One of the simplest ways to improve your blog is with the the use of photography.  Adding relevant images to the content can seriously interest readers.  I’ve used a free photo of a wallet from Bigstockphoto to grab attention. The wallet is a concept in the sense that it can be put away because I’ll show you where to go if you want to find free images to use in blog posts.

Flickr Search

Everyone, well hopefully everyone, knows about Flickr and using images with the Creative Commons Licensing.  Using the advanced search option, you can specifically ask to only be shown photographs with the creative commons license.    You can also do this with Google Image search now; however, you might need to verify the image truly is licensed properly.  I could upload any image and say it’s for creative commons.  I guess this issue could come up just the same on flickr.  No one is policing to my knowledge.  You should be giving attribution to the photographer if you use an image as well.

Micro Stock Photography Websites

Most, if not all, of these companies have free images.  istockphoto, BigStockPhoto, 123rf, and Shutterstock are a few websites for stock photography.  Normally you’ll pay for images from these companies, but they will either provide you a free image each week or have a section of their free images.

• istockphoto

Offers a free photograph each week.  You’re able to download the highest resolution JPG file and not limited to the smallest size image. This is nice because you might want to use the image for something larger than just a blog in the future.

• Bigstockphoto

Offers a free images section on their website.  Since they offer a number of free images, they limit the size you’re able to download and they have a small watermark on the photo as well.  You can sign up and purchase images of the same size for $1 and there will not be the watermark and you will not be limited to the images you can download.

• 123rf

Offers another free images section for their website.  Much like Bigstockphoto, the images are limited to the “blog sized” images.   These images are about 400px wide and thus should be useful for any blogger out there.  The images stay in this area for only 30 days, so there should be a constant number of new images appearing for use here.

• Shutterstock

This site relates to istockphoto because it offers a free image of the week.  It differs a little though, and offers a free vector each week too. This is pretty rad! Vectors can be very useful for a blog, just as photographs are.

These are a few places that you can start to look for free images for your blog. They are pretty helpful because they are categorized. I know Flickr has a lot of images that have been labeled for Creative Commons, but I usually have a lot of issues finding something to use.

Also, keep in mind that you can submit your photographs to these stock websites to earn money.  As your images are downloaded, you can use the money to purchase other images that are not in the free categories.

Have you come across a website that’s giving away free images that would be helpful for blogs?