The truth of the adage 'a picture is worth a thousand words' has never been disputed.
Besides adding visual appeal to your website, images can enrich and emphasise the meaning of your articles. They are an effective tool to stimulate interest and attract a reader’s attention to your content.
Selecting the right image, however, can be a time consuming process. The web is awash with free stock images (of variable quality) and trolling through dozens of photos to find the perfect picture can be tedious to say the least. Having a few preferred go-to sources where you’re sure to find what you’re looking for can turn a chore into a pleasant break in the day. Here are a few image sites that stand out from the rest for the caliber of their free offerings.
The photos on IM Creator are conveniently organised into categories by theme. Their more limited selection offers enough choice without being overwhelming. It makes finding the right image a manageable process. An important consideration, when for many of us, time is a commodity in short supply.
Other treasure troves of beautiful photos can be found at Unsplash and Pexels. With both, you can even subscribe for a weekly delivery of random images.
For banners and backgrounds, The Pattern Library provides a kaleidoscopic array of stunning designer crafted patterns and textures.
And finally art lovers might wish to peruse the online gallery of the Rijksmuseum. It has made available high-resolution downloads of 125,000 artworks from its collection. It even provides online editing tools. While the downloads are free, Rijksstudio asks they not be used commercially.
When it comes to building a compelling website, incorporating high-quality images can be a game-changer. They have the ability to captivate visitors, convey messages effectively, and elevate the overall user experience.
When photos and illustrations are well chosen and relevant to the content, they can improve the impression a visitor has of your website.
However, finding suitable images can seem to be a daunting task. Fortunately, there's a treasure trove of free-use and cheap images readily available to help you deliver a professional and visually appealing website.
Using the sites listed below you should have no problem finding free and cheap images that will bring your pages alive.
Unsplash
Whether you're a web designer looking for that perfect hero image, a blogger in need of striking visuals to accompany your articles, or an entrepreneur seeking to enhance your branding with eye-catching visuals, Unsplash has you covered. With its extensive range of free-to-use images and an intuitive user interface, Unsplash empowers you to elevate your projects and bring your creative visions to life.
Pexels
Pexels houses a diverse and extensive library of free stock photos and videos, contributed by talented creators from around the globe. From mesmerizing landscapes that transport you to distant realms to authentic lifestyle shots that capture the essence of human experiences, Pexels offers an impressive range of visuals to suit a variety of projects and purposes.
Pexels has the option to directly upload and edit any photo to your workspace in Canva.
Canva
Canva is a user-friendly and versatile online design platform that has revolutionized the way people create and customize images. It has become the go-to tool for designers and non-designers alike, enabling you to unlock your creative potential and produce visually striking content.
With Canva's extensive library of stock photos, illustrations and icons, you have a wealth of visual elements at your fingertips. No longer do you need to spend hours searching for suitable images or worry about copyright restrictions. Canva streamlines the process by offering a vast collection of ready-to-use assets that you can customize and integrate seamlessly into your designs.
Canva offers a free subscription plan that provides access to a wide library of free and for sale stock photos and illustrations. Whatever you budget, Canva ensures that you have access to the tools and resources you need to bring your creative visions to life.
Burst by Shopify
Burst houses an extensive library of visually stunning stock photos, carefully sourced to cater to the needs of entrepreneurs, small businesses, and independent creatives. Burst not only provides free stock photos but also offers curated collections and business-focused images tailored to various industries, allowing entrepreneurs and online sellers to find the perfect visual assets that align with their brand identity and marketing goals.
Rawpixel
Rawpixel sets itself apart with its commitment to inclusivity and diversity, offering a wide variety of visuals that reflect the world we live in. Its library encompasses a vast array of subjects, styles, and themes, ensuring that you can find the perfect image or illustration to match your creative vision.
StockSnap
StockSnap is a destination for free high-quality, high-resolution stock photos. It stands out with its user-friendly interface, making it easy to search and browse through thousands of images. New photos are added weekly, ensuring a fresh and diverse selection. All photos are free from copyright restrictions, allowing users to download, modify, and use them without any attribution required.
