How to find free images for your website – 8 sites to search

It can be challenging to find the right images for your website, especially if you don’t have a large budget available. 

Images that match your concept and enhance your written content, ensuring your overall communication hits the mark with your target audience, are vital for a good website. Fortunately, there are several places where you can get your hands on beautiful and professional images completely free. 

In this article, we show you 8 different places where you can find free images for your website, and we’ll go through image rights, so you don’t have to worry about them when you select your images.  

Free images and copyright 

Knowing the rules about images and copyright is important when working with website content. Many images are copyright protected, which means you can’t use them on your website without getting permission from the copyright owner.  

If you use copyright-protected images, you risk having to pay compensation and damages to the copyright owner. 

However, if you choose images from places that offer free images that are not protected by copyright, you can freely use the images on your website without risk of problems.  
 
Even with free images, it’s a good idea to be aware of other rules regarding their use, especially if you want to print or resell anything with them. It is typically not allowed, even if you can freely use the images on your website. 

Can’t I just use images from Google?

Many of the images that appear when you search on Google are copyright protected, even if you can easily download them to your device. For this reason, you should never just grab a nice image from Google and put it on your website. That said, there may be certain images from Google that you can legally use in different contexts. 

To find out if an image from Google is copyright protected, you can use Google’s own filtering function. By using the usage rights filter, you can find out if you are allowed to use the image for your project.

Read Google’s guide to filtering usage rights. 

What are stock photos? 

Stock photos are images, often taken by professional photographers, that are available for use in various contexts. If you need a picture of a happy puppy, a bouquet of roses, or a long-haired man playing the piano, you can surely find a stock photo for the purpose. 

There are certain companies and individual photographers who specialise in taking stock photos of everything under the sun because there is always someone who needs them for ads, websites, brochures, posters, and much more. 

Try doing a quick search on Google by typing stock photo + a chosen topic, such as “happy man who is eating salad”, and you will surely get many different options. 

There are both free and paid stock photos. In this article, we primarily focus on places where you can find free images, but in some contexts, it may become relevant for you to choose one or more paid images – we’ll get back to that a bit later.

Where to find free images for your website

Now that we have covered image rights, let’s start with the list of places where you can find free images for your website. You can freely use these images on your website, but as mentioned above, the rights may vary if you wish to use the images for other purposes. On the individual sites, you can read more about these rights. 

The photographer’s name is typically written under each image, so you can choose to credit them on your website, but this is entirely optional.

1. Website Builder from one.com

If you choose to create your website or online shop with the Website Builder from one.com, you get access to a large library of thousands of high-quality free images that you can freely use on your website. This means that you can do everything in the same program without searching elsewhere on the internet, and the images can be inserted directly onto your website in no time. 

With us, you can filter and search for images in these categories: 

• Nature 
• Food and drink 
• Health and wellness 
• Sport and exercise 
• Fashion 
• Backgrounds 
• Film 
• Animals 
• Business and work 
• Street photography 
• Experimental 
• People 
• Spirituality 
• Travel 
• Architecture and interiors 
• Textures and patterns 
• 3D renderings 
• Current events 

You can also choose to browse through all the images or search for a keyword or a colour, such as ‘red’ if you need an image that matches the colours on your website. 

If you create your website with the AI assistant built into the Website Builder, it will choose images that match your business or concept. The AI assistant selects images based on the short description you are asked to enter as part of the process. If you are not completely satisfied with the images, you can, of course, simply replace them.  

Don’t you have access to the Website Builder yet? You can try it for free for 14 days and create a website in no time. Start your free trial now. 

2. Unsplash

On the Unsplash platform, you can find many free high-quality images. The images are taken by photographers from all over the world, and because they are not copyright protected, you can freely download and use them on your website. When you search on Unsplash, you can choose a category or simply enter a keyword in the search field at the top of the website. 

When you are presented with the results, you will notice that some images have a plus sign in the upper left corner. To download and use these images, you need to sign up for a paid subscription with Unsplash. All other images can be freely used on your website

3. Iso Republic

Iso Republic is another popular place to find non-copyrighted images and videos. Both images and videos can be freely used on websites, and you can also edit them if you wish.

The search function on Iso Republic is not as user-friendly as on Unsplash and one.com, but the platform is still very useful, although you may need a few more minutes to find the image you want.

