Photos do more selling on a trade website than any paragraph of text. A customer choosing between two plasterers will scroll the pictures before they read a word, and they are asking one question: is this person’s work as good as I need it to be? Good website photos for a tradesman answer that in a second.
You do not need a photographer or a fancy camera. The phone in your pocket is plenty, as long as you take a few extra seconds on each job. Here is how.
Why your own photos beat stock photos
Stock photos of a smiling model in a spotless hard hat are easy to spot, and customers have seen the same ones on a dozen other sites. At best they add nothing; at worst they make people wonder whether you have any real work to show. Your own photos, even imperfect ones, prove the work exists and that you did it.
There is a practical catch too. Stock images come with licence terms, and pulling a picture from a search engine or another trade’s website without permission can land you with a copyright claim. Pictures of your own work avoid the question entirely.
How to take good job photos on a phone
A few habits make most of the difference:
- Wipe the lens. Phones live in pockets full of dust and plaster, and a smeared lens makes everything look hazy.
- Tidy up first. Move the dust sheets, tools, empty tins and bin bags out of shot. Thirty seconds of clearing makes the work look finished.
- Use daylight. Open blinds, turn off mixed-colour lights where you can, and avoid shooting straight into a bright window.
- Hold the phone level and straight. Wonky verticals make neat work look crooked; most phones can show a grid to help.
- Take a wide shot and a close-up. The wide shows the whole job in context; the close-up shows the quality of the finish, the joints, the lines.
- Take several of each. Picking the best of five takes seconds; going back to the job is not an option.
- Shoot some in landscape for website banners and some in portrait for social media and your Google Business Profile.
Before and after photos that actually work
Before and after pairs are the most persuasive photos a trade can have, because they show the problem and the solution side by side. The trick is to make them comparable: stand in the same spot, at the same height, with the phone pointing the same way. If the angles are different, the comparison falls apart.
Get into the habit of taking the before shot the moment you arrive, before you touch anything. It is the photo people most often forget. A quick sentence alongside each pair on your website, saying what the job was and what the problem had been, helps turn a nice picture into a reason to call you.
What to keep out of the frame
The photos on your website are public, and they can stay online for years. Check each one for anything that could identify a customer or their home before you publish it.
| What to avoid | Why | Simple fix |
|---|---|---|
| House numbers, door numbers and street signs | Tells anyone exactly which house had work done | Reframe the shot or crop them out |
| Car number plates | Can link a vehicle, and so a person, to an address | Crop or blur them, or shoot from another angle |
| Faces, family photos, children’s names | Customers did not agree to be on your website | Leave them out unless you have clear permission |
| Post, paperwork, calendars, screens | Names, addresses and personal details in plain sight | Move them before you take the photo |
| Valuables and alarm panels, keys, safes | Shows what is in the house and how it is protected | Keep them out of shot |
| Anyone else’s photos or logos | You may not have the right to use them | Use only photos you or your team took |
Privacy and permission, in plain terms
The ICO defines personal data as information relating to a person who can be identified, directly or indirectly. A photo on its own may not identify anyone, but combined with a house number, a street sign or a caption naming the road, it can point straight to a customer’s home. Keeping those details out of your photos and captions is the simplest way to stay on the right side of that.
It is also simply good manners. Ask customers whether they mind you photographing the finished job for your website; most are happy to be asked and many are pleased their job was good enough to feature. Where a job is somewhere sensitive, or the customer says no, respect it. Use a general area such as the town in your captions rather than the street, and never publish anything a customer has asked you to take down.
This is general guidance rather than legal advice. If you handle personal data more widely in the business, GOV.UK’s page on data protection for businesses is a good starting point.
What to photograph if your work is hard to show
Some trades produce work that is easy to photograph: a new kitchen, a landscaped garden, a freshly rendered wall. Others do not. A boiler service, a rewire hidden behind plaster or a drain unblocked underground rarely makes a stunning picture. That does not mean you have nothing to show.
- Show the neatness customers never normally see: a tidy consumer unit, clean pipework, labelled cables.
- Show the problem you solved: the corroded part, the root in the pipe, the damp patch before treatment.
- Show yourself at work: a clean van, your tools laid out, you in your work gear on site. People want to see who is coming to their house.
- Show the finish that matters to the customer: the working shower, the warm radiator, the clear drain cover.
- Show your paperwork habits without personal details: a blank certificate template or a sample quote, if they make you look organised.
Keeping your photos organised
The best job photos in the world are no use if they are buried among thousands of pictures of receipts and the kids. Make an album on your phone called something like “Website” and add your best shots to it at the end of each week, while you still remember which job was which. Deleting the blurry duplicates as you go saves a painful afternoon later.
Most phones back photos up to the cloud automatically, which is worth checking is switched on. Losing a phone should not mean losing years of proof of your work.
Getting the photos onto your website
Phones take very large image files, which can make a website slow. Whoever builds your site should resize and compress them so they load quickly on mobile data without looking worse. Give each photo a short, honest description (for example “Replacement slate roof on a terraced house in Exeter”) so it makes sense to screen readers and to search engines.
Keep the gallery fresh: add your best new job every month or so, and use the same photos on your Google Business Profile. If you send photos through to your web designer, the originals straight from your phone are better than versions forwarded through WhatsApp, which usually compresses them.