The Importance of Photos and Videos in Google My Business for Local Businesses

If you're a local business owner, you know how hard it is to stand out in a crowded market. With so many options available to consumers, it can be tough to get noticed. But there's a simple way to improve your visibility and attract more customers to your business: high-quality photos and videos on your Google My Business listing.

As you can see, having high-quality photos and videos on your Google My Business listing can make a huge difference in how visible your business is to potential customers. In fact, a study by BrightLocal found that:

A good phone camera is sufficient. I've seen listings outperform competitors with professional photos because the phone photos showed the actual business. Professional photos that look like a stock library can actually hurt because customers don't trust them. The exceptions: if your business is visually detail-dependent (a jewelry store, a bakery with intricate cakes, a tattoo shop), spend $200-400 on a session with someone who knows how to light product photography. But for most local businesses — coffee shops, hair salons, pet groomers — your phone is fine if you use natural light and hold the camera steady.

The minimum I recommend is 20. Listings with fewer than 10 perform measurably worse in click-through rates. The sweet spot based on what I've tracked across clients is 30-50 photos. More than 50 and you risk showing duplicates or low-quality images that dilute the set. You don't need hundreds. You need a thoughtful selection that answers every question a customer might have before they walk in the door.

You do. The exterior during a different season. A busy moment during a Saturday rush (with permission from visible customers). A new menu item. A staff member's birthday. A before photo before you open and an after photo when the space is full. A photo of a delivered product in a customer's home (with permission). If you genuinely have zero changes in a given month, rotate out older photos and re-upload them. The act of uploading signals freshness.

You can. But your competitors are updating theirs. I tracked a specific listing in Denver that stopped updating for 12 months. Their ranking for "coffee shop near me" dropped from position 2 in the local pack to position 5. A new shop that opened six months ago and uploaded photos biweekly took position 2. The listing that didn't update lost approximately 300 monthly views and an estimated 15-20 customers per month. Is leaving it alone worth that?

Delete photos that no longer represent the business. Old menus with old prices. Photos showing equipment you replaced. Photos of staff who no longer work there. Photos taken when the lighting was bad and you've since improved it. Keep photos that show historical authenticity if they're still accurate — a photo from your opening day is fine if the space still looks the same. But if the space has been renovated, remove the old photos. Customers arriving to find a space that looks nothing like the listing will leave before they order.

They matter more than most business owners realize. Less than 15 percent of local business listings have any video at all. If you have one, you're automatically more visible than 85 percent of competitors in your area. The algorithm gives video an engagement boost — listings with video get more clicks, more direction requests, and more phone calls. I've seen a single 30-second video outperform 20 photos in terms of conversion rate. Yes, they matter.

Yes, but optimize them first. Download the original file, don't use a screenshot. Make sure there's no Instagram or Facebook branding on the image — Google doesn't like watermarks. Crop to a square or 4:3 ratio. Most website photos are landscape and will get cropped awkwardly by Google's thumbnail system. If the photo worked on Instagram but looked good because of a filter, remove the filter first.

Here's what I actually want you to take away from this: In 10+ years of managing ad budgets worth millions of dollars, the single highest-ROI action for local businesses has consistently been the free one. Not the ad campaign. Not the landing page optimization. Not the email automation sequence. The listing. Specifically, the photos and videos on the listing.

I've watched a pet grooming business in Chicago spend $900 per month on ads while their listing had four blurry photos, and then outperform that entire campaign three months later just by fixing the listing. The photos didn't cost $900 per month. They cost one afternoon and the cognitive effort of admitting that "good enough" wasn't doing anything.

Most small business owners I meet already know the listing matters. They just don't believe it matters enough to actually do something about. They'll spend $2,000 on a new espresso machine and not spend 20 minutes taking photos of it for Google. They'll spend $500 on a new sign and never update the exterior photo showing the old sign.

The uncomfortable truth is: you probably have the photography equipment you need in your pocket right now. The barrier is not access. The barrier is deciding that this boring maintenance task is more important than the next shiny thing.

I ordered a second coffee I did not need while writing this. No regrets. But I also double-checked the photo on my own consulting profile to make sure it was current. Different from the one from last year. It's the small things.

If you want to know exactly which photos are holding your listing back — and which ones would move the needle in your specific market — Book a free consultation. I'll look at your listing and tell you what I actually see. No jargon. No promises I can't keep. Just the honest assessment that most agencies charge $500 for.