Bright, colorful images are such an important part of having a successful blog or online business. You want to WOW your reader with kick-butt helpful content but also dazzle their eyes while doing so.

Unfortunately, searching for stock photos that match your brand and message can be oh so time consuming. I often get so frustrated that I stop everything, go to the craft store, buy a bunch of colorful props and proceed to spend majority of the day taking my own pics. #whohastimeforthat

I mean you can only see the same girl fake laughing at her laptop screen with a blue background so many times you know?! BUT, fret not my friend, it doesn’t have to be this way.

I recently put together a list for quick reference and realized that you may find it handy as well for all your blog and business website needs. Now, you can easily search & grab unique images that will be cohesive with your amazing brand much faster. Enjoy! 🙂

Here are some of my favorite awesome free stock photo resources for you.

Death to Stock Photo

You must sign up to receive the free images to your inbox each month, therefore they may not have what you are looking for right away but there is also a paid option that gets you more. I hope they do have what you’re looking for because their pics are gorg! These were sent to me via subscription recently:

Pexels

Tons and tons of beautiful free images can be found here. This is the search result for the word ‘blog’:

PicJumbo

Completely free access to lots of photos but with paid membership you gain access to much more. This photo came up when I searched the word ‘blog’:

Unsplash

Unsplash is always my go to when I need stock pics! Some topics are limited, but I usually can find at least one image that works. Here are some results when I search the word ‘blog’:

Kaboom Pics

No signup required for plenty of awesome pics here, but do use the search bar and the hashtags to figure out the category that has what you are looking for. Here is the image that popped up for ‘blog’:

Pixabay

Lots of photos to choose from for free download and they have vectors & illustrations too. Here are some search results for ‘blog’:

Creative Convex

They are extra awesome because their photos are geared just for creatives like you and me! And you can usually choose if you prefer horizontal or vertical sizing, but you must sign up in order to get access. There aren’t a ton of pics here but what they have is oh so great! Here are a couple of examples:

Fancy Crave

They do have quite a few free photos to choose from, and with signup you get access to their collections. They do have a ‘freelance life’ collection. but there were no search results for the word ‘blog.’ Here are a couple examples:

Life of Pix

This site offers short stock videos in addition to photos should you be looking for that. Here is the result for searching the word ‘blog’ in reference to an about me page:

Startup Stock Photos

Lots of free downloadable tech-y pics…hence the name “startup.” So this may be right up your new biz alley. Here are a couple examples:

Just to be clear you can use the images on any of the above sites for your blog, blog posts, sales pages, resource pages, ebooks etc as long as there is no resale of the image. I hope you get some great finds!

The Not-So-Free-But-Super-Awesome Resources

As awesome as the FREE stock photos above can be sometimes you just might not find exactly what you want. If you have the resources to spend a lil’ dough…here are some non-free stock photo resources i recommend. I use these on the regular and I promise they will not break the bank!

Creative Market

Tons of photos, and lots and lots of other products for creatives, for every topic. Price ranges from $1 to like $20-ish per pic. Definitely check them out!

Canva

If you are going to use a photo as a background to a design, Canva is a great place to do it all in one spot. Choose a template and then search for a stock image from their large library. Drag-and-drop makes it super user friendly and templates and photos are usually $1 each with some free options as well.

Adobe

Adobe has a HUGE selection, but you do have to pay. If you are going to be searching for stock images regularly, you may want to consider a monthly membership. Regardless, get your first 10 images free with this link and see if Adobe is a great fit for you:

Have any awesome free stock photo sites that I missed? I would love to check them out! Please let me know in the comments below. Thanks!!

*Happy Stock Photo-ing!* -Amy