Chapter 11: Pictures

The second P in the GBP Loop is Pictures.

Pictures often gets reduced to questions about frequency, filenames, geotagging and how many photographs to upload.

The GBP Loop gives Pictures a much more useful job.

Google recommends that businesses add photographs and videos to their Business Profiles. It also gives specific guidance on the kinds of images that help customers understand a business, including exterior and interior photographs, products, work being carried out and members of the team.[1][2]

Start with the customer.

Before somebody visits a restaurant, hires a builder, books a hotel, chooses a dentist or asks a locksmith to come to their home, they want to know something about the business. Pictures can answer those questions remarkably quickly.

What does the place look like?

Is this the right entrance?

What kind of work do they do?

What do their products look like?

Who might turn up at my house?

What does the finished work look like?

Does this look like a real business?

The pictures should help somebody understand the business.

A locksmith working from a hidden residential address obviously does not need photographs encouraging customers to find the front door. But photographs of the locksmith, branded vehicle, tools, locks, security equipment and completed work can help somebody understand the business they are considering calling.

A restaurant is different. The exterior, entrance, dining area, food, bar and team may all matter.

A hotel is different again. Rooms, reception, exterior, facilities, restaurant, parking and views may all help somebody decide whether it is the right place for them.

Twenty photographs might give one business excellent visual coverage and barely scratch the surface of another.

The useful test is much simpler:

If somebody looked through these pictures, would they have a good visual understanding of this business?

That is the standard I would use.

11.1 Start With What Is Missing

The first time we run Pictures through the GBP Loop, the job is to establish coverage.

Look at the existing photographs and ask what the customer can already see and what is missing.

Google gives specific recommendations for several types of business photographs. For example, it recommends at least three exterior photographs, three interior photographs and three photographs of representative products or work where those categories apply. It gives similar guidance for food and drink, guest rooms, common areas and team photographs.[2]

Those recommendations give us a useful starting point for representing the business visually.

The practical response is to build a shot list around the individual business.

A locksmith may need photographs of the vehicle, the locksmith at work, lock changes, UPVC mechanisms, security upgrades, tools and completed installations.

A cleaning company may need cleaners at work, equipment, kitchens, bathrooms, offices, vehicles and useful before-and-after examples where appropriate.

A solicitor may need the exterior, reception, meeting rooms and people.

The list follows the business.

Then fill the gaps.

The first cycle may involve quite a lot of work because we are building the visual foundation.

After that, the job changes.

We maintain it.

11.2 Real Beats Perfect

Google's photograph guidance says images should be in focus, well lit and free from significant alterations or excessive filtering or AI use. In Google's words, the image should represent reality.[2]

That last part matters.

We have reached a point where it is incredibly easy to create an image of almost anything.

I can generate a beautiful office that does not exist.

A larger team than the business employs.

A perfect restaurant dish that has never left the kitchen.

A branded fleet of vans belonging to a locksmith who owns one Ford Transit.

Technically impressive.

Completely useless for representing the real business.

Pictures on a Business Profile should help customers understand what they will actually encounter.

Take good photographs. Use decent lighting. Frame them properly. Choose the strongest ones.

Make the business look good.

But make the real business look good.

There is a difference between improving the quality of a photograph and changing what the photograph claims exists.

This becomes particularly important for agencies.

A client sends a terrible photograph.

Dark.

Blurry.

Half somebody's thumb over the lens.

Ask for another one.

The objective is accurate and useful visual information.

Not proof that the client owns a camera.

11.3 Logo and Cover Photograph

Google also allows businesses to add a logo and cover photograph.[1]

The logo helps customers recognise the business. The cover photograph lets the business indicate the image it would prefer Google to show prominently.

Google says choosing a cover photograph does not guarantee that it will always appear as the first image for the business.[1]

Choose a strong cover photograph as the business's preferred prominent image, while recognising that Google controls how the profile is ultimately displayed.

11.4 Build a Useful Picture Library

Google gives us technical requirements for photographs, tells us what kinds of photographs are useful and says the images should represent reality.[1][2]

That gives us a practical standard for Pictures: collect strong, genuine images that help customers understand the business, organise them properly and keep the library current.

Spend the time on photographs that show the business rather than on invisible metadata. The useful work is building the visual record customers can actually see.

11.5 Pictures Become an Operational Problem

Once we start collecting photographs regularly, a different problem appears.

Where are they?

The client emailed five last month. Three more arrived in WhatsApp. Somebody put ten into a shared folder. Another employee sent four to the account manager.

Nobody knows which ones have already been published.

And the photograph called IMG_8472.jpg could be absolutely anything.

This is a management problem.

For one business, keeping the picture library organised may be simple.

For an agency managing dozens of businesses, it quickly becomes important because the agency usually does not own the raw material.

The client does.

That makes Pictures dependent on somebody outside the agency.

