Finding “free to use” and royalty free images

There are many websites that offer free images to use online... Many people just pull images off Google, however this turns into a huge copyright issue and can cost thousands of dollars if you use images from some extortionists!

To protect your business from this ongoing issue we have included several places and suggestions blow to find high quality images to use for your website and marketing...

The first place to start your search is www.Flickr.com

There is a search feature at the top that you can type in what you are looking for. There are usually some great images; however you must switch to "commercial use allowed" in the options…

To filter to see just non copywritten images you must click on the text that says "Any License" in the upper left side of the page and select "commercial use allowed." These are now the allowed image.

This does limit the great images that you will find, however we did find ways to increase the chances of finding images for what I need.

Example: if you are look for a bedroom picture to use for an interior painting article of slide show, try using search terms like bed, mattress, rooms, or even sleepy, cozy, sleeping.

Example 2: Looking for images of someone working you can look for desk, office, businessman, or even professional, meeting, interview…

WARNING: make sure the search results are filtered to show only "commercial use allowed" every time you click back to the page or do a new search!

You can use these ideas to find great images on other websites too...

Below is a couple of articles that we found online that has several websites that have free to use images, but first a few warnings...

WARNING 1: On all of these websites, make sure that you do not accidentally end up on a pay to use service... we have found that images in the center of the page are the once that are free to use... anything that is at the top or side are usually a link to images that will get you in trouble!

WARNING 2: Make sure that the search box you are using is for the website you are on. If you are on a website like PicBay and you click a search box and it takes you to someplace like iStock that is there way to "trick" you into accidentally using copywritten images. Be sure that you spend a moment on ever page making sure you did not get shuttled to another website by mistake.

With that said here are the links:
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/238646 
http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/free-stock-photos

Final Notes:

Be sure to give credit to the photographer or location you found the images. The 2 ways you can do this is:

• Option 1: add a caption to the image an link to the website you found it
• Option 2: add a page to your website labeled photo credits. Provide links to the image and rights.

We hope these suggestions help you to find quality images for use on your website and online marketing. Please let us know if you have any questions!

Posted to: Helpful Tips and Links