4. Pexels

Pexels is also a good place to look for images for a website. Here you will find everything from office landscapes to nature photos and restaurant images. When you visit Pexels from the UK, you will automatically be redirected to their English website, but if you wish to see the site and search in another language, you can choose your preferred language at the top right corner by clicking on the three dots.

An interesting feature at Pexels is that you can set a filter that allows you to search for images that contain elements in specific colours either by clicking on the colour or entering a hexadecimal colour code.

5. Pixabay

At Pixabay, you can also browse and search for images, illustrations, videos, and vector graphics. The site is available in multiple languages which is an advantage if you prefer to search in another language.  

The search function is good, and you can choose filters that allow you to search for images in specific categories, sizes, colours, etc.

6. Stocksnap.io

According to Stocksnap.io, the platform only selects the highest quality images among the many submitted to them. The result is a large selection of beautiful images in various categories that you can download and use on your website for free. The website has a good search function, but unfortunately, there’s no option to search in multiple languages.  

On each image, you can see how many other users have previously downloaded the image, which can be a big help if you’re searching for an image that hasn’t been used by many others.

7. Negative Space

Negative Space has a simpler search function without the ability to use filters. At the bottom of the page, however, you can search for images in specific colours or by images that match popular tags.  

The site has a good selection of images, but our experience was that there were fewer images to choose from in some categories than on many of the other platforms on our list. Note that the images shown in the top two rows are not free. They can be purchased via iStock.

8. Wikimedia Commons

Wikimedia Commons is different from the other platforms on our list. Here, many of the images are taken by private individuals, which means the quality varies greatly. If you need historical images for an online course or a blog post, you can often find relevant images on Wikimedia Commons. 
 

Wikimedia Commons is created by the Wikimedia Foundation, the organisation behind Wikipedia. This also means that the platform works in the same way as Wikipedia, where almost anyone can upload and edit content. Therefore, we recommend carefully checking whether the images you choose are authentic and factual.

Take your own photos

Although there are plenty of free images to choose from, unique high-quality images are often the best choice. If you, a colleague, or a good friend can take sharp, high-quality photos, you should seize the chance to use these images on your website. 

If you have a restaurant website, you can take a series of appetising photos of the dishes from your menu, of the chefs in your kitchen, or something else that truly captures the essence of the restaurant’s concept. 

If you offer an online yoga course, you can take atmospheric photos of your teaching room, of yourself in various yoga poses, or just a peaceful nature photo that conveys a message of relaxation and well-being. 

On your company’s about us page, you can add photos of the team in the office or pictures from an event you and your colleagues participated in together.  

There are endless possibilities for using unique images to enhance the impact of your content and ensure it hits the mark with your target audience. The most important thing is to always ensure that the images are of good quality, that they look great on all devices, and that the image files aren’t so large that they affect your website’s speed.

How to add images with the Website Builder from one.com

If you create your website with the Website Builder from one.com, you can, as mentioned, choose free images directly from application. This way, you don’t have to rush around to different websites looking for the perfect image. 

This is how easy it is: 

1. Select an image, gallery, or image viewer component in the Website Builder or insert a new component from the menu on the left. 
2. Click on Free from one.com in the window that opens. 
3. Choose a category or search by keyword to narrow your search. 
4. Select the image or illustration you want to use and click Add to page. 
5. The image is now inserted on your website. It also becomes available under My images.

Buying stock photos

At some point, you will likely find it challenging to find a free image that perfectly matches your website. This can happen, for instance, if you have planned a campaign or landing page that requires images with a specific motif or theme that is less common than those typically found on free image platforms. 

In these situations, it is often worth investing in paid stock photos because the images you choose can help decide the success of your project. 

In the Website Builder from one.com, we have included the option to purchase professional stock photos via Shutterstock. You can search for Shutterstock images directly from the Website Builder, where the price is displayed on the individual images.

Images contribute to a stronger brand personality

Images play a crucial role in the impression users and potential customers get of your brand when they visit your website. With the right images, you can create a unique atmosphere around your brand and your business and tailor your message to your target audience. 

Whether you are looking for nature images for a blog, playful dog images for your pet accessories online shop, or background images for a B2B website, you can choose from thousands of free images in the Website Builder from one.com or on one of the other platforms mentioned in the article. And if you need 100% unique images, there’s nothing stopping you from picking up the camera yourself.