How To Choose The Best Free Images To Use
Whether you are creating content for a personal blog, marketing your business, or writing a story, having beautiful, eye-catching, visual content is a must. It’s the most important aspect of getting eyes onto your writing. After all, “a picture is worth a thousand words”. Images can make or break your content. Your featured image is one of the main things potential readers will use to decide whether they want to read your story. Not only must your featured image be attention grabbing, but so must the images within the content. Visual content is gaining more and more traction. This is because our behavior of content-consumption is changing. Social networks are favoring visual content, and they tend to generate more engagement than text-only content. Today we’re going to take a look at how to choose the best free images in order to make your content pop and keep your audience entertained.
A picture is worth a thousand words
High-Resolution Images
While the saying goes “you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover”, people usually do just that. Overall, photos are the first impression you will make. A way to make your content look on point and professional, make sure to always select high-quality photographs. The photos mustn’t be below 72 dpi (dots per inch). Also, if you decide to use any photos for print they should be 300 dpi or higher. Pixilated or smudged photographs will make your readers click off. Keep in mind the bigger the photo, the better the quality, the more space it will take up on the site, which leads to a higher loading time. Dig deep and find good quality images. You can google reverse an image in order to find a better quality version of it.
Images are the first impression
Image Licensing
There are three basic types of images. Here is what you need to know about them and how to use them.
- Royalty Free. A publisher buys a license once and can use the work according to the license.
- Public Domain. Here there are no restrictions and no copyright claims.
- Creative Commons. Work may be used but only in compliance with the stated restrictions.
There are three basic types of images
Stock Photos
There are plenty of websites where you can find good quality, royalty-free images for your content. Searching for very specific types of photos may be frustrating, that’s why stock photos are great. Websites like Shutterstock offer plenty of diverse photos with great quality. The photos are also royalty-free, however, you do have to pay a small fee for them. But it’s worth it. Once you pay, they become royalty-free, which means you can use the photo as many times as you wish. On top of the variety of photos, there are a variety of Shutterstock coupon codes you can use to get a great deal.
Stock photos are great
Match With Content
The images you choose must reflect the content. The tone of the picture must math with the text. Here are some tips and tricks to follow when picking out the most visually appealing images.
- When using multiple images in a series, try to look for visual or thematic similarities.
- As we mentioned, make sure the image works. It should match the content. You can’t have pictures of cat’s on an article about dogs.
- Use an image that isn’t used often. Scroll deep, find something original, don’t use the same picture as everybody else. You can even make your own!
- Select pictures that you like. After all, you are picking out an image that will represent your work. Your image should appeal to potential readers and you.
The tone of the picture must math with the text
Those were the main tips and tricks we have for you on how to find the best free images to use. You can now go on confidently to find the best images for your content.
How to find the best free images to use
