So, you’ve got some great content for your blog. You’ve written posts that are engaging and interesting and you’re almost ready to hit publish. But before you do, it’s wise to check if it looks like there’s something missing. Have you included images in your post?
Images play a crucial role in online content. So, it’s essential that you include them in your blog posts. But why is it so important to add aesthetic photos to your blog? Where can you find the best images for your blog? What do you need to consider when choosing photos to include on your blog? Keep reading to discover the answers to all of these questions and more…
Why Your Blog Needs Photos
Before we share all the best stock photos for bloggers, let’s dive a little deeper into why your blog needs photos.
Images are powerful. You may have spent many hours carefully crafting your blog post, choosing the perfect words, and editing it to the best it can be. The content could be full of valuable insights, fascinating facts, or helpful information. Unfortunately, if it’s displayed as a big chunk of text, it may not be read.
Adding images to your test plays a crucial role in making it look more appealing to readers.
We’ve all heard the well-worn saying, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words.’ This certainly holds true for blog posts. Adding photos to your blog helps to break up large bodies of text. This helps make your posts easier to read, even if you retain the same amount of text.
As well as helping to break up your text, adding photos to your blog also provides the following benefits:
- Improves the readability of your blog posts.
- Makes your blog more visually appealing.
- Gives added context to your content.
- Communicates the aesthetic and ‘branding’ of your blog.
Best Sites with Stock Photos for Bloggers
So, we’ve now established why your blog needs images. But knowing how to find images that are royalty-free and available to use on your blog can be challenging. Choosing royalty-free images is essential to prevent you from running into issues by including photos that don’t belong to you on your blog posts.
To help you find the perfect images for your content, take a look at the best places to find aesthetic photos for your blog:
iStock
iStock is home to millions of stock images that you can use to enhance the content on your blog.
To use iStock, you need to sign up for a monthly plan of your choice. This will give you credits which can be used to download photos, illustrations, videos, and vector graphics for use on your blog.
Two collections of images are available: Essentials and Signature. The Essentials collection contains affordable, budget-friendly images. The Essentials collection features high-quality images that are exclusive to iStock, so you won’t find them on other image sites.
Ability to edit the images you download, such as removing the background from the photo.
Key iStock Features:
- Choose images from the Essentials or Signature collection.
- Millions of images are available. Videos, illustrations, and vector graphics are also available.
- Choice of plans and monthly pricing to suit your budget.
- Images available that aren’t on other stock photo sites.
Shutterstock
Shutterstock is a photo site that provides access to over 300 million images. The number of available images on Shutterstock is continuing to grow at a rapid pace with around 250,000 new images added every day.
The site also has vector graphics, illustrations, and videos available. There’s an AI image generator tool, too. This allows you to generate AI images with ease, simply by entering some keywords and selecting an image style.
Two pricing options are available on Shutterstock. You can choose to buy images as a one-time purchase, which gives you access to basic editing tools. Alternatively, you can subscribe to Shutterstock. This makes the cost per image lower. You can choose the number of image downloads you would like each month to ensure you have enough credits for your needs. You can also choose to pay your subscription up-front for the entire year or pay monthly.
Key Shutterstock Features:
- Around 250,000 new images are added every day.
- Over 300 million images are available to download.
- Vectors, illustrations, and videos are also all available on Shutterstock.
- AI image generator tool available.
- Two pricing options available – make a one-time purchase or subscribe to save money.
Free Stock Image Sites to Use for Your Blog
When increasing the amount of visual content on your blog, costs can become a concern. The good news is that there are free stock image sites available to help you keep your costs low.
These sites also have a large selection of images. However, you may have restricted access to the full library of images and features. Despite this, they are still an excellent resource for aesthetic images for your blog.
Here are some of the most popular free stock image sites:
Unsplash
Unsplash has over 3 million royalty-free images available for use, and there’s no need to pay for them. This free service features millions of photos that have been freely gifted by photographers from around the world.
If you need a wider selection of images, you can subscribe to Unsplash+. This grants you unlimited access to members-only images, with more images added each month. Unsplash+ is available as a monthly subscription. Alternatively, you can save money by paying for an annual subscription up-front.
Key Unsplash Features:
- Over 3 million free-to-use images.
- No need to subscribe.
- Images can be downloaded in a choice of sizes.
- Option to use paid-for Unsplash+ to access even more images.
Pixabay
Like Unsplash, Pixabay also offers users free images that they can download and use. The Pixabay license makes the images free to use, even without attribution. However, image contributors appreciate it when you credit them when using their imagery. You can also choose to donate to the contributor or buy them a coffee via PayPal to show your appreciation for their work.
As well as royalty-free stock images, Pixabay is also home to further free content. This includes videos, illustration vectors, animated gifs, music, and sound effects.
Key Pixabay Features:
- All images are free to use.
- No need to subscribe.
- As well as imagery, users can access sound effects and music.
Pexels
Pexels offers users free stock images to use for their own purposes without the need to set up a subscription or pay a fee. Pexels has over 3.2 million images and videos available to download and around 200,000 more are added to the site each month.
Images are available to be downloaded in a choice of sizes, or you can choose your own custom size.
Pexels images can be edited via Canva by selecting the ‘edit on Canva’ option when you have chosen your image.
Key Pexels Features:
- Over 3 million images and videos are available to download.
- More images are added each month.
- Choice of image sizes available to download.
- Images can be downloaded and then edited on Canva.
Canva
Canva may be best known for being a graphic design tool, but it can also be used to source royalty-free images. Canva offers a large number of free images, but additional Premium images are available to be purchased.
Thanks to Canva’s blog post templates, you can create and design your blog’s imagery with ease, including adding aesthetic photos to your blog posts.
Canva also has image editing tools, illustrations, videos, backgrounds, visual elements, and audio features. These features enable you to customise your visual content to suit your blog’s style and branding.
Key Canva Features:
- Millions of images available to be downloaded.
- Choose from standard images or pay a little extra to download Premium images.
- Pre-sized blog post templates available for you to customise.
Considerations When Choosing Royalty Free Photos
Choosing royalty-free stock images is an excellent way to enrich your blog. However, before you start uploading images into your blog posts, there are a couple of factors to consider to ensure your photos are suitable:
License
Ensuring that you’re not in breach of copyright by using an image on your blog is essential. You certainly don’t want to find yourself in trouble because you’ve used an image without permission.
Using images from the photo sites listed above will provide you with a huge array of royalty-free images to choose from. Just be sure to check that it doesn’t have any restrictions in place, such as ‘editorial-use only.’
Remember, royalty-free doesn’t mean free-to-use. Sites that offer royalty-free images, such as iStock and Shutterstock require you to purchase a license to use the image before you’re able to upload it to your blog.
Quality and Relevance
Finally, it’s important to consider the quality and relevance of images before including them on your blog. The right images can give your blog more context and communicate its aesthetic effectively. It’s worth taking your time to choose your images carefully.
