They say a picture is worth a thousand words and that’s certainly true in the world of jewellery.
A pixelated, poorly formatted or just plain boring image could mean the difference between a customer buying your product and a customer taking their business elsewhere.
Creating your own images, organising model shoots and paying for fancy editing can be incredibly expensive, which is why many small and medium sized businesses struggle. The answer is to turn to a wealth of royalty-free image websites that offer fantastic images for unlimited use.
What is the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license?
You may be surprised to hear that this isn’t a con. Royalty-free image websites use the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license, which means pictures are completely free to be used for any legal purpose, including on social media and for commercial projects, without having to ask for permission from the creator.
Pictures with this license can also be modified, copied and distributed depending on your needs, and you won’t need to add an attribution or caption linking back to the source.
Here, we’ve outlined five of the best royalty-free image websites that offer a wealth of inspiration, ideas and vision for your next blog post, lookbook or social media update. Everyone has equal access to these websites, so ensure you are choosing images that suit your brand identity, brand language and overall vision. An image may look striking, but if it flies in the face of your overall design ethos, leave it for someone else.
Pexels
Pexels is an easy-to-use image library of around 25,000 free stock images that can be downloaded at the touch of a button. If you’re unsure where to start try their Popular Searches section. We like this website so much, we used one of its images for the headline image on this blog post!
Unsplash
Sign up to Unsplash to receive a 10 free images to your email inbox every 10 days. You can also find inspiration for ways to adapt and alter images to make something extra special on the Made with Unsplash showcase page.
Pixabay
With around 810,000 images, illustrations and graphics to choose from, Pixabay is bound to have something you’re looking for. Its Editor’s Choice pictures are handpicked by the Pixabay team, making this a good particularly good place to start.
Magdeleine
For images with real artistic flair that look like they’re straight out of an indie magazine try Magdeleine, which offers a new free image every day. Its City and Architecture category is particularly good for collections and blog posts inspired by travel.
Gratisography
Photographer Ryan McGuire lets brands, businesses and individuals access his quirky image library for free, including some great urban and nature shots. If you find a shot you really love, Ryan has a spot on his website where you can buy him a cup of coffee as payment!
Now you’ve found the images in-keeping with your brand proposition, find out how to make the most of them by reading our guide to the top five Must-Have Free Marketing Tools.
To get more help and advice to grow your brand, contact the team at International Jewellery London.
Thank you for this post! This will help me with my blog so much!