Whether on Facebook, Twitter or your blog, your post is more likely to get retweeted, clicked-on or shared if you have an image in it.
A quality and engaging image can set the tone for your post, create excitement, and intrigue your readers enough so that they will read and share it. A photo can help convey what a post is about or a photo can be a post all in itself.
With the new Pinterest craze, images are key. If you don’t include one in your post (or via the Pin It Button) a person may go to pin your article but only have sidebar images to grab from, making your pin potential exponentially less.
Images are also more likely to get a post shared on Facebook. You can take a photo and add a cool quote to it using a free tool such as picmonkey.com and it can go viral.
So, where can you find good images without spending a ton of money or even get them free? Read below to find three resources, including one we like to call, the mac daddy of free photos for bloggers.
Places to Find Photos For Your Blog
“Photo Pin is a free tool that helps bloggers and designers find beautiful photos for blogs and websites using Creative Commons licensing.” -photopin.com
At photopin.com most photos are of great quality and the site is extremely user-friendly. You can pop in a keyword to search for the perfect blog post photo. You are able to use them as long as you give credit (see the bottom of this post for an example). The really cool thing is that they give you the attribution html code to pop into your post, making giving credit easy.
Free Digital Photos offers a library of photos and drawings or sketches. They have tight rules on how to credit the source or for a low fee you can use the photo without attribution. The photos are more commercial than abstract and in order to get a larger photo you do need to buy it, but this is another great resource for when you are doing a little DIY marketing.
foter.com is the mac daddy of free photos, especially for bloggers who use WordPress. It offers quality photos, both abstract and commercial, for free.
Then foter.com takes it up a notch by giving you the option to download the photo in a few different sizes or click on “add it your blog” and it let’s you change the size of the photo, align it and then get a code so you can just plop it all into your blog post.
Even cooler? foter.com has a plugin for WordPress users (hence the “mac daddy title).
Once you download the plugin you will see an option to search foter.com when drafting a post, located next to the upload a photo button. It then automatically adds the attribution in a frame below the photo. The styling is nice and unobtrusive and the ease of use is second to none.
Do you have another free photo tool that you can share with us? Leave a comment below!
photo credit: kk+ via photo pin cc
So super helpful! I am always so hesitant to do a google search for one because who knows what kinda spammy site might come up, but for two- and the biggie, I don’t want to use a photo irresponsibily.
Thanks!
I love these resources because they spell out how to credit the photo and even do it for you!
FOTER.COM?!?! YES!!! Thanks for the tip
I know! Isn’t Foter.com awesome?! Very very cool!
That’s awesome. Sometimes I’m too lazy to take the perfect picture for my blog post, but I feel weird just taking a photo from google. I didn’t even know these websites ever existed. Blew. My. Mind. LOL
Awesome!! So happy to share them with you Jen!
I use morguefile and then pay for pics on istockphoto if I can’t find anything good for free at the former. Good to know of other sites I can rely upon as well. Free is good!
Thanks Colleen! I like morguefile! Good find!
Thanks, Sarah! That’s exactly what I was looking for.
Thanks so much!
This stuff is a minefield on Google, so having a top 3 resources is really awesome
Thank you!!
I just asked an artist for permission to use his cartoons in my ebook and was shocked at the prices. While his art is totally worth it, it was a bit much for a free or low cost ebook. I felt a bit stuck after that but now you’ve just given me new resources to check out. Thank you so much!
Anja
I’ve been searching high and low for free resources. Thanks for this article Sara, I feel like I’ve come across a gold mine!
Thanks SO much, Sarah! I just FB’d, Tweeted and Pinned this! xoxo
There is also compfight.com
awesome article. I am always looking for free photos too.
These photos sites are great. Thanks for the tips. i always love your tips. Look forward to your newsletter every week.
I have just started using the professional photos on Kozzi. Free for non commercial use.
Thanks so much for this – great resource.
I’ve been using PhotoPin since I first read this post…love it! Thanks again, Sarah. I hope you are well and that your vacation was WONDERFUL!
I think this post on Flickr images is still the gold standard on searching Flickr: http://www.skelliewag.org/a-complete-guide-to-finding-and-using-incredible-flickr-images-162.htm
People are also welcome to use the images available on CJO Photo http://www.cjophoto.com/.
Thanks for the info! I just have one question. Can I edit, a free picture found on some of this sites you’ve listed? By edit I mean add a text and my blogs name much like you have done to the picture at the top of this post. Would there be a difference between, say, a picture from photopin which requires the user to give credit and one found on windows clip art that no credit is needed when adding text to it? Thanks a lot!
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