Free Images to Make Your Online Content Awesome
Content paired with images gets more attention online. Since most small business marketers do not have the resources or budget to create our own images, stock photo and image sites are valuable assets.
“Free” is never as easy at it seems. It can be confusing to know how you’re allowed to use the photos and what, if any, attribution is required. If you are like me and use images from several different sites, it can be a challenge to keep track of the rules and expectations of each.
The following sites offer free images for your use. All the sites offer photos under the public domain or the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. No attribution is required.
Images in the public domain are works with expired copyrights or the creators have relinquished all rights. These are free for personal and commercial use. A CC0 license means the owner has relinquished all rights to the work.
Free Image Sites
- Pixabay–A huge selection of public domain images
- Death to the Stock Photo–Free images for commercial use delivered monthly to your inbox
- Life of Pix–Rounds out my top three favorites
- New Old Stock–Vintage photos from public archives
- Unsplash–10 new high-quality photos released every 10 days
- Magdeleine–A free high-res photo every day plus access to past images
- Gratisography–Images taken by photographer Ryan McGuire
- Skitterphoto
- Good Free Photos--Public domain images featuring location-based images
- Public Domain Archive–All images are completely free for personal or commercial use
- Pickup Image–Searchable database of public domain images
- Pexels–Searchable database
- Morgue File–A huge repository of free photos, most from one or more of the other sites listed here
