Best Practices For Images On Websites: One Wrong Photo = $500 Or More

Here is something most small business owners do not think about until it is too late: every photograph you post on your website carries a legal history. Someone took that photo. Someone owns it. And if you are using that photo without their permission, there are now companies whose entire business model is built around finding you, contacting you, and sending you a bill. That’s why it’s critically important to understand and deploy best practices for images on websites: you’ll learn how to avoid copyright infringement on website images.

Why Does My Website Need Photos? (Answer: Higher Site Visitor Engagement)

Before we get to the risk of unauthorized use of photos on websites, let’s start with why images matter so much in the first place. In simple terms, a website lives or dies on its visuals.

Research shows that web pages featuring strong images produce up to 650 percent higher engagement than text-only pages. Visitors stay an average of 47 percent longer on visually compelling sites. In controlled tests, simply swapping a generic illustration for a real photograph more than doubled conversion rates on some pages.

The point is simple: images are not decoration. They are doing serious work for your business every time someone lands on your website. This means it is worth adding images to your website — and obtaining them legally.

Best Practices For Images On Websites: What’s The Best Way To Get Images For A Website?

When it comes to obtaining website images, there are only two safe options that limit risk.

Option 1: You can use photographs you have properly licensed by purchasing them from a reputable stock image website.
or
Option 2: You can use photographs taken by you, your team, or a professional photographer you have hired. That is the complete list.

Pulling an image from Google, copying it from another website, or saving something off social media is copyright infringement. It’s copyright infringement if you did not know the image was protected. It’s copyright infringement even if you credited the photographer. It’s copyright infringement even if your business and website are small. The ‘I didn’t know’ defense does not hold up, and the days of that risk being theoretical are over.

Best Practices For Images On Websites: Companies Now Scan Your Website Looking For Copyright Infringement

A new category of business has emerged in recent years with one specific purpose: crawling the internet for unauthorized image use and sending demand letters to the websites where those images appear. The most prominent of these is PicRights, a company with offices in Switzerland, Canada, and the UK that works on behalf of photographers and image agencies to pursue infringement claims.

If their bots find one of their clients’ images on your site, you will receive an email demanding the image be removed immediately — along with a settlement bill, often $500 to $1,500 or more per image, and a warning that failure to pay could result in legal action. The letters are written to be intimidating, and for many small business owners who receive one, they succeed.

The good news: This scenario is entirely avoidable. Keep records of every website image you purchase and never post a photo whose origin you cannot document.

Best Practices For Images On Websites: Where Can I Find Website Images That I Can Use?

Affordable and even free options for properly licensed photography are widely available. These online photo platforms are called “stock image” websites, i.e., images that have a standing stock of millions of images that can be purchased.

DepositPhotos offers millions of images at very reasonable prices…$5 or less per image. iStock, backed by Getty Images, offers a more curated collection at a mid-range price point, with many stock images ranging from $13 to $33 per image. For businesses on tight budgets, free platforms like Unsplash, Pexels, and Pixabay offer stock photography available for commercial use at no cost.

And of course, original photography — whether you take it yourself or hire a professional — gives you images no competitor can replicate and rights you own outright. If you do hire a photographer, make sure your contract explicitly transfers the copyright to you. Without that language in writing, the photographer, not you, owns the images by default.

Best Practices For Website Images: Get It Right To Help Your Site. Get It Right To Eliminate Risk.

The images on your website are among its most powerful assets. They shape first impressions in under three seconds and determine whether visitors stay or leave. Getting them right is worth the effort. Getting them legally right is non-negotiable.

Two safe paths. Clear rules.

Need help with website development & image selection? Contact DeWinter Marketing & PR – USA & let’s talk!

This post first appeared on DeWinter Marketing & PR – USA’s website – May 2026.