Free image banks have become the preferred resource for many people to obtain resources for their content.
The use of image banks is one of the most common existing ways to broadcast and disseminate original visual content. The resource is used, likewise, for newspaper articles, social media posts, or blog posts that make a good impact on users by attracting more visits and improving SEO.
They are also a good vehicle for promoting a social media marketing strategy. Most importantly, they get much more engagement than other content and new followers. Images are the most widely used content nowadays and, with them, you can capture people’s attention, much more than with simple text.
In fact, free image banks are essential in marketing because they allow you to find royalty-free images. All the images that are in Google are someone’s and have copyright. Using them without consent can lead to penalties and fines, so it is not advisable.
What you can find in free image banks
Free image banks are platforms where you can find countless free photos and images and photo collections. They cover all kinds of content such as drawings, art, illustrations, vector drawings, photographs, etc. They can be used at any time and with total freedom.
Copyright is not an issue with these image banks, as all content stored on such a platform is free of it. However, it is important to know that although these resources are free, some are subject to attribution licenses. That is, you can use them for personal and commercial purposes in exchange for mentioning the author or including a link that makes them available to users.
Therefore, if this method does not convince you, you should focus your search for resources on what are called “public domain” resources, which you can use without limitation or attribution. Knowing what the advantages and best image banks are is decisive for a good content strategy for social networks, blogs or web pages.
The value of free image banks for content creation
Having visual resources is very important to attract customers to a website, blog or social network. Therefore, it is important to have a place to find the best images for free. Using visual content is one of the most popular techniques in today’s digital world.
Having not only good text, but good visuals increases the chances of gaining visibility, engagement and relevance. The visual must be introduced into any strategy that wants to achieve good results.
Keep in mind that in social networks it is usually very difficult to stand out. There are many users and brands sharing content at the same time, and the algorithms of social platforms also do not make it easy. Images are essential to capture the attention of the audience. Thus, the benefits of having free image banks are many and should not be missed in any strategy.
The benefits of visual content
Having visual content is important to support any marketing campaign or strategy that you want to stand out from the rest. There are many specific benefits to having visual content such as the following:
A.- Potential
Generating your own content is very valuable in positioning yourself against the competition, as there is a greater likelihood of being found by the customer. In social networks, quality and original visual content prevails. Therefore, having free image banks is very important.
B.- High power of attraction
Quality visual content is relevant for generating traffic and attracting potential customers. If a strategy is supported by social networks such as Instagram, Pinterest, etc., which base its relevance on images, it will undoubtedly have a higher chance of being seen by consumers. This is a good way to get the right content of a marketing strategy.
C.- Generating quality traffic
The various visual assets on a website, blog or social network are important for generating quality traffic and increasing lead generation for the brand.
D.- Bonding
Purely visual content helps create long-lasting links with potential customers. This happens because valuable content is offered. This, in turn, results in increased virality in the publications that are made.
E.- SEO positioning
One of the most effective strategies to increase SEO ranking is to use quality images in different content. It should be planned: where to find them, knowing where they are most effective, labeling them correctly, etc. All these data will help to rank them in different search engines.
F.- Brand recognition
Visual content helps a brand become known in the minds of consumers. Most of the information on a Web site, blog or social network is obtained through the senses. Sight plays a key role here.
Images in content strategies
The following are some important facts to keep in mind about the importance of visual content in an effective marketing strategy. In this regard, free image banks play a central role:
- Content with images increases its effectiveness and traffic by 11%.
- 25% of articles are read on the Internet, and images play a central role in providing extra valuable content.
- About 350 million images are posted daily on Facebook and on Twitter, images generate 140% of retweets.
- Publishing visual content increases engagement by 38 percent in contrast to other types of content.
- According to some studies, the inclusion of colors in content contributes 80% more reading interest.
What are the best free image banks?
If you want to stand out from the competition and have a good position in the minds of consumers, having images is a good option. Among the top free image banks are the following:
1.- Pexel
Pexels offers a wide variety of content for use in brand content strategy. It contains not only images but also videos. The search engine allows you to select or search by points of interest, trends, colors, and size. One click is all it takes to download the content.
2.- Pixabay
Pixabay is an excellent option because its images have a CC0 license, meaning these images can be used without problems or restrictions. A unique feature of this Web site is that it allows you to select a particular language. The truth is that English language searches produce the best results. The range of options is very wide between photos, videos, drawings or illustrations. It contains more than 1.1 million images.
3.- Unsplash
This is a good image bank and is relatively new, but it has grown tremendously in recent times. It has quality images. It allows you to see collections of images by their authors, which simplifies the location of the files in your portal, so if you are looking for the same line of images, this is a good option. Unsplash is a very popular site and you need to be careful because its images may have already been used elsewhere.
4.- Wundrstock
Wunderstock is commonly said to be Unsplash’s little brother for a number of reasons. One of these is its interface, which is very similar, as well as having quality images but little variety. One relevant aspect is that the platform will allow, once the search is done, to filter images by license type.
5.- New Old Stock
This is one of the most important free image banks if you want to search for old or vintage images. The variety is not very wide and you can find good quality images, but also others whose quality is a bit poor.
6.- Freeimages
Freeimages is a very comprehensive free image search engine. Its main advantage is that it is perfect for very specific content searches. It allows you to filter results by content type, resolution, size, color, author, etc.
7.- Flickr
Not only is it one of the best free image banks, but it is also a social network for sharing files and collections. Getting images from Flickr is relatively easy and there is no need to register on the web portal. If a user has registered they will have a total of 1000 GB to store photos or videos. It contains 13 million photos in its archive.
8.- Gratisography
Gratisography is one of the premier free image banks for downloading high-resolution, royalty-free photos. Its collection is not as extensive as other content banks although, without a doubt, the images you will find are unique. It has a very intuitive search engine and several categories of images.
Do you want to improve your brand’s web positioning through images? At Antevenio, we help you with effective SEO strategies to get qualified traffic to your website. We organically position your page in the top search rankings.
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