21 free image sites to spruce up your visuals

Much more than mere aesthetic afterthoughts, compelling visuals can boost conversions, open rates and engagement.

According to a study by Jeff Bullas:

• Articles with images get 94 percent more total views.
• You can expect a 45 percent increase in press release views when a related image is included.
• Facebook ads with images have a 37 percent higher engagement rate than text ads.

The price of in-house photography leads many brands and agencies to stock photography. The costs for these images, however—particularly for a commercial license—can gobble up a marketing budget.

[RELATED: Brand Storytelling and Content Marketing Conference at Coca-Cola]

As an alternative, bookmark the following royalty-free image sites:

Free images for social media and beyond

• Death to stock photo

A cache of free images, which you can use anywhere you like.

• Pixabay

More than 700,000 free stock images, illustrations and vectors.

• Gratisography

Free high-resolution images you can use for all your projects. Categories include animals, objects, people and nature.

• Free Images

More than 400,000 free images and illustrations.

• Unsplash

Free, high-resolution photos you can use anywhere.

• IM Creator

A curated collection of free web design resources for all commercial use.

• PicJumbo

Free stock images in your inbox.

• Free digital photos

Download free images and illustrations for websites, e-books and other online pursuits.

• Morguefile

More than 350,000 free images for commercial use.

• Unrestricted stock

Free stock images and vectors you can use in any capacity.

• Free range stock

Beautiful photos, free of charge.

• Foter

A bank of 335 million free stock photos.

• Superfamous studio

A large database of stock images and illustrations to choose from.

Graphic icons for content marketing and more

• Graphic Burger

Icons neatly categorized for easy discovery.

• Flaticon

The site has more than 457,000 vector icons to peruse.

• The noun project

Nearly a million curated icons, “created by a global community.”

• Entypo

The site contains “411 carefully crafted premium pictograms by Daniel Bruce.”

• Find icons

This website has more than 475,450 free icons to choose from.

• Get iconjar

Premium icons for free.

• To[icon]

Search through featured, related or popular collections to find what you’re looking for.

• Iconmonstr

Browse 262 collections of unique designs.

Enjoy exploring the list, and don’t ever settle for poor visuals.

Vishal Kalia is the CEO of Rogueline. A version of this post first appeared on PR Couture.