Free royalty free stock photos – where you can get free photographs for your blog

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Here I will be explaining where to find free royalty free stock photos for your blog.

(Basically where to get all those cute/professional looking photos but without the hefty price-tag or worries around whether you are actually allowed to use them on your blog!)

A few years ago when I first started blogging (this isn’t my first blog), it was back when not-overly-great self taken pictures weren’t just accepted but they were the norm.

Any self-taken photo would do – as long as you could see what the image was of, it was all good!

Over the years though a lot of people have started making their blogs look and feel a lot more professional and put together and one of the best ways to do this is with high quality images.

Don’t get me wrong this is not a “must” if you have a blog. If you blog as a hobby, or prefer it NOT to look too “professional” then there is absolutely no need to change it up. In fact in one of my original blogs I choose NOT to use stock photos and do still take my own as for that one as I prefer the whole website to have a more down-to-earth feel.

I love the look of professional looking images, but sometimes you do need the home-taken feel. You can’t go wrong with a good mix!

Keeping yourself right

One of the most important things to remember when you are looking for images for your blog which you did not take yourself is to make sure you are actually allowed to use them!

I know the feeling of seeing a beautiful image from the internet which you love and know would fit your theme perfectly, but you may end up in trouble if you were never given permission to use that image for your own website.

There are a couple of ways to avoid getting into trouble; 1 – you ask permission from the owner of the image (always get permission in writing), 2 – you purchase a photo specifically with them in the knowledge that you intend to use their image, and 3 – you go to a high quality online library of photos which you ARE allowed to use without asking the owners permission.

That third option is what I want to share with you today.

Finding free royalty free stock photos isn’t as tricky as it sounds – nor is it as scary!

Where do I get mine?

My favourite two websites to find completelty free royalty free stock photos are:

Pixabay 

https://pixabay.com/

and

Pexels

https://www.pexels.com/

There are many more – those are just the two I use on a regular basis!

What to look for

A couple of things to note when you are looking for your own free royalty free stock photos. Firstly, make sure next to the image you want that it states a couple of things. One that it is free for personal/commercial use (commercial being the important word there), and also note whether attribution is required or not – basically whether you need to credit the photographer/link back to them.

Most often with the free image websites there is no attribution required but I personally DO always mention where my images are from.

I feel it’s a nice thing to do and is only fair considering you are using their work on your blog.

I like to either put their name or a link back to the website where I got it – credit where it’s due in my opinion!

Other options for images

If you decide that using free royalty free stock photos is not for you or doesn’t fit your website then have no fear – there are other options for you too!

Take and edit your own photos, use a paid image library, create your own images, use product links or you can embed video!

Hopefully you get inspired for places to find those perfect images for your blog!

What are your favourite free royalty free stock photo image websites? Share them below!

Speak soon!

Katherine

Photo by Kyle Roxas from Pexels

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