How to take job photos that sell your work online

Why do real job photos matter?

A homeowner comparing three contractors looks at the photos before reading a word. Stock photos of smiling models in clean uniforms tell them nothing, and many people recognize them. A slightly imperfect photo of your crew finishing a real driveway tells them you exist, you do this work, and you do it around here.

Photos also help search. Google's image guidance recommends high-quality images placed near relevant text, with descriptive file names and alt text. A page about paver patio repair with five photos of paver patio repairs, each labeled, gives Google more to work with than a page with one generic hero image.

What you'll need

• A recent smartphone. You don't need a separate camera.
• A microfiber cloth for the lens. Phones live in pockets and trucks, and a smudged lens is the most common cause of hazy photos.
• A short shot list for each service you sell (below).
• A simple way to get permission from customers, such as a line in your estimate or a quick text.
• A shared album or folder where the crew drops photos, organized by service.

Step 1: Make a shot list for each service

Decide what you need before you're on the job, or you'll end up with 300 photos of the same angle. For each service page on your site, aim for:

• Before and after pairs, from the same spot.
• In progress: the crew working, equipment set up, the messy middle. These prove the work is yours.
• Details: a clean seam, a straight cut line, flashing done right. Close-ups show care.
• The crew and truck, with permission from everyone in the photo.
• Problems you fix: rot, clogs, stains, damage. These help on pages that explain warning signs.

Step 2: Get permission and protect privacy

You're photographing someone's home. Ask first. A sentence on the estimate ("We may photograph the work for our website without showing your address") plus a quick confirmation on the day covers most situations. If the customer says no, respect it and shoot details only.

Then keep identifying details out of the frame: house numbers, street signs, license plates, mail, family photos through windows, and children. Get a yes from any employee before you post their face.

Phones also store the location where each photo was taken. On an iPhone, Apple's support guide explains how to share a photo without location data: when sharing, tap Options and turn off Location. You can also stop the camera from recording location in Settings, under Privacy and Security, Location Services, Camera. Android phones have similar settings that vary by maker.

Step 3: Take the photos

1. Wipe the lens before every job.
2. Turn on the grid. On iPhone it's in Settings, Camera, Grid. Use the lines to keep rooflines, fences and door frames level.
3. Shoot in even light. Overcast days and early or late daylight are easiest. Harsh noon sun makes deep shadows. Indoors, turn on every light and open the blinds.
4. Mark your spot for the before shot. Note where you stood and what's in the corner of the frame. Stand in the same place, at the same height, with the same zoom for the after shot. A before and after taken from two angles looks like two different houses.
5. Shoot horizontal for the website and take a vertical version of the best shots for social posts and your Business Profile.
6. Get closer instead of zooming. Digital zoom loses detail. Walk forward.
7. Take three of everything. Someone will blink, a truck will drive past, or one will be slightly blurry.
8. Clean up first. Move the hose, the trash can and the empty coffee cups out of the after shot. The work should be the subject.

Step 4: Edit lightly and honestly

Crop, straighten and brighten a little. That's it. Don't remove stains that weren't removed, don't swap in a bluer sky on an after shot, and don't stack filters. Google's Business Profile photo guidelines ask for images that are sharp and well lit, without heavy alterations or stacked filters. Customers notice edited results too, and some of them will see your real work in person.

Step 5: Prepare the files for your website

• Rename each file before uploading. Google gives the example of a descriptive name like my-new-black-kitten.jpg over IMG00023.JPG. For you that means something like cedar-fence-repair-after.jpg.
• Resize. A phone photo can be several megabytes. Most website images don't need to be wider than about 2,000 pixels. Your website platform may resize automatically; check before you upload hundreds.
• Use a common format. Google Search supports formats including JPEG, PNG, WebP and AVIF. JPEG or WebP is right for photos.
• Write alt text. Describe what's in the photo in plain words, the way you'd describe it to someone on the phone. Google's guidance asks for useful, information-rich alt text and warns against keyword stuffing. "Rebuilt brick front steps with new iron railing" is good alt text. "Best brick mason masonry contractor brick repair" is not.
• Set image dimensions. Whoever builds your site should include width and height on images. Google's web.dev guidance says this lets the browser reserve space before the image loads, so the page doesn't jump around on a phone.

What about short videos?

The same rules apply to video. Hold the phone horizontal for the website, keep it steady, and keep clips short: a slow 15-second pan across a finished deck says more than a two-minute walk-through. Google's Business Profile guidelines accept videos up to 30 seconds long and up to 75 MB, at 720p or higher, which is a good target for every clip you shoot. Narrate only if the sound is clean; wind and equipment noise make most job-site audio unusable, so plan for the clip to work with the sound off.

Step 6: Put each photo where it helps

A gallery page is fine, but photos do more on the page about that service. Put the paver repair photos on the paver repair page, near the paragraph that explains the work, and a local job photo on the matching town page. Our guide to writing service pages shows where photos fit in the page structure.

Upload the best ones to your Google Business Profile too. Google's photo guidelines list JPG or PNG files between 10 KB and 5 MB, with a recommended resolution of 720 by 720 pixels and a minimum of 250 by 250. New photos may take 24 to 48 hours to appear. See our Business Profile guide for what else belongs there.

Common mistakes and how to fix them

• Stock photos posing as your work. Fix: replace them one service at a time as you collect real shots. A real phone photo beats a polished fake.
• Mismatched before and after angles. Fix: take the before shot on purpose, not as an afterthought, and note where you stood.
• Huge files slowing the site. Fix: resize before uploading, or confirm your platform does it.
• Text baked into images. Prices or phone numbers inside an image can't be read by search engines and can't be updated easily. Fix: put words in the page, not the picture.
• Nobody's job to take them. Fix: make "before, during, after" part of the job checklist in your CRM, with the photos attached to the job record.

Next steps

Pick your three most profitable services and collect five good photos of each over the next month. Then replace the stock images on those pages first. When we build websites, we design the service pages around the client's own job photos and handle the resizing, file names and alt text.

Frequently asked questions