Your blog (powerpoint, ebook, email, or social media post) is nearly ready and you ask a colleague, the boss or your team to check it over and the feedback is..."Great post, but I am not sure about the image... You need something slicker, more elegant and stronger..."

S**t... you say... where can you get a striking image without paying a fortune for it? These are our favourite sites where you can get really professional and impactful photos to use in your B2B content marketing efforts or your next event presentation.

Pexels.com

Unsplash

LittleVisuals.co

This website stopped publishing pictures in 2013, but their collection is pretty cool and impactful. Still worth a look.

Stocksnap.io

Freepik.com

Not only photos, in fact is not about pictures but normally the things that go with pictures. So this is a cool resource to get icons, vectors, backgrounds etc.

Gratisography.com

Freestocks.org

Pixabay.com

Designerspics.com

Morguefile.com

Publicdomainpictures.net

Public domain pictures but please double check the small print in the photo you want to download beforehand.

Picjumbo.com

Freestocks.org

Pikwizard.com

They have a lot of pictures of people, which tend to be rare in free stock photo sites. If you check out our site search for "office" or "meeting" and you'll see a wide variety of options, not your usual two guys in suits shaking hands.

Flickr.com

In my opinion if you have extra time and are prepared to think outside the box, you will be able to get really cool and unique photos that no one else is using.

Very important: Ensure you only check through the creative commons group of photos and read carefully as while you can use it without paying, the license given might have some conditions, like you are not able to change the photo etc, and please give link and credit back to the user.

In conclusion

There's no excuse for not having a really visually slick content marketing piece, website, blog or presentation. These sites are gaining lots of momentum and yes you're likely to encounter the usual cliché photos of a macbook, coffee mug or notebook but there's also some great quirky and interesting images you can weave into your content themes. If you're patient enough and plan on what message your images will convey and how they complement your content piece, they become really powerful at enticing and engaging the reader.

Have I missed anything? send me your suggestions.