Where Can You Find High-Quality Pictures For Your Website

Creating visual interest on your website is important to creating a good user-experience and maintaining a professional image. One of the most important means of creating visual interest is using photos. But what kind of photos should you use and where can you find them? 

Obviously its best to use photos that help showcase your company and your brand. You could take some pictures yourself of the things you’d like to showcase, perhaps your office, or your staff. However, if you don’t have professional equipment it will be hard to get a picture that is of high enough quality to put on your website. You could hire a professional photographer, but that can be expensive.  

There is one other option, you can pull free high-resolution stock photos from a number of online resources.  Below is a list of a few websites that have some nice stock photos that are free to download. Just be sure you understand the rights before you put pictures you don’t own on your website.  

Stock Photo Resources: 

Pixabay: This is a resource that our marketing team uses often. Because, most of the photos on Pixabay are high-resolution, free for commercial use with no attribution necessary, and can be modified.  

Burst (by Shopify): The photos on Burst where taken by Shopify’s photographers and are royalty-free. The pictures on this site are free for commercial use with no attribution required.  

StockSnap: StockSnap acquires photos using a creative Commons license. This means that you can download and alter those images. And you may use images from their site commercially. 

Pexels: Pexels offers photos and videos that free for commercial use without attribution and can be modified.  

Unsplash: Unsplash has photos that can be downloaded for free and used for commercial purposes.  

Barnimages: Photographers publish photos on this site that can then be downloaded and used for commercial purposes. However, the original publishers still holds the copyright for those images. 

Life of Pix:  This site offers free photos with no copyright restrictions for commercial uses. New images are posted on the site every week.  

Although the many of the photos on these sites are available for commercial use, it is still important to be aware of how you use those images. You cannot redistribute or sell any of the pictures from these websites. You also cannot use photos with identifiable brands for commercial purposes, because this can be misleading and can create brand confusion. 

Here are a few other dos and don’ts to keep in mind when looking for good stock photos to add interest to your website.  

Do: 

• Take your time. Don’t just use the first nice photos you see, search around and find the right photo for your brand.  
• Make sure the images you use are high resolution, it will look better on your website. Most of the sites listed above offer high resolution photos.  
• Always write alternative text for your image.  
• Make sure you read the licensing information on the website before you start downloading images.  

Don’t: 

• Use too many photos. Pictures help make your site more appealing, but a little can go a long way. Just because you can use a lot of stock photos, doesn’t mean you should. Again, find images that are relevant to you and your brand.  
• Use cliché photos. Avoids images that are overly common or look stages and awkward. 

When in doubt ask your web designer to help you find photos that will work well on your website. Contact MIBS, Inc. today to learn more about a website that will suit the needs of your organization and brand.