*Cliche Alert* A picture is worth a thousand words. I'm sorry I had to, it's a classic. We all know the value of a well written blog post full of insight and interest for your reader, but doesn't a perfect photo just catch the attention of the reader so much more? If you are blogging on the regular, it can be challenging to provide eye-catching and relevant photos for every post, not to mention the cover photo, but blogging everyday, I've discovered a few fabulous (and free) photo sources that are totally free to use how you want (well for the most part, some images require accreditation). 

The first is one of my personal favorites, Unsplash.com

• From beautiful scenery to laptop and technology photos, unspash works on submissions from aspiring photographers. Ten brand new photos are added every ten days, that are completely free to use at your discretion. The best part about these photos, is that each and every photo is a hi-resolution photo that look great on the web! I use photos from unsplash for cover photos, that really make the home page look great.

The second source of free to use stock photos is sxc.hu

• The Stock.XCGBG (stock exchange) has a huge library of free stock images. And as the tag-line says, it really is the leading source of free stock photos. The trick with this site is it does take a little bit of digging to find the perfect photo. Try searching for a variety of keywords, sometimes you'd be surprised what you can find. For example. if you are writing a post on blogging there is a plethora of  photos that would work for the article. Try looking for photos of a person typing, a computer or laptop, or even a person thinking. Cast a wider search net and you'll be surprised at what you can catch.

Finally, free digital photos is, just as the name suggests, a free digital photo site

• But what makes this site unique, is the addition of digital illustrations. Illustrations are a great way to add a little whimsy to your posts. They also have great traditional business stock photos that can be used for your promotional materials, such as events or webinars if you host them. This site is great, but mostly use these images for in your blog post, because you can only download the small version of the image for free.

Have fun with your blog posts, they are there to show your expertise, but also to show that there are real people behind the scenes running your practice.