Our top 10 picks to find the perfect images for your website (and social media)
Your images are the eye candy of your website. They give your content interest, help explain what’s going on, make things more fun and best of all, give your website stay-worthiness.
Too little or the wrong type is boring at best or run for the hills at worst. If the first impression people get is “Yuck, not interested”, we hate to be the one to tell you… but your website stinks. We’re not buying what you’re serving, and I bet no one else is either.
If you’re not using clean, crisp, professional images, your website stinks. The whole point is to keep people on your site, engaged and interested. Right?
We hate to tell you...but your website stinks. Here's how to fix that. #websitetips Click To TweetThere are literally thousands of places to find images online. Some are great and some…not so much – unless you want to pick up a virus along with a puppy image at the same time.
We think these are the sweetest. Here are our top 10 flavors:
To help you wade through the ocean of image sites out there, we’ve put together our favorite free and paid go-to’s for spectacular, quality images and graphics.
Unsplash.com – Sign up and get high-res (high quality), professional images emailed to you each month. Another nice thing, they are free to use commercially.
IvoryMix.com – Sort by color or composition (we love that!). Free images require no attribution and are free to use for commercial use. You can also have her create your own custom images just for you and your brand. Join a free or premium membership for even more beauties!
Deathtothestockphoto.com – Another place where you sign up to get images emailed to you. You can also use these commercially with no attribution.
Lifeofpix.com – We like that you don’t have to sign up for anything – you can download straight from their website. High resolution for commercial use with no restrictions.
Gratisography.com – If you’re looking for something a little different, this is your place. New images added each week and free for commercial use.
Stocksy.com – Stocksy is awesome. Fresh, modern and mega professional. Reasonably priced, too. The small sized images (which are plenty big for most needs) are only $10.
Creativemarket.com – You can easily get lost in Creative Market’s candy aisle. Not only images but fonts, vector images, templates, patterns and a ton more. We suggest signing up for their email list – they’ve got pretty great blog posts with helpful info, and you’ll get notified of the “Free Goods” for the week, too.
Pexels.com – Great, high-quality images by a variety of excellent photographers. Free for personal and commercial use.
DepositPhotos.com – A huge variety of images, graphics, vector images, icons, and clipart. TIP: Do what we do: sign up for AppSumo’s newsletter and keep an eye out for the Depositphotos deal – $39 for 100 downloads (images of any size, vectors, graphics anything)!
SC-Stockshop – Another lovey shop to get lost in. Free and paid images. Shop by color and sign up for free monthly images plus a 10% coupon to use on your first purchase.
Now, once you have your images, don’t forget to stick to the rules.
Do’s
- White space is your friend. Give your images (and copy) room to breathe.
- Use properly sized images. You probably don’t need images 2000 pixels wide. Most images you’ll use on your site will only need to be around 400 to 650 pixels wide. Remember, big = too much file size which means a slower website.
- Optimize your images to increase website speed. Use an image optimizer like: ImageOptim, PhotoBulk or Shortpixel.
- Stick with images that reflect your brand or topic. Unify your brand identity by looking like “you” on your website AND social media.
Dont’s
- Don’t use old-school stock image photos like this:
- Use something like this instead:
- Don’t use images without permission. Use images that you have taken yourself or purchased, legally downloaded, and have the rights to use.
Stay Organized
TIP: Create a Pinterest board(s) for images, fonts, colors and other website inspiration. That way, they’re all in one easy, convenient spot where you can compare your special finds all in one place! Want some ideas? Come follow us on Pinterest!
Do you have any favorite image shops/flavors? Tell us below, we’d love to know!
Thank you so much this is beyond amazing!
You’re so welcome Lynn! Glad we could help 🙂
Super helpful list I especially appreciate the do and don’t section – this is getting pinned for sure!
Thank you so much, Vanessa! So glad you found it helpful!
Thanks for the information! I have currently only been using Unsplash and can’t wait to try out these other sites to mix it up. Any recommendations for free places for fonts or making fancy documents people can download?
Hey there Sarah! YES – Google Fonts, Font Squirrel, Creative Market for fonts. For fancy docs people can download: Canva. Let us know if we can help with anything! 🙂
This is such a cute website! Great job! 👏🏻 I love this post! Pinning it!
Thank you, Amy!!
Great post. I was looking for new places to find stock photos. I am addicted to Unsplash! But I wanted more options. Thank you for this!
Yay – so glad you liked it! 🙂
Loved the new ideas for stock photos like lifeofpix.com and pexels.com! Oh, and I will def sign up for AppSumo’s newsletter so I can keep an eye out for DepositPhotos deals. Thanks a mil!!!
So glad there were some new ones in there for you! 🙂
Dogs are dogs 🙂 I will always put them first even if the story is about cats 😀
Haaa! LOVE IT!!
Great post.
Thanks Sue!
Great post, I will keep these in mind for future references 🙂
Glad you liked it Thivy!
What a brilliant post Janet! The best one I have come across on with regards to where to find images for your website! <3 Had never heard of gratisography until now (I think I have found my place!)
Thanks Yolanda! There are SO many great places to find images – it was actually hard to just pic a few for this post! 🙂
Awesome list! There were so many I hadn’t heard of before, thank!!
We’re so glad you liked it!