Website Photos: What Do You Actually Need?

Most local business websites are photographed by nobody in particular. A blurry exterior shot taken in the rain, three stock library photos of a stranger's toolbox, and a logo doing the rest of the work. Website photos are the fastest way to prove to someone who has never met you that the business behind the website is real, and getting them right takes a lot less than a professional shoot. It's also one of the few parts of a website a business owner can genuinely do themselves, with no design skill required, which is more than can be said for most of the rest of the page.

What website photos does a small business site actually need?

A website needs about five kinds of photo, and not much more than that. Your premises or your van, so someone recognises you when you turn up. You or your team actually doing the work, not posing for it. A handful of finished jobs or products, the sort you would show a customer if they asked to see examples. A photo of the person or people behind the business, because a name on a page is easy to skim past and a face is not. And if you run a shop, salon or clinic, the inside of it, the space someone is deciding whether to walk into. A Google Business Profile asks for roughly the same list, and that overlap is not a coincidence. These are the photos that answer the question a stranger is actually asking, which is whether this is a real business worth trusting.

Can you take them yourself, or do you need a photographer?

For most local trades, the phone already in your pocket is enough. Modern phone cameras handle daylight well, and daylight is most of what a good business photo needs. A photographer earns their fee where lighting and composition are doing real work: a shop front, a salon interior, a restaurant dining room. A plumber's finished bathroom or a gardener's before-and-after rarely needs one. Shoot in daylight rather than under a bulb, take several shots and keep the best rather than settling for the first, and hold the phone level so a straight wall doesn't end up looking like it's toppling over. If daylight isn't an option, a couple of lamps pointed at the ceiling rather than straight at the subject softens the shadows more than most people expect.

What makes a phone photo look professional instead of amateur?

Less clutter than you would think. A works van photographed against a plain wall reads better than the same van parked in a busy yard. A finished kitchen photographed straight on, cupboards shut and worktop cleared, reads better than one caught mid-tidy. Skip the filter. Google's own guidance for business photos is blunt about it, asking for images "in focus, well lit" with "no significant alterations or excessive use of filters or AI", because the point of the photo is to show the business as it actually is, not a version of it. The same logic holds on a website: a photo that doesn't match what turns up in real life costs you more trust than no photo at all.

Should you fill the gaps with stock photos?

Sparingly, if at all. Google's own guidance tells businesses to avoid stock photos because it wants to give people "a real feel for the business," and a website is asking the same trust question a Business Profile is. A generic photo of a smiling stranger in a hard hat, the same one three other local tradespeople are also using, tells a visitor nothing true about you. One real photo of the actual van, the actual premises or the actual work beats several polished stock ones.

Do you need permission before a face goes on your website?

Yes, if the person is recognisable. A photo someone can be identified from counts as personal data under UK GDPR, and the Information Commissioner's Office's own guidance on consent is that it has to be freely given, specific and possible to withdraw at any time, not something assumed because someone happened to be in shot. In practice that is a quick, low-friction ask rather than a form: check with a customer before a job photo goes on the site, check with each member of staff before theirs does, and take it down without a fuss if either one later changes their mind.

How many is enough, and how often should they change?

A dozen good photos will do more for you than fifty average ones, and a homepage only ever shows a handful at once. What matters more than the count is that they stay current. A website still showing a van you sold two years ago, or a team photo missing the person who now answers your phone, works against the honesty the photos were meant to build. Swap the oldest ones out once or twice a year, and any time something visible about the business changes: a new van, a refitted shop, a new face on the team. If getting decent photos organised is the part of a website you keep putting off, we build the site around the photos and words you already have, you send us what you've got and preview the result before anything is owed, and you can see what that looks like on real businesses at the sites we've rendered.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a professional photographer for a small business website?

Usually not. Most local trades get further with a phone used carefully in daylight than with a rushed professional shoot. A photographer earns their fee where lighting and composition are doing real work, a shop front or a salon interior, but a finished job or a works van photographed cleanly doesn't need one.

Can I use free stock photos to fill the gaps?

You can, but sparingly. Google tells businesses to avoid stock photos on a Business Profile because it wants a real feel for the actual business, and the same logic holds on a website. A stock photo of a stranger in a hard hat tells a visitor nothing true about you, and a lot of people can spot one on sight.

What size and format should my website's photos be?

For a Business Profile, Google recommends 720 pixels tall and wide, JPG or PNG, between 10KB and 5MB. A website can generally use larger, sharper originals, since the site handles the resizing, but that gives a sensible minimum to shoot for.

Do I need permission to put a photo of a customer or a member of staff on my website?

Yes, if they are recognisable in it. A photo someone can be identified from counts as personal data under UK GDPR, and consent needs to be freely given and possible to withdraw, so a quick check before it goes up, and a quick takedown if they later change their mind, is the right habit rather than a formality.