6 Spectacular Free Photography Sites for Your Blog

Writers love to paint with words. We love to create worlds and populate them with a wide variety of creatures, characters and landscapes. What we sometimes forget is that when we change our medium to the Internet, we have to change our approach.

Unfortunately the average human has an attention span of 8 seconds; one second shorter than the attention span of a goldfish (source). Using visual images in blog posts, tweets, facebook updates and other social media posting is much more likely to keep people on your page.

photo via Flickr

Here are just three statistics from a great post on the Hubspot marketing blog about using visual content (read the rest of the article here)

1. 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text.
2. 40% of people will respond better to visual information than plain text.
3. Visual content drives engagement. In fact, just one month after the introduction of Facebook timeline for brands, visual content -- photos and videos -- saw a 65% increase in engagement.

A simple but eye-catching addition to your blog post is photography. If you do your own photography then you don’t have to worry about whether you can legally use the picture. There are quite a few good sources of relatively inexpensive stock photography that can provide you with beautiful pictures, either for a one-time fee or for a subscription.

Dog on the beach in Costa Rica - photo by me

I’m very thrifty, so I prefer to find the images for my blog posts through free photos with the Creative Commons license. (Click here for a link that explains the license.) Be careful that you post photos that you’ve taken yourself, or under this license only, or you may be infringing on someone’s copyright (which is illegal).

Here is a list of my six favorite free image sites.

Six Fabulous Free Photo Sites

1. Compfight 

This is definitely one of my favorite sites. It is easily searchable and brings the best quality and most relevant pictures to the top.

Kerri Lee Smith via Compfight cc

2. MorgueFile

This site has a large selection of high resolution digital photographs free to be used for corporate or personal use. The term "morgue file" comes from an old journalism term, and is now used for inactive files and documents.

Olyvia - photo by greyerbaby

3. Flickr - Creative Commons 

Many photos on the site are shareable as long as they are properly credited on your website and not used for commercial purposes.

photo via Flickr

4. Stockvault 

I particularly love Stockvault because it not only has beautiful photos, but it also has amazing textures that you can use as backgrounds for layering images or for building your website.

Gold Hill - photo by Paul Clifton

5. New Old Stock  

Vintage photos and photos that look authentically vintage. Beautiful images if you are looking for something different. 

photo from lse library collection

6. SplitShire 

Photographer and graphic designer Daniel Nenescu shares his images from Italy here, free of charge to the world. There isn’t a huge selection, but they are so lovely that I had to share them with you. This wedding cake photo is my favorite!

photo by Daniel Nenescu, via Splitshire.com

These six sites are just a few of the free photo resources you can find online that will give your blog or website that visual boost it needs. 

Let me know in the comments if you have a favorite site that I haven’t shared. If you found this helpful, sign up for notifications of my next post.

Related Article:  How to Spice up Your Author Platform, on readwritemuse.com

Related Article: 10 Tips to Jump-Start Your Writing Blog

10 Tips to Jump-Start Your Writing Blog

Have I mentioned that I’m obsessed with research? Right now my favorite topic is social media. I am fascinated by the way we devour it. So many platforms, so little time! Some of them I’ve embraced willingly, like Facebook. Pinterest? I’m addicted. I love collecting things, and hoarding is perfectly acceptable there. Others I’m slowly adding to my repertoire.

This obsession has grown from my realization that using social media is vital to writers. Sadly most of us can’t just rely on our lovely words to land us an agent or a publishing contract, so we go to work on our author platforms. It can be a daunting proposition, but it doesn’t have to be as frightening as we think.

Jayel Aheram via Compfight cc

Starting Your Blog

The first step, if you don’t already have one, is to start a blog. Don’t worry, it’s much easier than you think. There are lots of great tutorials out there. Two of the most common free blogging sites are Blogger and WordPress. I use Blogger, but we use WordPress for the collective writing site ReadWriteMuse. There are pros and cons to both. It’s really a matter of personal preference.

I must admit that I put off starting my blog for far too long. I was worried about whether I would have something interesting or relevant to say. Now I know that I don’t have to be an expert on everything. The old adage “write what you know” is true here more than anywhere. The struggles and journey you are taking as a writer give you many topics to explore.

Determining Your Goal

The key is determining the goal of your blog. Do you want to tell stories of your life like a journal or a writing sample? Or do you want to share your experiences in a way that other people can use the information themselves?

I follow a beautifully written blog by a writer who is chronicling her journey as a single mom. It is very personal and not a blog that is followed by a lot of people. Strung together as a whole it would make a powerfully moving book, but I don’t think the intention is to grow a platform.

If your goal is to establish an author platform, then you must write posts with your audience in mind.

Finding Your Audience

Don’t worry – writing for your audience isn’t as painful as it sounds! As a writer, you probably have already found your voice. Your personality is important, and blogging can be as informal as you are.

The important point to remember is incorporating points that your readers can take away with them. Tell them about your struggles, but show them how your fight can help them in their own battles. You know much more than you think! Those quirky things you do that help you write – they just might give someone else that breakthrough they’ve needed.

Lotus Carroll via Compfight cc

TEN TIPS TO JUMP-START YOUR BLOG:

1. Make an interesting bio page with a professional picture. Fun or interesting is okay, but you don’t want to look crazy here.
2. Always use images in your blog posts. Visuals are what draw the eye, and you must have an image so you can pin your post to Pinterest, or post to Facebook, or other visual platforms. Visual break up your text and keep readers' attention. Be sure you have license, like Creative Commons, for the picture. (More on using images in my next post.)
3. Whenever possible, use headers to break up your text into sections. People skim through blog posts, and this attracts their eye to important parts of your post.
4.  Always cite your sources. Be sure you have permission, like Creative Commons license, for an image and cite the source. Share from other sites, but be sure you link appropriately. And when you have a few posts up, you can backlink to related content on your own site.
5. Use short paragraphs. They are easier to read and force people to slow down. Long paragraphs can make people skip ahead or stop reading altogether.
6. Be consistent and post regularly. You don’t have to post every day, but make yourself a schedule and stick to it.
7. Make sure you have social media sharing buttons on your page so that people can share your posts. Good ones to start with are Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, and Stumbleupon. Be sure to share your own posts.
8. Display your own social media links on your blog. You want your readers to follow you on other platforms as well.
9. Use tags. Tagging helps people locate posts. Use popular hashtags as well.
10. Answer every comment. Engaging with your readers and starting a discussion is crucial.

.reid. via Compfight cc

Take these tips and go blog away!

I’m going to continue posting about social media and writer platform in the upcoming weeks, so if you are interested in the topic please follow my page.

Let me know: How has blogging impacted your writer platform and your social media presence?

Related articles:  

• 6 Spectacular Free Photography Sites for Your Blog
• How to Spice Up Your Author Platform on readwritemuse.com