Add relevant images to your posts.
You might have come across this advice plenty of times while surfing through content marketing blogs. Unfortunately, finding the perfect images for your WordPress website can be quite challenging.
It is a fact that blog posts with images get a lot more views as compared to ones without them.
According to stats, 17 Posts are published every second on WordPress sites around the world. And a large number of these posts use images from free photo websites.
While there are many stock photo sites out there, not all of them are reliable. The problem is that a considerable number of these sites do not have proper checks in place to verify if the copyright holders submit the images.
Today, I’m going to share some of my favorite sites to acquire for free stock photos. They have a higher degree of reliability and trust as compared to many other free photo sites. But before using images from these sites, I recommend that you check out their licenses and terms & conditions.
Without further ado, let’s dig right in.
10+ Best Places to Get Free Stock Photos
Depositphotos
Depositphotos is definitely a site you are familiar with. But if not, a great introduction would be to say that it is one of the largest libraries of royalty-free stock photos and vector images (100+ million to be exact).
All the content available on Depositphotos is high-quality and is the work of professionals from all over the world. This makes it perfect for projects both online and print and can give your marketing a great boost.
And although it’s overflowing with content, searching on Depositphotos is a piece of cake and can be done via categories or even in reverse.
When it comes to licensing, all the images fall under the Standard License which allows you to use them commercially without any attribution. Amazing, right?
» Visit Depositphotos
Yay Images
Like Depositphotos, Yay Images is another platform looking to provide you with high-quality and royalty-free stock content without leaving you bankrupt.
The content on Yay Images includes not just photos but also vectors and graphics as well, all equally well produced.
If you want to talk numbers, then you’ll be glad to hear that Yay Images has a library of 12+ million photos and 1.2 million vectors created by 18K+ photographers/creatives from around the globe.
Maybe the most impressive aspect of Yay Images, besides its content collection, is its advanced search features.
The search filters include:
- Reverse Image Search
- Text Space
- Color Search
- People Search
- Orientation
- Vectors
- Keywords
- And many more
All in all, if you are looking for a place that provides amazing stock content for both professional and personal use, Yay Images is the way to go!
» Checkout Yay Images
StockUnlimited
Now, this is something special.
Although it does serve you everything you would expect (graphics, vectors, and photos), StockUnlimited also comes with a huge selection of audio files, fonts, backgrounds, textures, and icons. And despite the fact that its collection already holds over a million content pieces, StockUnlimited adds new ones every week.
The images on StockUnlimited range all the way from stunning vectors to pieces that show wildlife, views, architecture, people, basically anything you might be searching for.
On top of all this, StockUnlimited also comes with a built-in editor using which you can do all the customizations your heart desires but also templates that are meant to speed up your creative process.
Oh, and one last thing. With StockUnlimited, there are no download limits. See we weren’t joking when we said it was something special.
» Visit StockUnlimited
Freepik
First up on my list is Freepik, which is my absolute favorite. Two brothers, Alejandro and Pablo Blanes, with their familiar friend Joaquin Cuenca, founded Freepik in 2010.
Joaquin Cuenca is also the owner of Panoramio.
Alejandro’s vision was simple. He wanted to create a platform where designers could find free graphic resources.
This platform provides free+ paid images that stand out from the rest.
Along with free Stock Photos and PSDs, Freepik also provides vector images with resource files.
What’s the benefit?
You might be aware that images are crucial for any landing page. Let’s suppose you are creating a landing page for a website, and you need images or designs for it. Freepik provides you both, and with a resource file, you can change whatever you want in an image.
Freepik has also expanded to two new projects Flaticon and Slidesgo.
Flaticon provides icons, and Slidesgo contains different themes for making a presentation.
» Visit Freepik
Gratisography
Gratisography is my second favorite. Ryan McGuire created Gratisography. He is passionate about his work, and he loves to share it with the world for collaborations and friendships.
Gratisography is filled up with the quirkiest collection of premium quality images.
The gallery is a collection of the most creative and best free stock images, which you won’t find anywhere else.
These images are free from copyright restrictions as the site provides a custom license similar to Creative Commons Zero (CC0).
You can use high-quality images from this website for personal and professional projects without giving any credits to the creator. However, you can’t redistribute Gratisography images.
Gratisography has a clear vision, they are not after quantity, but instead, their focus is on quality. They are quite selective when it comes to the quality of images.
» Visit Gratisography
Pixabay
The next up in the list is Pixabay. With a smart and easily accessible gallery, Pixabay provides high-quality images. Tech gurus, Hans Braxmeier & Simon Steinberger, founded Pixabay.
