Where to find photos for your pet business marketing materials

Whether you are blogging, or writing newsletters or articles for your pet business, it's always good practice to include a good photo to go along with your writing. Studies show that photos engage readers more effectively, and get more attention in the newsfeed of Facebook than other posts.

The best photos you can use are personal ones, ones of your own pets - dog, cats, ferrets, hamsters and more. I always have a camera with me, whether it's my cell phone, my point and shoot or my digital SLR to be sure that I can always capture a good shot of my dogs and cats. I have a library of 1000's of photos I've taken over the years that I can pull from anytime.

But if you don't have the right personal photo, several sites offer free to use photos listed under the Creative Commons Public License. Remember it's very important that any photos, illustrations, or images you use fall under this license, otherwise you are not legally allowed to use them and can risk facing legal action.

Here are my favorite sites to find photos that fall under the CCPL:

EveryStockPhoto.com - a search engine for free photos, that come from many sources and are license-specific. You can view a photo's license by clicking on the license icon, near the photo.

Stock.xchng - owned by Getty Images this site is one of my favorites for free stock images. Make sure you check the license under each photo for instructions on reciprocal linking requirements if required.

FreeFoto - another free image site under CCPL, but with less photos. A search for animals returned about 2000 images. But could potentially be a good resource.

And if you can't find just what you are looking for with these free sites, you can always check IStockPhoto.com for very inexpensive professional looking images. They have a vast library of a wide variety of photos, illustrations, images and more that I've used for years for my clients.

Photo credits: Camera and Johann and Gracie Google