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The photographs your business actually needs, and how to take each one

Most local business websites fail on images long before they fail on copy. Not because the photographs are badly taken, but because the ones that would answer a visitor's question were never taken at all. Pick your trade and where the pictures are going, and get the list, with the framing, the light and the thing that usually ruins each shot.

Your shot list

What are the photographs for

Every shot comes with the framing, the light and the thing that usually ruins it. Nothing is sent anywhere: the list is built in your browser.

Why this is a conversion problem, not a design one

A first-time visitor spends a few seconds deciding whether you are real and whether you do their kind of work. Images answer both faster than text does, and they answer them whether or not you meant them to.

  • A stock photograph is a negative signal now. Not neutral. People recognise them, and the conclusion they draw is that there was nothing real to show.
  • The missing exterior shot is the most expensive gap. A local customer is checking that you are a real place they could turn up at. Nothing else on the page substitutes for it.
  • Photographs of the work beat photographs of the premises. Once trust is established, the question becomes competence, and that is a picture of hands doing the job.
  • Consistency reads as professionalism. Five results shot from the same distance in the same light look like a portfolio. The same five shot at random look like a phone camera roll.

How to actually get through it

  1. Tidy first, then shoot. Most of the improvement in a business photograph happens before the camera comes out. Clear the counter, move the bins, park the vehicle somewhere plain.
  2. Pick the weather. Bright overcast is the best light most businesses will ever get for free, and it happens constantly. Full midday sun is the worst.
  3. Do the whole list in one session. A set shot on one morning looks like a set. The same shots collected over a year do not, and that inconsistency is visible even to people who could not name it.
  4. Take more than you need of each. Three or four frames per shot, moving a step each time. Deleting is free.
  5. Reshoot the sign whenever the hours change. An out-of-date hours photograph on a listing is worse than none.

What to do with them

The first screen of your website and your Google Business Profile are where these earn their keep, in that order. What a visitor judges in the first few seconds, and in what order, is written up in the four second test, and the website test scores your current page against those same judgements, including whether you have the trust signals these photographs provide.

The companion guide

One hour a week of content that produces enquiries instead of a feed

Where this applies

AI systems for contractors and trades who are on a roof when the phone rings

AI systems for venues, promoters and restaurants where every night is its own deadline

AI systems for real estate teams who lose deals to whoever replied first

Photo shot list FAQ

Are these prompts for an AI image generator?
They are briefs for photographs of your actual business, and that is deliberate. The photographs that do the work on a local business site are the ones a customer can match against reality: your building, your van, your room, your team. A generated image of a generic workshop is the modern equivalent of a stock photo, and people have learned to discount both. Where generated imagery is genuinely useful is backgrounds, textures and illustrative graphics, not the shots on this list.
Do I need a real camera?
No. A current phone is more than enough for every shot here. What separates a good business photograph from a bad one is where you stand, what is in the background and what the light is doing, and none of those cost anything. Clean the lens first, which is the single most common reason phone photographs look soft.
Why does it ask for my industry?
Because it changes the shot list, though less than you would expect. Nineteen industries reduce to about six shapes: businesses with a shopfront, businesses that travel to the customer, businesses where somebody books a room, product businesses, venues and offices. A pilates studio and a tattoo studio need the same photographs. So do a plumber and a mobile groomer.
How long does the whole list take?
A morning for most businesses, if you tidy first. The tidying is not a joke: the majority of the difference between a photograph that works and one that does not is what is in the frame that should not be there.
Can I photograph customers or staff?
Ask first, every time, and get it in writing before anything goes on a website or a listing. That applies to staff as much as customers, and it applies to a shot where somebody is recognisable even if they are not the subject. In Quebec, image consent is part of the privacy picture rather than a formality.
Which of these matters most if I only do one?
The front of the building from across the street, unless you are a mobile business, in which case it is the vehicle. It is the photograph that proves you exist as a real place, and its absence is a large part of why a site reads as untrustworthy without a visitor being able to say why.