Photos on Your Listing Posted by Customers

The first picture a stranger sees

Search for a business on a phone and the listing arrives with photographs. For many small businesses, the first one is not a photograph the business took.

It is a dim shot of somebody's lunch under yellow light, a blurry view of the building through a car window, or a picture of the shop next door that a customer added to the wrong place.

The owner uploaded a logo when the listing was claimed, perhaps a photo of the front, and nothing since. Customers have been adding photographs every month.

So the listing now shows the business mostly through other people's phones.

Where listing photos come from

• Your own uploads, including the logo and the cover photo.
• Customer photos added from Google Maps, often alongside a review.
• Local Guides, Google's regular contributors, rewarded with points for adding photos.
• Street View, which can be years old and show a previous sign.
• Google's own choice of which image to show first.

The fifth is the one owners overlook. Setting a cover photo states a preference, and Google treats it as exactly that, so the first image can still be somebody else's.

Why customers' photos end up in front

It is mostly a matter of numbers. An owner uploads a handful of photographs once, at setup. Customers add a few every month, and they never stop.

Google picks the first image from whatever exists. When the owner's photos are few and old, the choice falls on the customers' by default.

Customers also photograph what interests them, which is their meal, their purchase or their dog, not what a stranger needs to see. Nobody photographs the front door at noon on a clear day.

So the listing fills with close-ups, and the shots that would help a stranger recognise the place are missing.

What a stranger needs to see

Somebody looking at your listing for the first time wants to recognise the place, picture walking in, and judge whether it suits them.

That means the front from the side most people approach, in daylight, with the sign readable. Then the entrance itself, especially if it is round a corner or shared with other units.

Then the inside as it looks on an ordinary day, the work or the products, and the people who will serve them.

Google's own guidance suggests several exterior photographs taken at different times of day, which is sensible for anybody arriving after dark in winter.

Taking photos Google can use

A recent phone is enough. Daylight matters more than the camera, and a clean lens matters more than either.

Hold the phone sideways for the outside and the room, since wide shots suit the way listings display them. Keep filters off and text off the image; the guidelines ask for photographs that show the place as it really is.

Upload them through Google My Business, on the dashboard or in the app, and set the cover photo and the logo while you are there.

A worked example

A breakfast and lunch restaurant on a corner in an older neighbourhood had claimed its listing in 2016 and uploaded a logo. The owners had added nothing since.

By this spring, the first image on the listing was a dim photo of a half-eaten plate by the window, taken under the yellow bulbs that light the room on dull days.

Further along were two blurry shots of the building from a moving car, and a photograph of the bakery across the street that a customer had added to the wrong listing.

One bright weekday morning, the owners spent twenty minutes photographing the front from the corner most people walk from, the door, the room in daylight, five dishes plated for the camera, and the kitchen team.

They set the front as the cover photo and reported the bakery photograph as not showing the place. It disappeared from the listing about a week later.

The yellow bulbs over the window tables were replaced too, since every customer photo taken there had the same problem.

Reporting the ones that are wrong

Owners cannot delete customers' photos. They can report them, and Google removes photos that break its rules.

In Google Maps, open the photo, use the flag or the menu to report it, and choose the reason that fits. Photographs of a different place, offensive content and images showing private information are the clear cases.

An unflattering but accurate photograph will usually stay. The answer to that one is better photographs of your own, so it slides further down the list.

A little and often

Since customers keep adding photographs, a single afternoon of your own is gradually outnumbered again.

A few new photographs each month keep yours current: a new product, the patio opening for summer, a new member of staff, the repainted sign.

The Insights section of Google My Business shows how often the listing's photos are viewed and how many there are, compared with similar businesses. A glance once a month shows whether yours are keeping up.

What customers' photos tell you

There is a useful side to all this. Customer photos are a record of what people notice when they visit, taken without anybody asking.

A run of photographs showing a dark room, a cluttered entrance or a faded sign is a free inspection. Sometimes the fix belongs in the building rather than on the listing.

The counter-case

Some businesses have little to worry about here.

A mobile trade with no premises customers visit gets few customer photos, and its listing photos matter more for showing the work than for helping anybody find a door. A photo routine every few months is enough.

A busy restaurant whose customers take good photographs already has an asset rather than a problem, and nothing about it needs fighting.

Even there, the exterior and the entrance are the shots customers never take, and they are the ones a first-time visitor needs most.

Add your own photographs regularly, set the cover, and report what is genuinely wrong.

This month

Do it signed out, or in a private window, so you see what a customer sees.

1. Search for your business on a phone.
2. Note which photo appears first.
3. Photograph the front from the approach side, in daylight.
4. Add the entrance, the inside and the work.
5. Set your cover photo and logo.
6. Report photos of the wrong place.
7. Add a few new ones every month.

Step three does the most work. A clear daylight photograph of the front, with the sign readable, is what lets a stranger recognise the place as they pull up.

Getting those strangers to the right door is covered in the map pin in the wrong place.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.