Whether you like tinkering under the hood of your own website or simply adding some fresh and relevant blog posts, images play a crucial role in the appeal and SEO effectiveness of your website. It can get rather boring selecting and repurposing the same images from your website library over and over, so cast your eyes further afield and seek out Creative Commons images.
It’s important for small businesses to remain relevant in the digital marketing space, with high-ranking Adelaide and Cairns web designs being critical for your business’ exposure.
What are Creative Commons Zero Images?
Essentially, Creative Commons Zero images are images licensed under Creative Commons Zero, enabling users to use, edit and distribute images for commercial purposes for free. All this without having to seek permission from the creator!
There are quite a few good stock image websites that provide a proportion of their images under this license. Here are a few that we use for our Cairns and Adelaide web design clients:
Although the sites offer Creative Commons Zero licenses for many images, be mindful that they also offer paid images. I recommend you always check the license or permission prior to using each image on your Cairns or Adelaide web design.
Now that you have your fresh, free images for use on your website pages or blog post, it’s a good idea to consider optimising the images for the web. This means:
- Changing the image filename to match your Cairns or Adelaide SEO keyword strategy
- Adding relevant, optimised alt text once loaded onto your website library
- Ensuring your image has the required dimensions and resolution prior to moving onto your site
Bring out the Gimp
While the first two considerations present relatively easy tasks, the last requirement can be somewhat difficult without a suitable program. My go-to image editing program is GIMP. Yep, you read it correctly… GIMP. It stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program and it’s great for a number of reasons:
- You can edit images in a range of formats
- It’s jam packed with cool editing tools and features
- It’s relatively easy to learn and there are loads of YouTube tips online
- Best of all, it is open source software, meaning it is completely FREE
I like it because I can quickly scale down my images and reduce the file size in a preview pane. This means that I can use a slider tool to reduce the image file size while ensuring the resolution integrity.
Conclusion
So there you have it, free images and an awesome free image editor. Perfect for all your DIY web design and blog projects.
If you find you’re struggling with your designs or posts, Digital Marketing Hub can help you with all your Cairns and Adelaide SEO and web design needs.