The process for reviewing and publishing photographs depends on the client supplying the raw material.

This is where the management system has to include the client.

Asking once is easy.

Remembering to ask thirty clients every month is not.

And chasing the same people repeatedly is exactly the sort of work that consumes agency time without requiring much skill.

"Hi John, just checking whether you've got those photos."

Three days later:

"Hi John, just following up on the photos."

Next month:

"Hi John..."

Nobody started a local SEO agency because they had a lifelong ambition to chase John for photographs.

This is exactly why we created the White-Label Client Portal inside GBPly.

Instead of photographs arriving through email, WhatsApp and shared folders, the client uploads them directly through the agency's branded portal. The agency gets the material inside the same system it uses to manage the profile.[5]

GBPly can then remind the client when more images are needed and, when image automation is enabled, schedule approved client-uploaded images on the cadence and publishing time the agency chooses.[5]

The chasing, collecting and repetitive scheduling become part of the system. The agency decides which photographs are suitable to represent the business.

11.6 Keep the Visual Record Current

Because Pictures sits inside a loop, we keep coming back to it.

The objective is to keep the visual representation of the business useful and current. New photographs should show something worth adding to that record rather than repeat what customers can already see.

When a new employee joins, that may create a useful photograph.

A new vehicle may be worth showing.

A new product range may deserve coverage.

An interesting completed job may be useful evidence of the work.

A refurbishment may make older photographs obsolete.

A changed entrance may mean the customer needs a new exterior image.

A newly opened legitimate location needs its own visual record.

The business itself creates the opportunities.

The management system makes sure the useful ones are not missed.

11.7 Customers Contribute to the Picture Too

The business does not control every photograph associated with its place on Google.

Google Maps users can upload photographs and videos to businesses and other places.[3]

Sometimes that is valuable.

A restaurant may have hundreds of genuine customer photographs showing meals and experiences.

A hotel may have photographs of rooms, views and facilities taken by guests.

A shop may have customer photographs showing products and the premises.

Sometimes the contribution is less useful.

It may show the wrong place.

It may be irrelevant.

It may be inappropriate.

It may breach Google's user-content policies.

Google provides a reporting process for inappropriate or inaccurate user-contributed media and reviews reported content against its policies.[3][4]

That means picture management includes monitoring as well as publishing.

If legitimate customer photographs are appearing, they are part of the public visual record of the business.

If something genuinely breaches policy or shows the wrong place, use the proper reporting process.

Other people contribute to the Business Profile, and Google decides what appears. Picture management therefore includes publishing the business's own material and monitoring the wider visual record.

11.8 Pictures Change Because Businesses Change

Pictures belongs in the GBP Loop because the visual record changes with the business.

A picture library ages.

The team photograph from four years ago may contain three people who no longer work there.

The shopfront may have changed.

The van may have been rebranded.

The restaurant may have been refurbished.

Products change.

Equipment changes.

Services change.

The business changes.

So when Pictures comes around again, ask whether the visual profile still represents the business properly.

What is missing?

What is outdated?

What has happened since the last cycle that a customer might find useful to see?

What has the client already supplied?

What should be published next?

What have customers added?

That is picture management.

We are building a useful visual record of a real business and keeping it current.

For a business owner, the process can be simple. Take useful photographs while the business operates, keep the strongest ones, organise them and publish or schedule them appropriately.

For an agency, the same process needs more structure because the material usually comes from the client. The client needs a simple way to provide it. The agency needs to know what has arrived, what is suitable and what should be published. GBPly can handle the repetitive chasing and scheduling while the agency decides what represents the business.

Google recommends photographs.

Google gives specific guidance about the kinds of photographs that help customers understand a business.

Pictures help customers see the business before they contact it.[1][2]

Those are good reasons to manage them properly.

Pictures are the second P because a Business Profile should not merely tell customers that a business exists.

It should help them see it.

And once we have made the business accurate and visible, we can start giving customers another reason to pay attention.

That brings us to the third P.

Posts.

Notes

1. Google Business Profile Help, “Manage your Business Profile photos and videos”, https://support.google.com/business/answer/6103862?hl=en-GB. Checked 3 September 2026.
2. Google Business Profile Help, “Tips for business-specific photos on your Business Profile”, https://support.google.com/business/answer/6123536?hl=en-GB. Checked 3 September 2026.
3. Google Maps Help, “Add, remove and share photos or videos in Google Maps”, https://support.google.com/maps/answer/2622947?hl=en-GB. Checked 3 September 2026.
4. Google Business Profile Help, “Report inappropriate photos or videos on your Business Profile”, https://support.google.com/business/answer/6130451?hl=en-GB. Checked 3 September 2026.
5. GBPly User Guide, “Client Portal”, https://gbply.net/user-guide/client-portal. Checked 3 September 2026.