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Marc Charette is a commercial photographer, virtual tour creator, and local SEO specialist. With extensive experience across sales, marketing, retail management, and training, Marc combines his unique skills to help local and premises-based businesses enhance their visibility and attract more customers. As the founder of Work Pics 360 and Central Coast Digital Media, Marc is dedicated to serving businesses in the surrounding areas north of Sydney Australia. You can also connect with Marc on LinkedIn.
As a commercial photographer who’s primarily focused on creating content for the purpose of helping businesses be better found, seen, and trusted online, I see people make a lot of mistakes with their GBP Photos section.
The truth is, when it comes to visual content, it’s easy to get 99% of the way there and not cross the finish line (a.k.a., do all the hard work, but not convert). That’s because most business owners fail to understand that photos in marketing have to have utility. Yes, they have to look great, but they also have to answer the question that the viewer wants answered – this could be a practical question, an emotional question, or both, and we’ll get into all of that in a bit.
This is why when I heard Darren Shaw speak about GBP Photos during his interview with Joy Hawkins and Luc Durand, I knew I had to write this piece. Darren said that photos and videos impact local rankings and that the best way to use this ranking factor is to hire a professional photographer on a quarterly basis to keep your photo feed fresh.
So, as a photographer who has devoted his career to capturing photos for Business Profiles and websites, I had to share my best tips on local SEO photography.
What kinds of photos do you need? How many? Do they really have to be professional? I’ll answer all these questions and provide you with some additional tips and hints below.
If you only take one thing away from this article, it should be that you have to be purposeful. Before you hire a photographer, be clear on what you want the function of the photos to be. Are you trying to showcase your place, products, employees, service, or brand? These are all important aspects of the business that you should ideally photograph, but if you want to only focus on a few things, make it clear to your photographer before the photoshoot.
Your GBP photos (and videos) should be purposeful and utilitarian. When people do a search in Google and click on your Profile, they’re trying to make a decision. They’re looking to find out if you can solve their problem or meet their wants and needs.
If your business has a physical location, your viewers will want to know where you are located, if you’re close to other businesses, whether you have parking, what your hours of operation are, whether you have a wheelchair-accessible entrance, etc. Show these practical things in your photos.
The next thing people look for are your products, staff, and level of professionalism. Can you visually show them that you sell what they’re looking for and that the people who will serve them know (or at least look like they know) what they’re talking about?
This is where photos of customer interactions come in. The ultimate goal here is to capture a photo that looks like a “review without words”: happy customers, happy employees, and authentic smiles. This is the best branding you can get. People will remember how you made them feel above all else, so your photos should convey positive emotions.
I know this may sound a bit overwhelming, which is why many businesses opt to hire a professional photographer to deal with all of it, but you can totally do it yourself if you have some free time on your hands.
Below are 10 tips to make the process clearer and easier for you.
When I take photos for businesses, this is what’s going through my mind:
Use a wide-angle lens (or the wide-angle setting on your phone) and leave plenty of space around whatever you’re photographing. This will give you flexibility for captions, cropping, or text overlay in post-production.
Small adjustments can make a photo look a lot more polished and professional. This can be done in post-production, but it’s far better to get it right in-camera whenever possible.
For physical businesses, ensure all critical areas are covered, such as entrances, parking, and accessible facilities.
If you’re a Service Area Business (SAB) like a plumber, inspector, or home repairer, get photos of you doing what you do. Ask a friend or colleague to take photos of you in action – talking to customers, fixing a sink, using your cool gadgets, etc.
Include shots of the exterior of your business to help customers recognize your location from the street. Include parking areas, disabled parking, entrances, and ramps for wheelchairs, strollers, or shopping carts.
Minimize distractions by using simple, clean backgrounds so your products or team members stand out. Also, try taking photos from various angles to see what works best.
Showing your team at work or the process behind making your products can help humanize your business and build trust.
Keep your images as natural as possible; over-editing can make photos appear unprofessional or fake.
This is also a good time to mention that Google will not approve photos that look too “photoshopped”. They’re looking for authentic content that helps tell a clear story, so keep your edits to a minimum.
Ensure your images are high resolution for clarity and sharpness across all devices and platforms. Google has minimum standards for photos, so if they’re too small, poorly lit, or out of focus, they will get rejected.
Here are the basic photo guidelines, as per Google’s official documentation:
đź’ˇ Remember: it’s always easier to make a big photo smaller than the other way around.
As for videos, make sure to meet the following requirements:
✍️ Note: In reality, it’s only the file size that is the limitation. You can upload longer videos as long as the file size is less than 75 MB.
Incorporate subtle branding elements like logos or business colors in your images to reinforce your identity. The key word here is “subtle”. Branding elements work best when they’re accompanied by a scene that sells itself.
Demonstrating how your product or service is used in real life makes it more relatable and appealing to potential customers.
This is another example where video can be great. You can do product unboxing, plugging in and turning on the product, placing a product on a shelf, etc. – anything that can help people relate to the experience of using your product.
Google Street View virtual tours are probably the most overlooked type of photography for businesses with physical locations.
If you run a car dealership, gym, retail store, hotel, event venue, medical practice, or any other place that people physically go to, you should probably add a virtual tour to your Google Business Profile.
A virtual tour is a series of 360° photos, shot from different spots around your space, that, when put together, show your whole business (almost as if the viewer is walking through it). This makes virtual tours the richest visual content you can possibly add to your Profile. Plus, they are amazing at keeping people on your Profile for longer, which can improve your rankings through engagement signals.
They also often have the longest life of any photo: unless you’re constantly changing your interior, they will always help people get a good sense of your business.
I recently did a virtual tour for an Anytime Fitness Club that had just relocated to a new space. They had spent a lot of money making their new location look great, buying the best fitness equipment, and creating an inviting and friendly atmosphere.
So, we created a navigable virtual tour with a menu that takes you to all the various areas of the gym. We added a few “information hotspots” (clickable buttons on the virtual tour that display more information, photos, videos, or even links to other content) to help you learn more about the location’s staff, services, and how to become a member.
The final images are not only engaging – they literally function as calls to action!
Of course, for a virtual tour to have such great conversion value, it should be captured by a seasoned professional. However, the investment is beyond worth it. I have clients with 7-year-old virtual tours that still bring in customers all the time.
If you are going to dedicate any of your budget to professional photography, a virtual tour is the most high-return investment for your Google Business Profile.
Photos, videos, and virtual tours all play a huge role in your Google Business Profile’s ability to convert searchers into action-takers. The saying “I’ll believe it when I see it” applies to local SEO, too: if viewers see how awesome your business looks in your photos, they’ll be far more likely to convert.
So, take action. Save my list of tips and start checking things off. And don’t forget to set up local rank tracking to see the difference a great GBP Photos section can make for your business.
