What to photograph on a job for your website
Photographs of your own work are the most persuasive thing on a trade website and the part most businesses have none of. Stock images are recognised instantly and quietly suggest there is nothing real to show.
You do not need a camera or any skill. You need a routine that takes two minutes a job, and the discipline to do it when you would rather be packing up.
The routine
Before you start, take one wide shot of the whole area from a spot you can stand in again. That last part is the one people forget, and it is what makes a before and after actually line up.
During the job, take two or three of the work in progress. Hands, tools, the bit nobody sees once it is finished. These are the ones that prove it was you.
At the end, take the after shot from exactly the same spot as the first, plus two or three closer ones of the details you are proud of.
Six to eight photographs a job. Two minutes. That is the whole method.
Getting them to look decent on a phone
Shoot in daylight wherever possible and turn the room lights off, because mixing the two makes everything orange. If you must use artificial light, be consistent about it.
Tidy the frame first. Move the toolbox, the mug and the dust sheet. Ten seconds of tidying is worth more than any amount of editing.
Hold the phone level and straight on to the surface. Wonky verticals are the single commonest thing that makes a trade photograph look amateur.
Take more than you need. Storage is free and you cannot go back.
What customers actually want to see
Finished work in a real home, not a showroom. People are trying to picture their own house.
The awkward jobs, not only the showpieces. A neat repair in a tight cupboard says more about competence than a photogenic kitchen.
Scale and context. A close-up of a tile tells nobody anything; the same tile in a room tells them whether you are any good.
Before and after from the same position, which is the most convincing pair of images a trade can own.
Permission and privacy
Ask the customer before you photograph inside their home, and ask again before publishing. Most people say yes and appreciate being asked.
Do not photograph anything identifying without agreement: house numbers, number plates, family photographs on the wall, paperwork on the side.
For commercial or letting work, check whether there is anything confidential in shot before it goes anywhere near a website.
What to do with them afterwards
Resize before uploading. A photograph straight off a phone can be five megabytes, and six of those on one page make a site that will not load on mobile data.
Caption them with what the job actually was and roughly where: a bathroom refit in Falmouth says more than image 4.
Use them everywhere, not just the website. Facebook, your Google Business Profile, quotes and invoices. The profile in particular rewards regular photographs and most competitors add none.
Common questions
- Do I need a proper camera?
- No. A recent phone is more than enough for a website, where images are displayed small and compressed anyway. Light and tidiness matter far more than the camera.
- How many photographs do I need for a website?
- Fifteen to twenty good ones will furnish a small business site comfortably. If you photograph every job you will pass that within a month.
- Can I use photographs of work my supplier or manufacturer provides?
- For products, often yes with permission. For your own workmanship, no, and it is obvious to customers when the photographs do not match the job. It costs you the trust the page was supposed to build.
- Should I photograph jobs that went wrong?
- Repairs of somebody else's poor work, yes, and they are among the most persuasive images a trade can publish. Be careful never to identify the previous contractor.
- What about video?
- A short clip walking through a finished job is excellent for Facebook and your Google Business Profile. For the website itself, still photographs load faster and get looked at more.
If you would rather somebody just did it
I build websites for self-employed tradesmen and small businesses across the UK: £249 to build, then £49.99 a month to host, maintain and update it. The sites I have built currently hold 97 page-one Google rankings between them.