Why Free Stock Photos are not a Terrible Idea, and other Controversial Cost-Effective Solutions to online marketing

 Web design is a costly business, especially when one has to factor in marketing campaigns, social media development, and search engine optimization. Any opportunity to lower costs across a website, most site owners will take. Among the areas where costs can sometimes be slashed down next to nothing is in photos. Though professional photographers, graphic designers, and online artists may not share the same opinion, using free stock photos to fill out a website can be a cost-effective strategy to entice visitors and communicate professionalism.

 

Now there are certain aspects of site images that one will have to pay for, such as logo, company-branded graphic work, and similarly personalized images. That said, finding high quality stock images is virtually a practice that almost every content-heavy site uses. Be it a single page brochure  site or a content-driven news site, stock images occupy a high amount of space across the board. Though most companies in these spaces may pay for their stock imagery, there are numerous sites able to provide them for free. Among the sites worth taking a spin through, there’s Negative Space, LibreStock, StockSnap, Gratisography, Picography, and ISO Republic, alongside plenty of others.

When selecting free stock photos, it’s important to select the most relevant images for your site. The right images will convey the right messages. There are literally hundreds of thousands of different options. What we’ve found is starting a folder on your desktop to accumulate free stock photos in is a healthy place to start. Search out high-resolution free stock photos that match the colors and brand of your business. The sites we mentioned earlier are where we consider the best free stock photos to be on the internet, however there are plenty of other sites that can be used. Continue searching until you have the quality and amount you think is appropriate to move forward.

 

Needless to say, this advice is for sites who don’t have the budget to hire a photographer and/or to purchase stock photograph. If you do have the budget, we recommend pursuing one of these two options. Also, if you are a journalist and/or your company is in a news-based category of work, the use of free stock images may be frowned upon. While we highly encourage hiring a visual artist, we recognize that not everyone has the budget to do so. For smaller companies who may not be profitable yet, free stock images are a great way to go.

 

Just imagine what any website would look like without images. In all likelihood, no one would stay on a page that did not have photos and graphics embedded into it. Even posts through social media tend to highlight the image more than the text.

 

Create more user-friendly content through the use of free stock photos. They can help add spice to a dull background, help break up a blog article, and can help keep pages friendly and visual. The wide variety of image-hosting sites that sell images on the cheap, in addition to those offering free stock photos, continues to grow. Be sure to search out photo sites in your category of business and be amazed at the quality of photographs that can be found for no charge. Even if you don’t have a budget to put towards supplying your website with images today, free stock photos make it easy.