Pictures do far more for veterinary practices than fill up empty space in blogs and social posts. Pictures help drive traffic to veterinary websites.
While using images taken at your own clinic is ideal for personalizing and distinguishing your practice website, blog, and social posts, you may not always have time to take photos. Or you may not have a photo on hand that suits your needs. For such occasions, you can easily find what you need without breaking your budget (or copyright law) from the free image sources below.
Many of the photographs from the listed resources are free of copyright restrictions or licensed under Creative Commons (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication (CC0 for short). This means you can copy, modify, and distribute an image without asking permission. Some photos may require attribution. We’ve done our best to identify the licenses under which the below resources fall, but we advise you to do your own research to determine how the images from any resource may be used.
With that out of the way, here are 10 top free photo sites for veterinary websites.
1. Free Digital Photos
Offering stock photos and illustrations, Free Digital Photos offers the smallest sizes of their images for free—provided you attribute both the website and image creator. You can also purchase larger versions of images, which do not require attribution. To download a free image, you’ll need to provide your email address and accept their terms and conditions.
2. Free Images
Searchable by keyword or collections, Free Images offers thousands of stock images and illustrations according to their content licensing agreement. When used for editorial purposes or within an audio/visual production, images must be attributed to both the website and image creator. When used for commercial purposes, no attribution is required. To download images, you’ll need to create a free account.
3. ISO Republic
Searchable by keyword, category, and popular tags, ISO Republic offers thousands of free-use photos and video clips, and while no attribution is required for any downloads per the ISO Republic license, attribution is appreciated.
4. Magdeleine
Magdeleine photos fall under two licenses: CC0 – Public Domain and Attribution Required. You can filter photos according to license group by clicking on the license filter choice on the menu on the right-hand side of the page. For design purposes, you can also filter photos by dominant colors.
5. Pexels
“Stunning” describes the overall collection of photos found at Pexels. Searchable by keyword, as well as general categories found under the Explore tab, Pexels includes a large library of high-quality stock video clips. No attribution is required. To grab a free photo or video, just click on it, then click Free Download.
6. Picography
Picography’s collection of photos are free to use under CC0. Searchable by keyword or category, Picography’s library of high-resolution images simply involves finding the photo you want and clicking Download the Free Photo.
7. Pikwizard
With thousands of rights-free and CC0 photos and videos, Pikwizard includes hundreds of high-quality pictures of people, which tends to be rare in free stock photo sites. You can search the entire Pikwizard library by keyword or thematic groups of photos.
8. Pixabay
Pixabay features over 1.7 million high-quality photos, illustrations, vectors, and videos, offered royalty-free under Pixabay’s usage license, which does not require attribution. Pixabay doesn’t require registration to use their free images. If you choose not to register, you must click a CAPTCHA box each time you download something. As a registered Pixabay user, you are not required to click a CAPTCHA box for dwonloads.
9. SkitterPhoto
SkitterPhoto is a collection of CC0 photos, all submitted directly to the website by contributors rather than collected from other sources. Searchable by keyword or category, Skitterphoto is a great source for photos you might not have seen on other free stock photo sites, and there’s no sign-up to the service. Just find the photo you want and click the Download button.
10. Unsplash
Unsplash features thousands of high-resolution images by contributing photographers, searchable by keyword and collections. According to the Unsplash usage license, you do not need to credit photographers, although credit as always appreciated.
Tip: How you use images on your practice website is just as important as the images you choose. Where you place an image on a web page, for example, and how you treat that image can affect website appeal and the impression of your practice by pet owners.
WebDVM custom veterinary websites simplify both attractive image selection and optimal design use for busy practices. Each WebDVM designer carefully selects high-quality, beautiful images to help tell your practice story and encourage pet owners to complete desired calls to action. Since each WebDVM is custom designed, images are strategically used through different treatments, placement, and slideshows to enhance website appeal and compel people to choose your practice.
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