6 Free Sources for Finding Engaging Blog Images

A picture is worth a thousand words, probably more. When writing content for your business blog, photos play a huge role by giving your post visual perspective and your copy more context. While perspective and context are important, a remarkable photo also helps to capture people’s attention and pulls them into your content so it gets read.

Humans are visual creatures, our brains process image 60,000 times faster than text. Not only this, Hubspot conducted research that shows that Facebook photo posts receive 53% more likes than a text-only post. And according to B2B Marketing, blog posts with images get 94% more views than those with none. This means remarkable and relevant images play a huge role in blog engagement. More blog engagement equals more leads. See where I’m going with this? Bottomline, your blog posts need photos.

Now that a need for great blog photography has been established, the question is, where can you go to find remarkable and engaging photos? Quick answer, lots of places. The internet is full of photography and stock photography sites. Many are paid sites, but there are several nice sites to download free images for your content. Here are seven websites that provide an abundance of engaging photography for you to use to grab reader’s attention and pull them into your sales funnel.

Dreamstime is a stock photography site that has separated themselves from the rest; they have thousands of free images available for download. There are some limitations for these images, but the average user won’t come anywhere near these limits. Users are required to create an account and the bulk of their photos are paid for through a credit system, but no credits are required for their free images database.

Gratisography is a vibrant photography site with all the photos taken by Ryan Mcguire. The photos are highly unique and can attract the eye of your would-be readers. The shots focus on action and travel and are completely random in nature, but each picture is very high quality. There is no search option available on Gratisography, but you won’t have to fill out a large form to open an account either. Simply scroll through the images, click on the photos that are relevant and attention-grabbing for your blog posts, download them and you’re good to go.

GuruShots is a little different in that it’s essentially a photo contest website. They offer hundreds of beautiful shots by professional photographers competing in a number of different on-going contests. There are a variety of themes and the images tend to be very sleek and truly fascinating. While GuruShots is free, you’ll need to create an account to access their gallery. The site doesn’t provide a search function, so just scroll through the galleries until you find the photo that best fits your need.

BigFoto is one of the largest royalty-free photo websites with both professional and amateur photos. It is also one of the simplest sites to use. Just search by theme or geographical area to locate the perfect photo for you needs. Their search function is incredibly detailed, and they even have a sitemap section that helps you to narrow down your search. Browse categories like Backgrounds, Humans, Closeups, Food, Transportation and much more. It might not look as fancy as the other photography sites, but the images and search ability are fantastic.

This photography website has a huge gallery containing over 350,000 quality stock photos by more than 30,000 photographers, both professional and amateur. The photos do go through an approval process for quality control. Simply search for photos you’re looking for based on keywords, camera specifications, country or city, or a specific file name. The images are free, but you’ll need to give accredited information on your blog post, but that’s something you should always do regardless. If the photo is not your own, should always give credit to the original photographer.

This photography site works a little differently, but it does deliver stunning photos to you every month absolutely free. You’ll be required to create a free account, once you do, you’ll immediately receive a pack of attractive and useful photos. Since they are sending you the images each month, you don’t have much control over what you receive. This is a drawback but the photos are stunning, and you’ll receive a wide variety. One tip is to correctly specify your profession when you create an account; they use this to send you the most relevant photos. Death to Stock Photos also has a $15 per month subscription-based account that gives you access to their full library.

I know it can be trying at times to find that perfect photo to add to a blog post. It has to grab people and has to pull them in and be relevant to your content at the same time. With all the free photography websites on the web, you’ll never run out of options for that perfect photo. You might have to bounce around to a couple websites like the ones listed above to find the right one, but it’s worth the time and effort. Remember, photos stir emotions and are processed at light speed, find that special shot and it will give your content life. For more resourced on how to improve your business blog, download our free inbound marketing ebook.