Conclusion
With these image collections as your creative allies, there's no excuse for not being able to find the perfect image to match your creative vision.
While these websites provide free-to-use images, it's always a good practice to review and understand the specific licensing terms and attributions required for each image to ensure proper usage.
Ready to transform your knowledge into an online business with a membership website but don’t have the time or skill to build it yourself? Our design service could be the solution.
Never underestimate the impact of a well-crafted teaser on a reader or website visitor. This brief yet informative text can be the deciding factor that compels a reader to fully engage with your content.
Creating a membership website homepage is more than just designing a visually appealing page; it’s about crafting an experience that guides visitors seamlessly toward becoming subscribers. Membership homepages need content designed to introduce, inform, build trust, peak interest and prompt the subscription of a visitor. And they also need to be optimised with keywords to be found by search engines.
Getting your first 100 paying customers for a membership website is always the hardest part. But once you reach that number, it becomes much easier to attract new members.
We've put together a 90-day plan for you to get your first 100 paying customers.
Starting an online magazine has never been easier. Whether you are an individual with a passion for a specific niche or a business seeking to expand its online presence, the wealth of affordable and user-friendly tools makes publishing an online magazine achievable for even a solopreneur.
These days, if you're looking to manipulate or edit your photos and images, it shouldn't mean you have to purchase expensive software or engage a professional graphic designer. A lot of the functionality that the majority of people need is available with free or low-cost web-based image & photo editing software.
Using headings effectively on your website’s homepage is essential for both engaging users and optimising your site for search engines. Well-crafted headings not only capture attention but also play a vital role in guiding your visitors and improving your SEO performance.
Color is a visitor's first point of engagement with a website. This makes choosing the correct color scheme essential. Not only do color choices, create brand awareness, they actually trigger specific emotions and influence conversion rates.
If you run a coaching business in 2025, taking it online through a membership website is a smart way to expand your reach globally and scale your business quickly.
Setting the subscription prices for your membership website is a critical step to ensuring its profitability and long-term sustainability. When deciding the price, it's important to consider various factors, including the value you offer, your target audience and the costs involved.
The best place to start is with your content. Once your message and structure are clear, design becomes a tool to present that message effectively. A well-designed site should look visually appealing, guide visitors intuitively, and inspire them to take action.
If you’ve ever wondered how to plan an event online, now is the time to learn. With 2020 being the year of Zoom, it’s no surprise that holding virtual events has skyrocketed as traditional live events are on hold. But you might be wondering, "Is that good thing?"
The importance of an intelligently crafted pricing page cannot be overstated. When trying to convince visitors to become subscribers of a membership website, the pricing page is a pivotal element in the conversion journey. It's the gateway where potential customers make the crucial decision to commit to your membership.
If you're an expert in a niche subject and want to start a business to earn an income from your knowledge, then starting a membership website is the answer.
A membership website allows you to protect your exclusive content behind a paywall so access is only granted to subscribers.
This article will list the steps you need to take to start building your membership website.
1. Identify your target audience
Growing an audience of paying users requires creating content tailored to their needs.
It may seem counter-intuitive but by focusing on a specific niche subject you'll be able to more effectively create content that appeals to your target audience.
Knowing the customer persona of your target audience, enables you to identify and create impactful content specific to their needs along with effective marketing strategies to reach and engage them.
A narrow audience allows you to craft targeted marketing messages that will resonate with potential members resulting in successful marketing campaigns.
2. Determine your membership model
Once you identify your audience, you need to decide the content that you plan to offer, how it will be delivered and the sales model. Employing multiple revenue streams will maximise your ability to monetise your content. For example, by providing a visitor, who doesn't intend to sign-up to a membership, the opportunity to purchase a course, digital download or pay-per-view product means you still capture revenue. The SubHub platform gives you the ability to create multiple revenue streams.
Offering membership tiers which unlock more content and perks depending on the level is another upsell option to employ. But remember, too many choices can have a negative impact. According to Hick’s Law, the more choices you present to a user can prolong their decision making process. So limit the membership levels to no more than four.
