Tuesday Tip: Freshen up your marketing images, for free

With so much on our content marketing to-do list, images often become an afterthought. And once we finally get to finding that eye-catching visual to go with our blog or social post, it takes far too much additional time to find an image that's royalty-free and engaging. Today's Tuesday Tip: Stop wasting time with your stock image search. Use the sites below as your go-to for finding free stock images and creating strong marketing visuals.

First, a free blog post design tool

Canva

I cannot give this tool enough credit. In designing blog images for three different blogs, it's saved me about two hours per week, every week for a year – which definitely adds up. It also keeps me innovative as they have so many templates and examples to work off of; I am constantly going to this site for inspiration. 

Canva provides you with templates for many types of projects (blog images, Facebook ads, infographics and beyond). Once you have your template, you can add your own images or use theirs. They also provide free fonts, icons and symbols to create a highly custom design. 

With all of their features and user-friendly experience, this process can take just a few minutes instead of hours. Did I mention this is all free?? If you have the budget for the paid plan (see the affordable prices here), these abilities only grow. 

Free stock image sites

The photographers on these sites donate the photos, so they are royalty free, but beyond that, these sites have creative, modern images. I've searched far and wide for the best sites, and the picks below are my 8 favorites. They have the best searching abilities of the tools I've explored so you'll be more able to find a photo relevant for your topic. On top of that, they have the widest array of high quality photos. 

AvoPix

Barn Images

Pexels

picjumbo

Pik Wizard

PixaBay

StockSnap

StockVault 

Unsplash

For more time-saving digital tools, take a look at more digital marketing tool recommendations »