Look at every photograph and ask whether it still shows something true. The ones that do not are quietly contradicting what the rest of the site says.

Photographs go out of date silently

Text gets read and corrected because somebody notices a wrong price or an old service.

A photograph is looked at rather than read, so it can show something untrue for years without anybody registering it.

The van, the premises, the team, the equipment, and the uniform all change, and the images do not change with them.

So a site can be entirely accurate in its words and quietly wrong in its pictures.

What to look for

The fifth is the one that undermines a rebrand. A business that changed its logo two years ago and still shows the old one on a van in a photograph has done half a rebrand, visibly.

The vehicle is the most common

Which matters more than it sounds.

A customer who sees a photograph of a white van and then a grey one arriving has a small moment of doubt about whether the right business turned up.

That is a trivial thing and it is the exact moment you were trying to reassure them.

Photographing the current vehicle takes about five minutes and is among the cheapest improvements available to any trades site.

Do it whenever a vehicle changes, in the same week, rather than adding it to a list somewhere.

The list is where these never get done.

The same applies to a change of uniform or a new sign on the premises.

People who have left are the awkward one

Which needs handling properly rather than quietly.

A team photograph showing somebody who left eighteen months ago misleads a customer about who they will meet.

It can also be uncomfortable for the person who left, particularly where the departure was not amicable.

Replace the photograph rather than cropping, which usually looks obviously cropped and draws attention to itself.

Where you cannot arrange a new group photograph quickly, individual pictures are easier to keep current and easier to change one at a time.

That is an argument for structuring the page around individuals from the start.

A worked example

A business reviewed the images on its site in December.

The home page banner showed a vehicle sold in 2021 in the old livery.

The team page showed four people, two of whom had left.

One service page showed equipment they had stopped using entirely, and a project photograph showed a shopfront that is now a different business.

They replaced six images over two weeks using photographs taken on a phone.

Nothing else about the site changed and it read as an entirely current business afterwards.

Some images should simply go

Which is faster than replacing them.

A photograph that exists to fill space, illustrates nothing specific, and shows something no longer true is better removed than swapped.

Sites are almost always improved by having fewer and better images rather than the same number kept current.

So the question for each is: replace, remove, or leave.

Most reviews produce more removals than replacements, and the page loads faster afterwards.

That is a second benefit for exactly the same work.

An image doing no job is weight a visitor pays for and gains nothing from.

Removing it improves the page in two ways at once.

Check the ones outside the website

Which are seen by more people and reviewed less.

Your local listing carries photographs, and those were uploaded when the listing was set up.

Social profiles, directory entries, and any supplier page featuring you carry the same problem.

The listing photographs in particular appear directly in search results, which is where more people see them than on your site.

Replacing three photographs on the listing is ten minutes and reaches more people than the site does.

Date the review rather than the images

Which is how this stops recurring.

Add an annual entry: look at every image and ask whether it still shows something true.

Twenty minutes once a year prevents the four-year drift entirely.

Attach it to whatever other December review you do, since you are already looking at the site.

And take photographs whenever something changes, which is the version that requires no annual review at all.

A new van, a new person, a new sign: photograph it the same week.

Done that way, the review finds nothing, which is the point.

Take the replacements in one session

Which is what makes this actually happen rather than staying on a list.

Once you know which six images are wrong, going out once with a phone and taking all of them takes an afternoon, and doing them one at a time takes a year.

Pick a day with decent light, work through the list, and take three or four versions of each so there is something to choose from.

Photograph the vehicle, the premises, the team, and whatever equipment appears on the site, all in the same session.

That single afternoon usually covers everything a small business site needs for the next two or three years.

The counter-case

Some old photographs are the best ones.

A completed job from 2019 that still looks excellent is evidence of durability rather than a stale image, and replacing it with a worse recent one is a loss.

The test is whether it shows something untrue about the business now, not whether it is old.

And a business with no capacity for new photography is better off removing the wrong ones than leaving them in place.

Fewer accurate images will always beat a larger number that contradict each other.

Review every image annually, replace vehicles and people promptly, remove what illustrates nothing, and check the listing too.

What to do

  1. List every image on the site.
  2. Ask what each still shows.
  3. Replace, remove, or leave.
  4. Photograph the current vehicle.
  5. Fix the team page.
  6. Check the listing photographs.
  7. Diary it annually.

Step six reaches the most people for the least effort, since listing photographs appear directly in search results and were uploaded whenever the listing was first created.

The supply side is covered in photographs you took and never used.

Frequently asked questions

Why do photographs go stale unnoticed?

Because a photograph is looked at rather than read, so it can show something untrue for years without anybody registering it, unlike a wrong price.

What should I look for?

Vehicles you no longer own, people who have left, premises you have moved from, equipment you replaced, and old branding on anything in frame.

Which is most common?

The vehicle. A customer who sees a white van in the photograph and a grey one arriving has a moment of doubt at exactly the point you were reassuring them.

How should I handle a team photo?

Replace it rather than cropping, which looks obviously cropped. Individual pictures are easier to keep current and to change one at a time.

Should I replace every old image?

No. Replace, remove, or leave. Most reviews produce more removals than replacements, and the page loads faster afterwards.

What is seen by the most people?

The photographs on your local listing, which appear directly in search results and were uploaded whenever the listing was first set up.

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.

Van in your header still the one you own?

Check every photograph for something that is no longer true. Most sites have three or four.

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