It provides over 1 million photos, illustrations, vectors, and videos. Images & videos available here are copyright free as they are released under the Pixabay License.
These images are safe to use. You don’t have to ask for permission or even give credits.
You can transform, copy, and distribute images for commercial purposes as well.
» Checkout Pixabay
Pexels
Using Pexels, it’s quite easy to search for images. You have to enter your keyword, and there you go; you will get multiple images related to it.
Founded by twin brothers Bruno and Indo Joseph, Pexels provides thousands of free images.
Artists themselves submit these images on Pexels. All images undergo a proper background check.
The photos are added under the license of Creative Commons Zero (CC0). It allows free use of images with no attribution required.
What I love about Pexels, is that its library is filled up with updated and fresh imagery. Well, composed shots will catch your attention right away. They also provide free videos along with images that you can edit and add to any other project you may be working on.
Using tools like Adobe Photoshop can prove to be a little expensive for editing images. However, you have various free Photoshop alternatives to choose from.
» Visit Pexels
Unsplash
Unsplash was initially started as a side project by Crew. However, later on, Unsplash became quite popular due to its premium quality content. Unsplash is one of the fastest-growing free photo websites. The crew was an online platform that connected freelance creative with the customers.
Unsplash rocketed to a stand-alone site, which hosts over half a million free images, and is still growing every day.
The best thing about Unsplash is that it serves as a platform to display beautiful shots by photographers. It gives a chance for photographers to publish their work online.
Unsplash provides these images under a custom license, which enables free usage of their photos.
» Visit Unsplash
Stocksnap.io
Stocksnap.io is an elegant looking website that offers high-quality images each week. The images are provided under a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license, and they do not require any attribution. You can copy and modify the images as well.
Founded by two entrepreneurs, Christopher Gimmer and Marc Chouinard, who also developed a graphic designing tool, “SNAPPA,” StockSnap.io is a smart pick for you.
This easy to use console allows you to search for popular categories and find trending images. The team of StockSnap.io selects the pictures based on many factors; they only add the perfect pictures on their website.
The images are ideal for any purpose. You can use them on social media, blogging, and even for videos.
» Visit StockSnap.io
Life of Pix
With a classy website, Life of Pix has a unique approach. Life of Pix updates high-resolution free stock photos each week. When you visit their site, you will come across stunning feature photos.
It is owned by a Canadian digital marketing agency called “Leeroy.” The large variety of images covers many popular themes. All photos added in the library of Life of Pix are submitted by photographers and are free to download, under Public Domain license.
You can use the images available for commercial purposes. But the website prohibits mass distribution.
The thing I like about the website is that it gives a strong artistic feel. They also have a sister site, Life of Vids, which is for free videos.
You can trust Life of Pix, as they have a team that thoroughly checks the imagery and then adds them to the library.
» Checkout Life of Pix
PikWizard
I don’t use it much personally, but it has a great name in the stock photo industry. It is a pro-style free stock photo website. They provide premium quality images on multiple topics.
There is a section of popular tags along with the search bar. So, it is convenient to find images. PikWizard also provides videos, which you can use for advertisement. PikWizard is owned by a stock video and photo production company lead by Irish videographer Sean Prior.
There is no specific contributor to the website. There are different contributors, which include stock media producers as well. PikWizard provides images under their custom license. The images are free to use but with a sensitive use clause.
The best thing about PikWizard is that professional photographers submit these high-quality photos.
» Visit PikWizard
SplitShire
Founded by the photographer Daniel Nanesou, SplitShire provides images for commercial use. Almost every day, new photos are uploaded on this website.
The creative and professional photos are available in various themes and categories. You can easily use the images as the images are provided under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. But, you can’t resell the images; for example, you can’t use images on t-shirts, caps, or other brandings, etc.
The custom license makes the images easy to use.
» Checkout SplitShire
Burst
The last but not the least is Burst. Burst was developed by the E-commerce website Shopify in 2017.
It provides images for personal and commercial use but doesn’t allow mass distribution. They have an extensive library with thousands of high-quality images. They offer images in common categories like fashion, life, home, winter, technology, etc.
Images uploaded by different photographers are free to use. These images offer under Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license and Custom license but with sensitive use clause.
Shopify power Burst, so it is quite reliable.
» Visit Burst
Wrapping Up
To sum up, relevant quality images should be a part of your content marketing strategy.
The sources with free stock photos mentioned above will help you get access not only to high-quality images but also videos and editable vector files.
And if you want a quick way to edit those images, videos, and vector files, using a combination of Pixlr and InVideo is our genuine suggestion!