Finding beautiful photos to use to promote your massage business is easy… if you’re happy to pay!

But finding high-quality FREE photos can be a challenge.

That’s why we’ve collated a list of 20 places on the web where you can find great free photos that massage therapists can use for Facebook posts and listed them here.

But before you start clicking away on these free photo sites, there are a few things you need to remember when you use images that you have downloaded online.

Are they really free?

Not all images online are free even if a website says they are. If you are unsure you should double-check the original sources of images and read the license details.

Some free-image websites will show thumbnails for paid images from stock photo sites like Shutterstock and Dreamstime when they do not have the photos with the keywords you are looking for in their own free archives. Obviously, these ones are not free.

In other cases some photographers are willing to let you use their images for free but only providing you credit them for their work.

For example, many photographers who upload their images on Flickr, a popular image uploading site, require users to include a link to their pages when their photos are being used.

However, there are TRULY free websites such as Pixabay and Unsplash where photographers let users download and use their work without expecting anything in return. Look for photos or sites that use the “Creative Commons license” or are marked as “Public Domain”.

Top 20 free image downloading sites for massage therapists

So where do you find images to use for your Facebook ads that are REALLY free? Here are the top 20 websites where you can download free images for your massage business:

1. Unsplash

Unsplash hosts a good number of high-quality images that suggest internal health - tranquility, calmness, peace and relaxation. Many of them are landscapes or artistic shots that work perfectly as backgrounds when overlaying inspirational quotes.

It also has fantastic images of organic and health foods.

2. Pixabay

Pixabay looks more like a stock library so it has free photos on topics you can search for.

Pixabay currently has a whole page of free massage images including head, hand, and back massage photos. It also has images on massage oils, towels and candles.

3. Foter

Foter offers vintage-themed images. Depending on your taste and style, you can find some amazing photos on Yoga, organic food, massage and other health images to use for your Facebook posts.

4. Google Images

Google Images has the widest selection of images taken from different public domain websites, however, not too many people know how to filter the selections to just showing public domain images.

Here’s how you do it:

A. Go to Google Images and type your search keyword in the search field. Click enter.

B. Click “Settings’ which you will find on the right side of the menu. Then choose “Advanced settings” in the dropdown.
 
C. Once in the “Advanced settings page,” scroll down to “usage rights.” Click the dropdown arrow and choose “free to use, share or modify commercially” if you will change the image’s specs, or your can click “free to use or share commercially” if you will not apply any changes to the image you’re going to use.

5. Flickr.com

You need to have a Yahoo email to be able to register and log into Flickr.com, but the great thing about this website is that it has a massive collection of photos of both professional and amateur qualities for you to use.

Just make sure to read the attribution section to know if the image you’re interested to use is marked under Creative Commons, and to know what is expected of you if you use them for your posts.

6. Pexels

Pexel boasts of a great lineup of artistic quality photos for fitness, food, massage therapy and other themes.

7. Stokpic

Stokpic makes it easier for users to browse their images by segregating them into different categories such as lifestyle, food & drink, nature, sports & fitness, among others. You can also browse among the latest uploads and get new images sent to your email when you subscribe.

8. Stock Snap

Stock Snap has a lot of ambient images, with categories ranging from nature, seasons and people. You can also sign up for free images sent to you weekly through your email.

9. Barn Images

Barn Images boasts of beautiful, professionally-taken, high resolution, and best of all, free, stock photos.

10. Free Range Stock

Free Range Stock provides more unique free photos that users can download for personal and commercial use. Their photographers are given the incentive of earning from their photos when the ads beside their uploads are clicked.

11. Every Stock Photo

Just like any good image website, Every Stock Photo offers an array of free great photos but reserves their thematic high-resolution ones for their premium photo bundles priced at 55 USD.

12. RGB Stock

Some of RGB Stock’s most popular categories include abstract, nature, food, and people. When you search for “massage” photos, the site churns up images tagged under “spa.”

When those don’t suit, you can choose from the suggested pro-rated photos from Deposit Photos and Stockfresh.

13. Stock Vault

The website doesn’t give you too many options for “massage” images, but offers breathtaking photos of nature and among many themes. With its archive of 90,000 images that you can download for free, you will surely find appropriate photos that you can use for your ads.

14. Free Images

Free Images has over 61 web pages of free photos under Health & Medical category, and a handful of good body massage images when you type “massage” in the search field.

15. Free Digital Photos

Free Digital Photos has 33 pages of high quality images on “massage.” However, only the smallest-sized photos (200x400 px) can be downloaded for free, and not without proper attribution. High resolution versions cost as much as 10 USD for every download.

16. Morgue File

Aside from the free images that Morgue File offers from its archives and links to several Creative Commons images, it provides image suggestions from paid photo sites such as iStock, Dreamstime, Fotolia, Getty and Big Stock.

17. Negative Space

Negative Space carries a fantastic line of artistic photos on people and nature. Although there isn’t much health-related images, the beautiful photos made available for you to use for free gives much room for creativity.

18. Libre Shot

Libre Shot is an archive of public domain photos taken by a single photographer - Martin Vorel. It has many great pictures on nature, landscapes and flowers.

19. PicJumbo

PicJumbo provides users a breathtaking selection of sunlight and nature themed images. It also gives its users the option to download all the images taken in one photoshoot for a fee. The good news is that you can sign up for a 5-month free subscription.

20. Gratisography

Gratisography carries thought-provoking images taken by photographer Ryan McGuire. There aren’t much health-related photos, but if you’re looking for something bold and unique, this is a good site to choose photos from.

All are copyright-free photos, but if you want to fund Ryan’s coffee intake, you can do so in a click.

Some of the websites in the list were recommended to our community by Kristie Melling from the Rubbed The Wrong Way podcast (thanks Kristie!). We at Massage Champions are heavy users of Unsplash, Pixabay, Foter and Google Images.

Canva images are not always free

Canva, a very popular tool for creating graphics and visuals, is included in a couple of lists of sites with free images we found online. Unfortunately, this is a misconception as not all images that you find in Canva are free.

Many of these images were only uploaded by other users and some of them are not under the Creative Commons license.

The best way to determine a public domain photo is to save the image on your laptop and upload it on Google Images which will generate for you copies of the photo and its sources.

Creative Advertising

You can only find enough free images of massage therapists at work, however, there are other beautiful images that you can use to push your messages out to your target audience.

For instance, consider using “spa,” “sauna,” “oils,” “therapy,” “candles,” “yoga,” “meditation,” “health” “nature” or “tea” when you search for photos.

All you need is a clear message and a lot of creativity to produce a Facebook post to effectively spread the word about your business and the services you offer.

Go ahead and try it, then share with us what you come up with.