites such as Gratisography, Little Visuals, etc.AllTheFreeStockThousands of free stock images, photos, music, videos, and graphic icons can be found on the AllTheFreeStock image hosting website. All this content is licensed under Creative Commons Zero. There is no need for registration to access and use the content, all you have to do is find an image you like and use it as you wish.

Negative Space 

Negative Space adds 20 new photos each week. All these images are licensed under Creative Commons Zero. You can use the images at no cost in whichever way you wish to. Images are easily searchable and can also be sorted by category, copy space, and even color scheme or theme.

Picjumboi

Picjumbo is another free image hosting site. Navigating through this site is an easy and smooth process.  The website offers a wide collection of extremely high-resolution photos. No attribution is required for using almost all of the images found here.

Flickr Stock Photography Website

Flickr has an extensive and one of the greatest library of extremely high-quality images, the total count of which goes well over 3 million(please don`t quote me on this). The images are free to use.

Life of Pix

This site was created by an advertising agency named LEEROY in Montreal. Life of Pix offers free public domain photos with high resolution.

Its counterpart Life of Vids has an impressive collection of beautiful video footage, clips, and loops which are available for use at no cost. The images are donated to the site and are available for free use for both personal and commercial use.

Now free sounds good, who`d want to pay for something if you can get it free?

Maybe you should also think of the negatives of using these free images on your site.

Now although sites like Unsplash will give you rights to use any image from their site that has been downloaded by a photographer, there are rights that may exist in a photo such as.

Still do read the fine print when using free images.

• Trademark rights
• Property rights
• Or copyright rights

The problem with free stock photos

Stock photos are generic because they are free, so everyone is using them and it`s common to find the same image you used being used by your competitors.

Also consider the original owner may decide to remove the image from a site, not to mention cases in the past where the images were uploaded without permission.

A Quick Solution 

Before we get to the solutions if you’re unsure of any images uploaded on your site,  replace them with others that don’t infringe on copyright. 

Now many new bloggers will try to save money but don`t save in the wrong places, good quality images can be bought for as cheap as $1. from sites like Envato.

Another highly recommended site is

Stockily

Now you can also buy more images if you wish, free images are free but there have been cases where things change and the images are no longer free, this website has over 3 million images that you can get at a very affordable price.

Conclusion On Royalty Free Images For Websites

With the help of the websites like the ones mentioned above, it has become easier than ever to access and use high-quality free photography and images. However, it is always a good practice to review the privacy policy and terms and conditions before using and publishing these images.

Know any website that offers free images? Share with me below, would really be helpful to other bloggers too.