Uploading Google My Business photos is necessary for optimising your listing – not just to add more colour but also to give your business an edge in local SEO.
Let’s say you’re a daycare centre in one of the Sydney suburbs that’s been getting traction – some parents are finally going back to the office and no one’s at home to take care of the children. They find you on Search using the keyword ‘daycare centre near me’. You’re getting calls from your GMB but while they are interested in dropping their kids off at your location, some parents are wary of how your interiors look like.
And understandably so – parents want to know if their little angels will be in a safe and clean place.
This is where photos come in and they offer three primary advantages:
- Improve brand awareness – Customers will know who you are when you add your business logo and a cover photo.
- Increase engagement – With interior and exterior photos, for example, customers can better visualise your establishment before they visit you.
- Build trust – Using photos that represent your business, in reality, increases the trust a customer has for you.
So if you want to achieve all of that and get more parents to let you take care of their children, it’s a good idea to upload some photos of your business.
The Data Speaks
Those three qualitative advantages also translate to numbers. When we optimised a national supermarket’s Google My Business listings for the first three months, we added photos on some of their listings and made comparisons with those that didn’t have updated photos. From that experiment, our takeaway was: Businesses that regularly upload photos on their listings receive more clicks in actions and appear more on search results than their competitors.
Those that participated and uploaded photos received an audit score of 78% on the DigitalMaas Platform’s location audit tool, compared to the 65% score of those locations that did not upload.
What Should You Do For Google My Business Photos?
Suffice to say, start uploading – but don’t upload just about anything. There’s some rhyme and reason into uploading Google My Business photos – and we have some tips for you to follow if you want to maximise this part of your listing.
1. Use ‘real’ images
When you want to upload a photo on your Google My Business listing, make sure that it clear and crisp with little to no filters.
In short, upload photos that show what your store is like. Think of it as ‘what you see is what you get’ – but better if you drop by. This doesn’t mean that you need to hire a professional photographer to take shots of your location (if you’ve got the budget though, it’s all well and good). But don’t go crazy on post-processing. Google greatly discourages excessive photo manipulation as it could mislead customers and, consequentially, lose trust and confidence in your business.
2. Make use of photo categories
Did you know that each photo belongs in a certain category? That can help you decide which ones to upload and which ones to disregard (again, don’t upload just about anything). Google’s made a list of categories to get you started but we do recommend uploading the following types:
- Interior – amenities, lobbies (for accommodations), store aisles
- Exterior – storefront from different angles, some landmarks with your store in the shot
- Services – some of your staff performing services (TV repairs, paver installation, back massages)
- Products – the wares you sell on stands or aisles, the food on your menu
- Team – staff in the office or in a meeting or participating in company-hosted events
Do note that interior and exterior shots apply to some businesses only. For example, if you are a service area and do not hold consultations with customers in your location, you don’t necessarily have to upload office shots – but some staff photos would be helpful!
As well, restaurants also have the capability to upload images of their menu on GMB – make sure that the text is clear and readable.
You can read our quick and easy guide on Google My Business Photos for more information about photo categories and other guidelines and recommendations.
3. Download Google Street View
You don’t need to have a Google Car or a 360° camera to create those fancy panoramic images you see on Google Maps and Earth. With just your smartphone and the app for Android and iOS, you can create these photos for your own GMB listing.
This is really helpful when you want your customers to get a better look at the environment establishment is situated in, what landmarks are nearest you and other factors that could affect your customer’s decision to visit you.
As well, if your neighbour’s using Google Street View and you’re in the shot, consider it effortless advertising.
Have a read about Google Street View on our blog.
4. Have your customers upload for you
Customers can upload Google My Business photos on their own or when they review your establishment. This is especially helpful for other customers because it provides genuine look at your business because, most likely, a customer who uploads photos would be doing so from their phone. And this is a perfect opportunity for you to collect more shots when you don’t have new photos ready for upload just yet, as it provides regular and fresh content continuously rolling in.
But it comes with minor risk. While you can’t always control what customers are uploading to your GMB listing, you can flag and report irrelevant photos. Moderating photos can be an inconvenience but Google will help business owners in resolving such issues.
5. Use the DigitalMaas Platform
Google My Business photos enable you to rank better on search results but sometimes monitoring everything in this section can be tedious. The DigitalMaas Platform can help you organise all your photos while looking at valuable data that can improve your local SEO. We’ve also got a team that’s more than ready to help you optimise your listing while you focus on other aspects of your business. It’s simple and easy – the Platform gets the job done in no time, each time.
Contact us today for a free trial or sign up now.
