Source: yayimages.com
You’ve just finished writing a blog post, tweets, and Facebook updates about your product. Now it’s time to prepare photos to accompany your post.
Where should you go?
You could spend hours creating your own images using Photoshop or download free stock photos. The problem is, there are so many websites that it’s hard to know which sites give you permission to use their photos.
If a site says you can use their photos for free, does that mean you can use them in your marketing?
The Internet is a visual place. And since a lot of the information transmitted to the human brain is visual, your visual marketing needs to be more than just nice-looking, but also compelling.
Finding high-quality, affordable stock photos is easier than ever before. All you need to do is search the web, and you can find a huge amount of free stock photos.
Yay Images is one of the sites where you can find stock photos for free.
This review will take a look at what Yay Images is, how it works, and whether it’s a good website for getting royalty-free images.
What’s Yay Images About?
Yay Images is a stock photography website with high-quality commercial and personal use stock photos at affordable prices. They also offer instant downloads for their subscribers.
You’re a designer, and you haven’t heard of Yay Images? Then you’ve been missing out! Yay Images has not only high-quality stock photos, but it also has vector files and icons to use in your designs. All the photos are free to use, and attribution is not required (more on that later).
Whether you want to source stock images for an infographic or just to have them on hand, Yay Images has what you’re looking for at an affordable price.
What Does Yay Images Offer?
- Image categories
- Text-space filter
- Vector categories
- Reverse image search
- Promoting photographers
- Vertical/horizontal filter
- Favouriting photographers
- Similar image search
- Image curations
It’s similar to Shutterstock (check out my Shutterstock review!) but with a few differences:
- No music, 3D models, or templates are available – the features aren’t as versatile as Shutterstock.
- The website is not as big as Shutterstock
- It’s not as expensive as Shutterstock
This collection of free photos offers a wide range of images that content marketers can use for their blog.
The images on the site are royalty-free. I’ll explain what that means.
What Does Royalty-Free Mean?
Royalty-free is a licensing scheme that allows you to protect images without contacting the artist for permission.
This is an excellent way to license images for both print and web without contacting the artist. You can also use this to protect photos for websites, t-shirts, and other promotional materials.
When you choose royalty-free images, it gives your website more personality. It helps them look more interesting and more engaging than other websites.
I’d recommend crediting the artist when you post their image(s) on your webpage. It’s only fair.
How Is It Used?
Source: yayimages.com
Because of the site’s simple design, Yay Images is easy to navigate. In the screenshot above, you can see the links to images, vectors, videos, and pricing plans, along with a search bar that allows you to type in whatever you’re looking for.
Source: yayimages.com
Type in your query and wait for the search results to come up. On the left side of the screen, you can filter the results to see what you want. You can sort the images by relevance, orientations, vectors, colours, and more.
If you’re logged in, you can click on the silhouette icon with your account name in the top right corner. The following screenshot will show you what it will look like:
Source: yayimages.com
Once you click on it, a dropdown menu will appear. It will show you numerous links that will take you to the relevant page. Just click on any of those links to go to these pages.
To log out of your account, just click “Log out”, and you’re done!
Who Is The Target Audience For Yay Images?
Although Yay Images is for anyone who would find this tool useful, the following occupations would benefit the most from Yay Images:
- Photographers
- Freelancers
- Brands
- Bloggers
- News agencies
- Digital marketers
You don’t have to be in any of these professions to find Yay Images useful – if you want to find images and videos without royalties attached, you can’t go wrong with Yay Images!
Pricing And Payment
Source: yayimages.com
I’m not sure if Yay Images offers a free trial. Even so, Yay Images does have some affordable prices for both images and videos.
There’s a monthly plan and a yearly plan for videos and images. There’s also an unlimited plan that can be billed either monthly or quarterly (every three months).
Images:
- Monthly: $19 per month (40 images a month), $49 per month (100 images a month), $99 per month (260 images a month)
- Yearly: $159 per month (40 images a month), $249 per month (100 images a month), $509 per month (260 images a month)
- Unlimited: $29 per month (monthly plan), $49 per quarter (quarterly plan)
- Credit packs: 50 images for $79, 100 images for $119, 200 images for $199
Videos:
- Monthly: $19.99 per month (5 Regular HD videos a month), $24.99 per month (10 Regular HD videos a month), $49.99 per month (50 Regular HD videos a month)
- Yearly: $139 per month (5 Regular HD videos a month), $349 per month (10 Regular HD videos a month), $69.99 per month (50 images a month)
- Unlimited: $29 per month (monthly plan), $49 per quarter (quarterly plan)
- Credit packs: $299 per month (15 Regular HD videos a month) $449 per month (25 Regular HD videos a month), $849 per month (50 Regular HD videos a month)
Features Included
- Text space search
- People search
- Colour search
- Visual search
- Commercial License
- Copyright protection
- Project folders
- Celebrity images
Pros And Cons
Pros:
- Easy to navigate the website due to its simple design
- Has a variety of photos to choose from
- The price plans are affordable
- Live chat available when you need help – they will reply to you within a day.
- Your image allowance automatically rolls over to the next month – you don’t have to worry about your image allowance expiring.
Cons:
- The response time for the live chat is a day – it could be shorter
- Lack of information about a free trial
- “About Us” section needs to be in a visible place, e.g. top screen
- The website design could be better
Overall Verdict
Source: yayimages.com
Photos are essential, especially when you’re talking about your product or services. They help people see your company’s business practices from a fresh perspective.
Great photos can significantly impact people, so make sure that they help prove to the Internet what kind of business you run.
Stock photos are a great addition to every business toolkit. However, getting the most out of them takes a bit of effort.
Yay Images is a lot of fun to use, and the images they provide can make your content stand out. I’m not talking about the big, bloated sites that host millions of images.
I’m talking about a new provider, a company using an interesting approach to building a unique collection of royalty-free photos.
Source: yayimages.com
Royalty-free photos are great for investing in your branding, so invest in an unlimited number of photos.
The royalty-free stock photography section is a collection of photos that are both appealing and useful.
These usually show great product shots of everything from housing to business cards, wedding photos, event photography, landscape photography, and abstract stuff, and even crazy or funny product shots can be quite compelling.
If you want attractive photos for your blog post that don’t cost an arm and a leg, Yay Images is the place to find them.
The overall verdict is: Yay Images scores 85%
Who doesn’t love images? Who doesn’t love free stock images?! If you’re a blogger and want to improve your visuals or just want a great collection of quality images to add to your website, check out Yay Images!
If you’re not satisfied with Yay Images, look at these alternatives instead:
If this review has piqued your interest, start using Yay Images here.