Membership fees can be set up as a one-time payments or on a recurring basis. Recurring fees have the advantage of providing a steady and reliable income flow. For members that might need a nudge, including free trial days can entice them to sign up.
3. Choosing the best membership platform for your needs
These days there are a wealth of membership models to choose from. They include WordPress, where you can build your site's functionality with plugins, to all-in-one SaaS solutions. Which you select will depend on your budget, tech skills, membership objectives and the content you want to sell.
WordPress offers the most flexibility when it comes to the design and functionality you can achieve with your website. However, those benefits also come with costs and disadvantages. Unless you have technical skills or the budget to hire a developer, a WordPress site can be out of your price range.
The other major downside with WordPress is plug-in maintenance. When you build a website based on the interaction of multiple plugins, you must insure they are all compatible. One incompatible plugin, can break your whole site. This often happens when a plugin needs to be updated. And when it does, you'll need to hire a developer to fix it.
Alternatively, a SaaS solution (Software as a Service) is a complete service that provides you not only with the website but hosting, maintenance and customer support. Popular SaaS examples are Wix, Shopify, Teachable and SubHub. A SaaS solution reduces the stress of running an online knowledge business. If something breaks, you just need to submit a support ticket. And SaaS companies are always working to improve their product offerings.
You'll want to select a platform you can grow with. The design, functionality, and scalability should be flexible enough to modify to meet your target audience’s changing needs.
Many SaaS solutions specialise in the delivery of specific types of content. If you plan to only sell online courses, you might select an eLearning platform like Teachable. If your focus is website membership, but also want the additional revenue stream of selling courses then the SubHub platform is the answer.
Lastly, choose a platform that provides dedicated customer support. When you run a membership website, there will be issues. Read client reviews support by people who really understand both technology and online publishing is vital.
4. Building your website
If you've selected a SaaS solution, you can start right away creating your site with that solution's website builder. Most SaaS solutions are intended to be intuitive enough for a non-techie to easily use.
Your homepage will be the most important page on your site as it will influence whether or not a visitor becomes a member. Be sure to carefully craft the copy of your banner and body text so that it informs and engages with your potential members. Clearly define, the benefits of your membership proposition.
Your homepage must also be SEO optimised with keywords so that your site is found in search results.
Include a testimonial section as client reviews can have a persuasive impact by showing visitors that others value your product, it’s a vote of confidence in your product.
Pay attention to page speed as a slow loading page will cause visitors to bounce.
These are just a few tips to create a converting homepage.
5. Upload initial content
Before launching, you'll need to have uploaded enough content to satisfy your first members. This could be in the form of blog posts, courses, downloads, videos etc. Then you'll need to stay committed to a regular schedule of adding new content.
Make sure your content is meaningful and is of value to your audience.
6. Follow SEO best practices
Just launching a website isn't enough to get found. From the start, be sure to follow SEO best practices when creating your site and adding content. This will improve your chance of getting found in search results. Using keywords, the proper heading format, internal links and requesting backlinks are all necessary to insure that when Google and other search engines index your site that they understand what your site is about, how content relates to each other.
The same focus keyword needs to be present in your meta title, article headline, first sentence and a few times in the article body.
Once you create an article, submit it to Google search so that it is indexed within 24 hours.
Use the proper heading (H1, H2, H3...) format on your pages. H1 must only be used ONCE on any page. Proper headings inform search engines about the structure of your site and the hierarchy of your content.
Internal links are created when you include links of similarly-themed content to each other. Again, this help search engines understand the content on your site and how it relates to each other.
When a site links to your site, this is a backlink. It proves to search engines that your content is relevant and trustworthy.
7. Grow a community on social media
Drive traffic to your website using your social media channels. It's best to select a single social media platform and then dedicate all your efforts to building an audience. Choose the platform where your prospective members will be hanging out.
Conclusion
Membership is one of the most exciting business opportunities on the internet today. It is established enough that you will not have to reinvent the wheel. Everything you need to be successful is available and accessible to novices and experts alike.
Having a well-designed church website is essential for keeping your congregation connected, attracting new visitors, and sharing your ministry’s mission. A great website serves as a hub for online sermons, event updates, and community engagement.
