Stock image sites are prime sources for finding royalty free images for commercial use which you can use on your site. It’s a good idea to use images on your site to break up the monotony of text and to keep your reader engaged.
Free Websites to Get Images From
You obviously just can’t go out and start downloading and using whatever images you want as this can land you in a lot of legal trouble if the people who rightfully own that image get wind of your unauthorized use. Luckily there are plenty of free sites for getting royalty free images for commercial use.
In this article I’m going to identify 4 free sites which house royalty free images for commercial use, but first let’s define both the terms commercial use and royalty free.
What is Commercial Use?
If an image specifies that it can be used for commercial use, that means that you can use it on your website even if your website turns a profit. Anything which generates an income is considered commercial, so you have to be careful of images which are specify that they are not available for commercial use.
What Is Royalty Free?
Royalty free means that you do not have to pay per use of the item in question. So if you have a royalty free image, you do not have to pay to use it on your site, on an eBook cover, or wherever you use it no matter how many times you use it.
That’s not to say that these images are free to download but that you can use them as often as you want after you have them. An image can still cost an initial fee before you can use it. This is where royalty free images for commercial use and FREE websites specifically to get them on come into play.
Royalty Free Images for Commercial Use – 4 Free Sites to Use
This is my go to site as it’s the largest collection of quality royalty free images for commercial use and it’s completely free. There are hundreds of thousands of images to choose from with hundreds more being added each day. Make note of the terms for each photo as there are some which are not available for commercial use.
Flickr is the largest use submitted photo collection on the net. While you can use most of the images without worry about royalty or commercial use restrictions, some of them do carry some restrictions and generally you have to give credit to or link to the images on Flickr. The upside is obviously its huge database, so it’s not one to overlook.
StockVault is a very professional and slick free resource for getting stock photos with little restrictions. Just like with Stock.XCHNG, make sure that you check the restrictions for each specific photo you want to use to make sure that you’re adhering to the rules for that specific image.
Public Domain Photos has thousands of images which you can use without any restrictions whatsoever, so if you find the image you’re looking for on the site then you can use it for any purpose commercial or not immediately without having to check the restrictions.
Remember to use these tips on Google image ranking to use any images which you use on your site as an extra source of traffic, as well.