Anyone who creates content – for websites, newsletter, social media posts and more – knows the frustration of images. With lots of images online, it’s tempting to do a Google Search, right-click to save and use whatever you find.
You gotta know, you’re playing with fire. You see those watermarks across the image? That means hands-off unless you’re willing to pay a pretty penny. The owners of those images (Getty, AdobeStock, Dreamstime, Shutterstock, etc.) will be on your doorstep if you use them without permission (ie paying for them).
In fact, I know of a friend (it really is a friend!) who once used an image like that on their resume website. Guess who came calling? Yep – the stock image company that owned the image and they wanted $2,000 in fees. Yikes! Thankfully, when they learned that it was a private individual not using it in a for-profit venture, they were willing to give the person a pass if they agreed to remove it.
As a design professional, I pay for a professional stock images subscription. Many organizations and businesses, however, are still in need of images for their next blog post.
I was pretty excited when I came across BURST – a great FREE stock images website from Shopify. I looked around the site and the images are high-quality and professional…. and did I say, FREE?
Check it out – BURST
Ideally, when you create a post, you have a high quality image that is specific to your topic, organization or business. For example, if a donut shop announces its monthly special, they should have a fabulous photo they took of their own donut. Or, if you are selling tickets to an event, you will have photos from a past event of real people who actually attended the event.
That’s in a perfect world. In the real world, however, you may not have those photos. Great photos are incredibly important – they catch the eye and draw attention. You just want to make sure they make the right impression. If your images are poorly lit, low quality/resolution and blurry – best to turn to a stock image instead.
Burst is growing and will be adding more photos as time goes on. It’s a great place to start when you’re looking for an image.
