Whilst we suggest you take photos of your own work (past projects, products, team members etc.) as this will look and feel much more authentic and original. We appreciate that not everyone has photography skills, the equipment (a newish phone or camera) or the right lighting to capture their work.
Therefore a grainy, poorly lit image is not likely to help your company impress. Particularly if these images are used as a main banner image for your company.
So what are your options if you’re not going to take your own photos?
1) Don’t use images on your site – would not recommend this, imagery is highly important online. Websites can look dull quickly without any photos.
2) Pay a professional photographer to photograph your work. This is really expensive and not really a realistic option for a small business.
3) Pay for expensive images at adobe stock or shutter stock? that’s an option for sure, but if you’re like most people a free option is better.
4) Use free stock image sites to find related imagery for your trade / company.
Free images online
Option 4 is the winner here. So lets look at the best 8 sites to use for free images for your tradie website or social media posts.
Pexels
Unsplash
Burst
PikWizard
Pixabay
Kaboompics
Lifeofpix
IsoRepublic
All the sites above allow for the download of free images with no need to sign up or provide any credit card details.
Some nice examples we’ve found:
Finding suitable images
The above sites operate in a similar way to google, but the search function is quite a bit more precious, in that they search words very specifically and might not recognise words like ‘tradie’ and return 0 images, but then return hundreds of images for ‘tradesperson’.
So be careful with your search terms. Also mix up the words you look for. For example, just typing in tradesmen might not return what you’re after as a bricklayer, however typing in specific tools like ‘trowel’ or objects like ‘bricks’ or ‘mortar’ might return images that have the desired look.
Avoid
Try to avoid:
Images with peoples faces in them these people don’t work for/with you so it seems odd to show a random person’s face.
Clearly fake photos models holding tools awkwardly / standing in the wrong spot etc.
Photos that are clearly from a different country having a photo with a sign or imagery that is clearly from the US is not a great idea as an Australian business.
Unauthentic images don’t use images of someone handmaking a dollhouse if that’s not what your business makes.
Some examples include:
If you need any help with your social marketing, website or branding get in touch with us.
